Sweet and fortified wines step into the limelight

Press release

Thursday 14 September

The prestigious Concours Mondial de Bruxelles today revealed the results of its fourth and final judging session of the year, focusing entirely on sweet and fortified wines. 28 seasoned judges representing 10 different nationalities had the honour of awarding silver, gold and grand gold medals to an outstanding selection of wines from 20 different countries.

View the revelation trophies and full results here: resultats.concoursmondial.com/en/results

Last week, our international judges met in a hotel in the European capital to assess entries in the Sweet and Fortified Wine session of the Concours Mondial de Bruxelles. Despite the tense geopolitical situation currently, the outstanding performance of Ukraine was extremely noteworthy. The country was awarded a Gold medal for its Troyanda Carpat label produced by Chateau Chizay.

Here are some of the other major trends that emerged from the results:

1/ Portugal proved to be extremely popular for its sweet and fortified wines. Unsurprisingly, Madeira and Port led the way, however lesser-known appellations such as Moscatel de Setúbal and Carcavelos also achieved remarkable performances.

2/ The award-winning sweet wines display variety and very variable sweetness (between 15 and 400 g/l of residual sugar). “Whatever the sugar content, balance is the most important aspect”, pointed out one of the judges. In fact, the panel agreed that the category deserves to be paid particular attention so that it can once again appeal to consumers.

3/ This year, the Piedmont region was awarded the international revelation trophy for a Vino Passito. This style of Italian wine is produced from dried grapes. The process concentrates the natural sugars in the grapes, lending the wine sweet, intense flavours. The Tramp Passione Volontà label by Domaine Bragagnolo won the votes of the Concours Mondial panel for its balance and finesse. This is not the first time the winery has won a medal at Concours Mondial de Bruxelles, proving that it has long been producing top quality wines

View the award-winning wines and revelation trophies here: resultats.concoursmondial.com/en/results/2023

About the competition
The Concours Mondial de Bruxelles is an international competition where over 10,000 wines are entered by producers to be judged by a panel of experts. Our experienced judges taste the wines in the competition with one guiding principle, and that is to single out wines of irreproachable quality, with no bias stemming from the label or an appellation’s prestige. The Concours is one of the most significant international events of its kind.

Pictures of the 2023 competition here

Press contact:

• Charles Piron
• charles.piron@vinopres.com
• Tel : +32 (0) 2 533 27 65