Wine judges from near and far were at the Penticton Trade and Convention Centre on Thursday, plying their craft on hundreds of B.C. wines.

The full day of judging is part of an annual spring competition called ‘Best of Varietal,’ hosted by the Okanagan Wine Festivals Society.

"What the judges do is they taste all the wines inside a designated category, and they pick the very best wine and they pick gold or silver," judging manager Marjorie King said. 

Eighteen judges took part, split up into six different panels. Each judge tested every wine, more than 550, in the course of seven hours. Understandably, the job is harder than it looks. 

"You kind of go through the five (senses) of tasting wine, you're looking at colour, you're judging the nose," Kayla Sahara said, a wine judge from the Wine Info Centre in Penticton. 

"And then you take a sip and spit that out. You probably wouldn't be able to do 500 different wines without spitting out the wines."

Sahara said the panels of wine judges also have to overlook their own personal opinions.

"Wine is subjective, just like anything else. So we all have different palates. We do have trained palates... but you kind of have to work together in finding what we all generally think is the best of that varietal."

The eighteen judges are from Penticton (four), Kelowna (six), Lake Country, Nelson, Kamloops, Vancouver (three), Victoria and Calgary.

King said the judges include wine writers and people involved in the industry on several different levels.

"They're really in touch with consumer taste, they know what the public likes. This is intended as a guide to the consumer of if you like a certain varietal, these wines inside that varietal are great."

King also thanked a handful of volunteers who worked all week to set up the wine judging event. 

"(This) wouldn't happen without the people here in the backroom," she said. 

The top wines picked on Thursday will be presented awards on May 2 at the PTCC.