With judging to commence next week, the NSW Small Winemakers Wine Show committee have been inundated by bottles of wine, with most of the 614 entries already arrived.

That adds up to over 2,400 bottles of wine with four bottles per entry.

“It’ll keep the judges well and truly on their toes,” committee member Ian Bartholomaeus said.

Four days of judging will begin on Monday, August 25, with the judges tasting about 120 wines each day.

“Industry policy says they can taste no more than 150 wines a day,” panel steward Mark Watts said.

There will be 11 judges in total coming from the Hunter Valley, Southern Highlands, Canberra, Riverina and Rutherglen.

They will be split into two judging panels, who will judge half the wines each before coming together on Wednesday to decide the best red and best white in the show out of the gold medal wines.

On Friday, August 29 there will be a public tasting night at the Forbes Youth and Community Centre starting at 6.30pm.

Cost is $25 a head which includes nibbles and all the wines you can taste.

This will be followed by the presentation dinner on Saturday, September 20, which features a five course meal with all the trophy-winning wines.

The presentation dinner will be at Forbes Services Memorial Club and costs $80 to attend.

Entries are up by 20 per cent from last year, with wines coming from all around NSW including the Hunter Valley, Southern Highlands, Canberra, Mudgee and Orange.

This compares to Cowra’s wine show which was down on entries by 20 per cent this year.