Meet Carole Hazlehurst - Events Assistant at the world's most influential blind tasting and wine competition.
During my study for WSET Diploma I had a chance to participate as an Associate Judge for the first time and after joined the crew of IWC 2023 for few weeks. That’s how I met amazing people, and Carole is the one who impressed me a lot, gave me incredible motivation and inspiration to move on with my studying. I hope this article containing an interview with Carole and my comments and impressions will inspire and support other wine students. You are not alone! Just keep learning!
“Watch me, I’ll do Carole’s walk!” - one of the judges makes his show in the hall where hundreds of experts gathered today - to blind taste and judge wines. Both - wines and judges arrived here from all over the world. The funny judge pretends to use a walkie-talkie “Warehouse, I need a good flight here, urgently. Copy.” — and he slips a wink and walks away.
All eyewitnesses smile and shake their heads, as everybody knows: it's random. It’s rather your karma that sends you a good flight, not the warehouse. And they all know who Carole is.
Despite being a newcomer at IWC, I also already know Carole.
No judgment possible without clean glasses, empty spittoons and wines served at proper temperature. Tim Atkin’s playlist should be on-air, crew should beam with positive vibes, a comfortable and inspiring atmosphere for decision-makers should be created. So that new wine trends could be born here.
She never stops, and she walks faster than the funny judge. And always with her walkie-talkie. That’s Carole!
Your IWC role is described on your LinkedIn as “Events Assistant: Setting up competition, checking wines, coordinating judges, plate spinning”. What is the most challenging?
CH: The idea is to keep all the plates spinning to keep them going. There are lots of things that have to run smoothly at the same time for the IWC to work. Most people are doing just one job, for example, glass washing.
Part of my role is to make sure that all the jobs are happening. This is usually fine, but if one part starts to fail, like the radios not working this year, I (as well as lots of other people) have to work a bit harder to get it going again.
The hardest part of my job, during the actual competition, is probably staying calm and remembering that many people around me haven’t done the job before. I must make sure that I explain clearly what I want and make sure that they’ve understood.
This relates not just to the crew, but sometimes to the judges as well.
So you are basically responsible for everything to be ready for wine trends to be born. Are you aware of this responsibility? :)
CH: It is very flattering of you to think I have this much influence! There are others far more involved than me for that – Alex Redfern does all the flighting and makes sure that all the wines are seen with similar wines. More flights of the same type show trends, for example, there may be more Georgian wines entered, so ensuring that those wines are seen together is important.
The judges – they taste the wines, many of them are tasting 2-3-4 times a week in their normal roles, so they will see trends long before me.
As for responsibility in general, I’m aware that we all need to do the best job we can, and I feel very responsible for my crew on the floor, both from the point of view as their ‘leader’ but also making sure they aren’t overwhelmed or worried about what they are doing.
Every morning before doors are open, we have a crew briefing by Carole and get different tasks: today you wash the glasses, the next day you hug Oz Clarke and listen to his hypnotizing stories while serving in the co-chairs zone, the day after you smash empty bottles in the name of recycling somewhere deep at the warehouse and finally you're back to the floor with heavy boxes full of wine running between the tables and occasionally chatting about karma with the funny judge.
This is also a smart way to keep it confidential: there is no way that the same person can pack the wine, put it into a particular flight, pick that exact box and serve it to a selected panel with particular judges - all those probabilities are cut.
So, yes, all the flights are random. But this process is impressively streamlined: thousands of bottles, all blindfolded, are checked before, during and after the competition a million times. Also millions - it’s a number of questions Carole is asked (and answers!) during IWC:
“We urgently need more olives!”, “Could I have a word with xyz?”, “Should this wine be decanted?”, ”Can I go to the toilet?”, “Is this really an oaked/unoaked wine?”, “It is too cold/hot here…”, “I think they must be drunk…”, “How much more of those fortified wines are left for God’s sake?”
You give people - to crew, judges and co-chairs not just answers, but the confidence that you will find the solution. What is your secret?
CH: I think I am asked these sorts of questions as I seem to be everyone’s mother, both crew and judges. And I always say - “Just ask!”… There is no such thing as a silly question.
Chances are if you don’t know something, particularly about the way we do things (and why we do it like that), someone else won’t know either.
This is your 19th IWC. Do you remember your first time here?
CH: Yes, I remember it very well. There were very few people that year who had done it before, so there was not too much advice given to me. The thing I say to people now is Pace yourself.
At the end of my very first week, I got home and every part of me hurt. I couldn’t sit, stand, lie down, without part of me aching! After that, I was more careful.
Also once the competition starts, it's very easy to stay late, trying lots of wine. And drinking too much wine. You’ll not survive the two weeks if you do that too often.
Agree! For me it was a real challenge: to taste wines (and spit them all!) and actually take notes after a hard day. You’re exhausted physically, but you are incredibly inspired.
After the crew found out that I’m preparing for a blind-tasting exam, everybody started to share their discoveries with me: “Check this Aussie Chardonnay, can you feel that matchstick?”, “Try those Rieslings, Canadian and German in a row, see the difference?”, “This one is a classical Malbec, you have to try it”. And like an echo, everybody was saying: “Keep learning”.
What drew you into wines? Were you already into wines when you started doing IWC?
I’ve always enjoyed drinking wines, my father made his own, not from grapes, but elderberries and bitter orange juice. I started early! I was given Jancis Robinson’s Wine Atlas one year for a birthday and really enjoyed reading that and looking at all the maps.
I did a brief course in my mid twenties, but it was later, just after my boys were born, that I decided to do a bit more.
I did a short evening course and in about 1999 started to visit a wine club monthly, where I learnt more. In 2007 I took on Level 3. It was tough going back to studying after a very long gap since college.
Then a couple of years later, my husband bought a chain of Italian restaurants and I became the wine buyer. I also started getting Harpers magazine, which is where I eventually saw the advert for the IWC. The rest as they say, is history!
I will say though that after my first one, in April 2012, having spoken to lots of different people, I decided to do my Diploma. I took 3 years to do it, because I realized I hadn’t done nearly enough work for the final D3 exam.
What was your motivation to study for a Diploma?
My motivation was to see if I still had a brain that could work!
By this time I was 48, I hadn’t really studied for anything since I left college, 25 years earlier. I also did engineering there, meaning I didn’t have to write essays, in fact the last time I did was probably 1980!
I don’t know that I really thought it would be worth doing, other than learning so much more about a subject I love, but it has given me far more credibility than I ever thought and I would encourage anyone to do it.
I proved that you do not have to work full time in the industry to be able to do it.
How did you approach your Diploma studying?
Everyone is different. I cannot just read a page and remember, I have to make a lot of notes! I had to break things down into chunks and set myself times – work for an hour, then have a cup of coffee, that sort of thing.
My biggest mistake was to concentrate on the next exam and I became too focused on that one thing. I didn’t do enough on each country as we went along, I left far too much of that to just before D3, hence why I had to defer it for a year. Big mistake as I had to pay quite a bit more!
Your crew is like a wine flight - great wines, but all are representing very different styles: from Prosecco to Port! What style of wine would you be?
I asked my husband this and he said an acidic one – very rude!))
Obviously I would be an old wine! I like to think that I can get on with most people, so lets say fairly easy to drink, I have a pretty good understanding of both the IWC and wine in general, so let's say there is still something going on, not one dimensional, but treat me badly, and you are in trouble!
I’m going to go for an old Rioja. Soft on the outside but still some body and fight!
I could quite easily pick any big red wine, my favorites tend to be Aussie Shiraz and Cabernets.
From a crew point of view, as you said Prosecco to 50 y.o. Tawny, from steely Chablis, to big oaky Cabernets. Variety is the spice of life, and it is amazing how well the most surprising of pairings can work.
What do you do between the events? Any plans for this year?
I’ve started my own wine club where I live, so that takes up a bit of my time. The next few months I need to advertise it more and work on a timetable of events.
I work for Wine Logistics, they have a number of different clients with different needs, from online-tastings needing small bottles of wine to be sent out, to tasting events, order fulfillment, and so on. I work when I’m needed there.
I also like to be behind the table at events, trade or consumer, showing wines. I’ve just done this for a Portuguese producer at the London Wine Fair and I think I will be doing something similar at the Wines of South Africa tasting.
I’m also on the Council of the Association of Wine Educators, which takes up some time and I’m happy to help out anyone who asks.
What about next year and IWC 2024? Have you ever thought about switching sides and doing judging? I am asking, because a few judges told me they were also in a crew many years ago.
Yes, I’ll be back next year. And I would very much like to be a judge – but probably not at the IWC. I would get 2 days tasting, yes it would be fun, but not nearly as much as working for 7 weeks, at a great competition, with great wines and such fantastic people.
True! Both being an associate judge and crew intern are incredible experiences and it’s hard to choose one - they both rock! You witness the new wine trends to be born in a supportive environment, meet great people. Like Carole. My wine person of the year, the plate (or rather bottle?) spinning lady and the real midwife of wine trends, I believe.
Don’t be afraid to ask, continue supporting people around you and your karma may send you a really good flight next year :) And keep learning.
P.S. This year, actually - the next week, starting on April 15th I will be back to IWC 2024. You are welcome to follow my instagram for more stories from IWC
Even without photo, it is impossible to forget this great event, all people I met there and all the great wines I had a chance to taste. April 2023, The Oval, London, UK