It's fair to say that the annual Oxford versus Cambridge varsity wine tasting competition isn't even remotely as well known as the forthcoming varsity boat race between the light and dark blues. But if you ask any of the wine-tasting participants of the last 50 years, they will tell you that it is just as keenly contested.

Like the boat race, the wine-tasting competition is held in London at (where else?) the Oxford & Cambridge Club in Pall Mall. Two teams of six have one flight of six white wines to taste completely blind and then write comprehensive tasting notes on each - also identifying the grape varieties, vintage and region as closely as possible. Then they do exactly the same with six reds, after which the marks are totted up and the winning team is declared.

Having once tasted with the two teams (under the exact same conditions), I can assure you that this is fiendishly difficult to do well, particularly when you are under such pressure. No wonder both Oxford and Cambridge put in as much pre-match practice and training as possible.

As a result, the standard of tasting is astonishingly high. According to James Simpson, MW of Champagne Pol Roger, which has sponsored the event since 1992, some of the competitors are as good as First Year Master of Wine Students. Most are professionally engaged in the wine trade.

The competition began back in 1953 and since then, Oxford have taken a commanding lead over the light blues by winning 34 contests to 20. The winning team receives a trophy, while the leading individual scorers from each team also receive magnums of Sir Winston Churchill Champagne, Pol Roger's Prestige Cuvee.

What is also interesting about this little-known event is that it has launched the career of many a wine trade luminary, like journalists Oz Clarke, Charles Metcalfe, Harry Eyres and Julian Jeffs.

In addition, it has also produced some vintage wine merchants, such as Jasper Morris MW, David Peppercorn MW and Charles Taylor MW. However, not everyone followed the well-trodden route to the wine trade.

Some carved out some fairly illustrious careers in other walks of life, including the late Professor J. H. Plumb and former Tory Cabinet Minister Tom King - now Lord King of Bridgwater.

Most recently, Decanter magazine has revealed that the wine societies of Oxford and Cambridge are lobbying to have wine tasting ratified as an official sport. Decanter reported that "if the bid is successful, team members representing their university will become "Blues", or in this case, "Half-Blues" or "Colours".

Apparently, both teams are keen to have this status bestowed upon them.

"There is a lot of prestige," Oxford spokesman Carl Pistorius told Decanter. "You feel your sport has been recognised officially." So far though, both Blues Committees have rejected the idea.

Jasper Morris, who competed for Oxford, has mixed views on the subject. He acknowledges that it certainly isn't an athletic sport. And yet it would be nice to have some form of recognition because it is a challenging art, requiring a lot of training and talent.

Meanwhile, the editor of Decanter, Amy Wislocki, herself a Half-Blue at Cambridge for Pool, has waded into the debate and declared herself firmly against.

"A Blue is for a sporting achievement. However talented you are, I don't see wine tasting as a sport."

I have to say that, I rather tend to agree with her. Somehow, I can't quite equate wine tasting with rowing or rugby, however demanding and difficult it is.

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