Fancy yourself a wine snob? Then don't miss the National Wine Show VIP tasting

And with entrants required to submit more than one bottle of each, there are actually a total of 5000 bottles waiting to be opened.

While judging kicked off on May 20, you'll have to wait until June 1 for the National Wine Experience.

As well as sampling gold and silver medal winners across red, white, sparkling and fortified wine categories, you'll have the first opportunity to try the show winners which are announced the night before.

New chairman of judges, Matt Harrop, has one piece of advice.

"Use the spittoon," he says.

"It's not a sprint. There'll be plenty of time in the three-hour tasting to taste a lot of wines.

"Maybe start with the sparklings - we did that class yesterday and there were some amazing wines there - try some whites, the roses and move on to the reds.

"What we've tried already has surprised us so we can't wait to see how the judging week unfolds."

Harrop is particularly excited by the chardonnay class this year. There are 104 entrants, the largest ever.

"Australian chardonnay has really been at the top of its game for about a generation now, every year there are incremental improvements, they've gone away from that heavy okay caricature of itself, I suppose, now they are really quite refined."

On the reds side, there are 188 shirazes, across three vintages, being judged, but Harrop says to keep an eye on the pinots.

"And grenache too, 20 years ago grenache was being turned into tawny port and rose.

"Now these 100, 120-year-old vines in places like McLaren Vale and the Barossa are being given the respect they deserve both in the vineyard and the winery."

Just 250 tickets to the three-hour tasting, run by the Royal National Capital Agricultural Society, are available. There will be wine tastings, food, demonstrations, workshops and presentations, gourmet markets, culinary tours and behind-the-scenes experiences.