Good Luck to you, and the wines!I have 4 of my wines entered this year.
I think I'll hold a competition. Everyone send me a few bottle of your best wines and a dollar for my trouble. I'll drink them and let you know how much I enjoyed them.Dont be afraid to throw our forum name out there! I wish we had some local competions with a $1 entry fee, any medals or anything like that?
Lon you're right. Two of the competitions I was in, as soon as the judges finished with one class the wines were brought out to a common area for everyone to help themselves to . Plus some of the contestants brought food to share. Like you said its an opportunity to sample other recipes and varieties of fruits. Another competition you have to the wines entered a few weeks a head of time and one judge takes them all home to judge over a couple of weeks himself. Sounds pretty bad ,huh! Fact is this judge is a past commercial wine maker, a college professor and is paid big bucks from the local wineries to trouble shoot for them. Unlike the other competitions he also writes a lot of notes for you about each wine entered. I did not enter this competion this year but I will next year for sure.Actually, competitions can be fun and you can learn a lot. It's extra nice if the judges allow entrants to sample the entries after they're done judging. This way you can compare your wines to a wide variety of types and styles.
Too True!! I find that in any one given competition, the judges prefer the big reds, while in other years (of the same competition), they are more into fruit wines or the more unique. I was in a competition where skeeter pee won best of show.My wines scored fairly well. I find out how I stacked up to the other contestants in a few days.
The Malbec scored the highest out of all of my wines. It was also the most full bodied and higher end of the kits I entered.
Discovered the judges are fans of big reds. I'll be entering my Cabernet Sauvignon from frozen 2007 vintage grapes. Also my Winery Series Meritage and Red Zinfandel. I'm working on a Concord from FRESH grapes that will hopefully be ready by next year's festival.