Santa Cruz county fair competition entry

[Snafflebit]

I entered two of my wines in the Santa Cruz county fair wine judging competition, the Cabernet Sauvigon class and the Bordeaux Blend class. 2021 vintage, and I hope that the bottle shock has subsided.

Fingers crossed, hopeful, but really I just want feedback, good or bad. I entered a Chardonnay in 2015 in the Bottle Shock Open (no longer in operation) and got some feedback (BAD!, LOLOL)
But that Chard has aged beautifully and now it has wine diamonds in the bottle the size of the Hope Diamond

Judging takes place September 9, 2023. Two bottles per entry, I was told that one bottle is reserved for the catered banquet held for judges afterward. Sounds like my kind of party.

 

[Snafflebit]

As it turns out, the judging was performed this weekend and I received a phone call telling me I won a Gold medal in the Bordeaux Blend category!
The judging notes are not ready for publication yet. Next week I am invited to the celebration dinner and I have a time slot to pour my wine for the other winemakers, they want me to bring an extra bottle to pour. I am kinda excited!

 

[sour_grapes]

Congrats!

 

[ChuckD]

Wow. Congratulations

 

[ratflinger]

Frickin excellent! Hurrah for you!

 

[Jovimaple]

Congratulations!

 

[Mcjeff]

Congratulations!

 

[ibglowin]

Excellent news!

 

[GSMChris]

Congratulations!!!!

 

[Snafflebit]

Thank you, everyone, for your encouragement! I want to take winemaking skills up a notch, and this gives me an opportunity to meet some like-minded people. I will keep you updated on what happens. I have been watching my grapes and I told the coordinator that the grape harvest might interfere with my being able to go to the fair. She was like, "Yep, I told those guys we are all busy around this time of year and we need to move the judging a month earlier." But, I do not see that happening--this is harvest time which is the time for fairs. So far, the grape crop is still in the 20º Brix range, and I hope there is not a heat wave coming.

 

[Snafflebit]

I went to the award ceremony at the fair hall this Saturday. It was a very enjoyable potluck with a $15 fee for a glass and unlimited sampling of all the wines entered into the competition, which was why the event requested the second bottle. There were over 200 bottles I estimate. That alone was worth entering because I got to sample so many different types of wine and discuss style and technique with the other amateur winemakers. There are some serious operators I discovered. Also, almost everyone buys their fruit and growing my own fruit got attention.
At the registration I was told there was a scoring mistake, my Bordeaux blend won Double Gold and the Cab Sauv won Silver! The double gold award gave me a timeslot to pour my wine and polish up my behind-the-bar tasting room sales pitch.

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But I was really interested in the tasting notes. I have to agree with the judges about acid level in the Cab. They found it tart. I am going to be conservative about adding tartaric acid in the future. I thought targeting 4.8 g/L was conservative and now I want to test a bottle to see if something is off in my measurements. And, maybe the wine is simply too young at this point, but I don't think that will change the acid flavor.



We cracked open a bottle of the blend after the show and we agree the nose is very nice. I think the acid is still a little too high in this wine but the judges did not note it.
I think my wines lack finish and I want to figure out how to improve that. It may be that I need to start barrel aging to get more concentration. One person noted the Petit Verdot in the aroma, so 2% is in fact not lost in the mix.



My takeaway is that getting maximum ripeness on the fruit helps a lot with the aroma and that gets noticed. I found that all of the double gold wines had excellent nose. And, I will probably leave out the tartaric acid unless there are serious problems with the fruit, like if I need to excessively backwater.

 

[winemaker81]

At the registration I was told there was a scoring mistake, my Bordeaux blend won Double Gold and the Cab Sauv won Silver! The double gold award gave me a timeslot to pour my wine and polish up my behind-the-bar tasting room sales pitch.

Congrats!!

 

[sour_grapes]

Well done!