scores 2008 wine competition

[jjk1991]

I thought I would post what was scored on my wines. I placed 3 reds and 3 whites into the competition which were either WE or MM. For those want the specs they were as follows: WE kits were the Argentine Malbec, Washington Valley Reisling and Yamhill Pinot Gris. For MM they were the Amarone', Petite Syrah and Chardonnay. Here's how they scored based on the judges (3) averages in Appearence (3 pts), Aroma/Bouquet 6 pts), Taste (6 pts), Aftertaste (3 pts) and overall Impression (2 pts):


Winexpert Argentine Malbec (Gold medal)


Appearence 2.75 points
Aroma/Bouquet4.17 points
Taste 4.17 points
Aftertaste 2.33 points
Overall Impression 1.00 points


Remarks: Well made wine! Congrats!, Brilliant garnet, Aromas okay, easy on the palate, nice finish.


Winexpert Yamhill County Pinot Gris (no medal)


Appearence 2.83 points
Aroma/Bouquet 3.00 points
Taste 3.33 points
Aftertaste 2.00 points
Overall Impression 1.00 points


Remarks: None


Winexpert Washington Valley Reisling (Bronze medal)


Appearance 3.00 points
Aroma/Bouquet3.17 points
Taste 3.67 points
Aftertaste 1.83 points
Overall Impression 1.17 points


Remarks: None


Here are the MM kits and how they performed:


Amarone' All-Juice (Bronze medal)


Appearence 3.00 points
Aroma/Bouquet 3.33 points
Taste 3.83 points
Aftertaste 2.50 points
Overall Impression 1.17 points


Remarks: None


Petite Syrah All-Juice (Bronze medal)


Appearence 3.00 points
Aroma/Bouquet 3.33 points
Taste 4.33 points
Aftertaste 1.83 points
Overall Impression 1.00 points


Remarks: Fruity, Too sweet, Light but pleasant delivery.


Chardonnay All-Juice (no medal)


Appearence 2.50 points
Aroma/Bouquet 3.33 points
Taste 4.33 points
Aftertaste 1.83 points
Overall Impression 1.00 points


Remarks: Very light, Very pleasant, Good integration of oak, nice wine


My intent of revealing these scores are to help those comparing kits as to the scores of WE versus MM or if you are thinking about next years' wine competition. MM kits are truely vineyard type kits and they do take a year (minimum)or 2 to be ready. My reds from MM were put in too early especially the Amarone (1 1/2 year old).Amarone's require3-5 year to really extract thesmooth robustflavor. The petite was almost ready at 1 3/4 years. I can tell you WE kits do mature faster with a good palatable aftertaste, but I personally feel they don't quite match up to the MM. WE are concentrate kits and MM is straight juice. A good analogy is your OJ in the morning: if your saving money to just have OJ, then you'll buy the concentrate. If you want a "really good" OJ, then you'll pay extra and buy the fresh squeezed OJFlorida Homestyle ("with pulp"). Hope this helps!!

 

[Mike1973]

Very cool and good comparison, thanks and congrats!

Edited by: Mike1973

 

[smurfe]

Congrats on your medals and great jobbut I have to say that your score sheets represent exactly why I never enter competitions. I see you have many that under "Remarks:" there are none. You didn't get a perfect score in each category so why were you deducted points? Competitions are there to obtain feedback on your winemaking skills. How are you to know what to look at to improve? The judge that gigged you points but left no feedback isn't a very good judge.

 

[JimCook]

So here's the interesting thing based on those numbers...


WE Malbec - Gold - Avg: 14.42 Total: 43.25
WE Yamhill - n/a - Avg: 12.16 Total: 36.50
WE Wash - Bronze - Avg: 12.84 Total: 38.50
MM Amarone - Bronze - Avg: 13.83 Total: 41.50
MM Petite Syrah - Bronze - Avg: 13.49 Total: 40.50
MM Chardonnay - n/a - Avg: 12.99 Total: 39.00


So - we can only guess by the numbers above that the 'grading scale' changes per varietal, otherise the chardonnay that scored higher than the bronze-medal winning WE Washington Reisling should have medalled as well. I was talking with George about this today and it doesn't seem to make a lot of sense.


Smurfe - it sure shows the subjective nature of the competition. But outside of chemical analysis, I don't see how we can really avoid the fact that of three people, one may just not like the wine, especially if they just had tasted a gold-medal right before a non-gold medal entry.


- Jim

 

[geocorn]

Thanks for the info. I am a little confused, as well. I had 2 wines with higher scores than medal winners, but they did not medal.


As to MM versus WE, I agree completely. MM wines take longer, but produce a better wine. The WE kits don't need as long to age, therefore, they drink much faster. I tell customers to not buy the All Juice kits unless they are going to wait at least one year to drink.


As an aside, my Meglioli Rojo Grande that won a silver medeal was only 9 months old!

 

[Waldo]

Perhaps more subjective judging could be accomplished if the Judges were tasting only those wines they personally prefer. RE: A judge that does care for white wines should not be judging them and vice versa.

 

[joeswine]

good morninggood morning people of the forum,i think it was like i stated a little ways back,when i won the professional choices were by the judges and people choices ,well voted on by the people at the event,doesn,t have to make sense all depends on the taste buds at the time,i also stated an average of 13/score was an indications on a good wine by wine standards (u cal davis)so be happy and enjoy the moment thats how contests are,you should know or have the basic wine making skills to be able to make a decent finish product as long as you have an understanding of what characteristics that product should have in the beginning ,don't get me wrong theres nothing prouder for a true armature wine maker than to have his or hers wine celebrated as awinner ,so in my op pion as long as you win ,you win and if you do not win in that competition you try again and see if the results change I've seen some poor win makers get metals or finish 1st and just scratched my head and wondered what were they think!!!!!!!!!!!!!!the best wine is the wine your making at the time,so keep on trying,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,





http://www.sweetim.com/s.asp?im=gen&ref=12Edited by: joeswine

 

[jjk1991]

I thought the scores were interesting myself, but hey, its all for fun. Statistically, if one judge doesn't like it as much as the other two...your screwed out of a medal. You are correct about the scores and their objectiveness. In fact, my score sheets on theChardonnay were favorable by 2 judges. In fact, the one sheet I scored 16 points, but the one judge gave me 12. To me, that's a lot of discrepency which skews the score. The other judge gave me 14, which if the other judge would have originally scored a 14, then yes, I would likely have scored a medal. It really comes down to personal taste and this particular judge could have tried a better wine before mine impacting his taste buds, end of the day and had his share of tastings, or wasn't really fond of mine. Too many variables with4,321 wines entered. I know its good, so I don't mind really. I would however, would like more remarks for that "personal" feeling to judge my wine than the scores so much themselves.

 

[jjk1991]

Oh yes, the Reisling category was obviously more critical than last year. Last year I believe there were 83 entries and this year was 106. Far more gold medals were handed out last year than only 4 this year. So goes for the bronze medal which were way more this year, which tells me the judges were very critical in this category. Maybe a bad grape day for them.

 

[PeterZ]

I wonder if the judges are like AKC judges. To be an AKC judge you have to be trained in the breed of dog you are judging. Just because you are qualified to judge Yorkies does not let you judge Great Danes.


Are the wine judges highly knowledgeable in the varietals and styles they are judging?

 

[jjk1991]

I would assume there is some form ofconformity or regulationwhen it comes to the judges style. Edited by: jjk1991

 

[geocorn]

Joseph brought me this article to read:


http://blog.winemag.com/index.php/2007/07/10/blind-tasting-two-buck-chuck/


When you get this figured out, please let me know.

 

[JimCook]

So I pulled up the results from the 2007 California State Fair competition to look at what else was on the list, especially in the gold and double gold (which appear to be point level differentiations). The results can be found at http://www.thebestcaliforniawine.com/page_awardwinners.html.


I feel this supports the overall subjectivity of the tests involved, which is influenced by the wines tasted before and sometimes after the glass at hand. I notice several wineries that have won gold or double-gold medals that have produced wines that I have tasted. Here are some of my notes on this...


Pinot Noir: Hahn Estates makes a pinot noir that sits around $18-20 and it is just wonderful for the price. This Monterey winery really knows how to make a beautiful pinot with great balance between fruit and oak. David Bruce Winery also makes great pinot, and won a double-gold for their offering in this competition last year. Many of the other medal winners I've not heard of through my own tasting experience or wine rating sites.


Syrah: I've tasted the Buena Vista double-gold syrah and it's really a fantastic wine and a good price. There are few of their other wines that float my boat, but I give tribute the winery that opened my eyes to wine in the first place. The Smoking Loon gold is something that I didn't care for at all, yet it tied for best of class here. I found most of the wines from Smoking Loon too thin and lacking complexity. They are also primarily found in grocery stores.


Jeff Runquist makes great wines at an affordable price, many of which medalled.


Guenoc's petite syrah does not taste like a stereotypical petite syrah, but it's a wonderful wine and it normally costs less than $15. They also won a medal for their sauvignon blanc.


Wente makes some nice cabs, but their chardonnays didn't knock my socks off, yet one of them won a double-gold here.


Sutter Home makes grocery store and 'jug' wine, yet they had an award winning gewurtztraminer (which I haven't tasted).


Barefoot Cellars is another lower-end wine that I have not enjoyed on the multiple times I've tasted it, yet their merlot scored a double-gold.


Korbel, which makes generally lower-end sparkling (the only moscato that I couldn't drink was from Korbel) scored several medals.


So I rub my chin and cogitate upon this information and then I think of this: Let's say someone asked you to describe the color yellow to them. How would we do it? Thanks to the various shades of yellow and our own different eyeballs and visual perceptions, I'm guessing that we'd come up with a variety of explanations.


Now take that same information and apply it to tastes, something even more subjective. Have a wine tasting and ask people to write down what the primary flavor they taste in a wine and you'll have a mix of answers for the same wine. Perhaps this same subjective variance is the basis in these wine tasting competitions. Each of the members of this forum would have a varying (some more than others) mental 'checklist' for what makes a good chardonnay, or merlot, or cabernet, etc.


This was further evidenced from my score sheets from the WineMaker magazine competition - I had 5 point variances between judges on the same wine. To that end, I can tell you that in my own blind home wine tasting events that I've hosted, there are some wines that score generally lower, some wines that score a split between people, and some wines that just score higher.


I personally don't like the wines of Charles Shaw. Most of the people I know that are into wine turn their nose at Charles Shaw, though not all have even tasted it. The beauty of a blind tasting is that those preconceived notions are erased. Perhaps those judges just got a bottle of Chuck's Special Sauce - who knows. It will be interesting to see how the judging is handled this year, as I'm sure wineries like Cakebread (who'schardonnay is very good) won't like being beat by Mr. Shaw's massive vats, but who's wine is in a completely different market price point.


Just my $0.025,


- Jim

 

[Joanie]

I guess what it really boils down to is...taste is in the buds of the wine holder.

 

[joeswine]

like i said ,its how the taste buds were going at the Time I've tried 2 buck chuck and so did my wife both of us took one sip and tossed the rest ,honest,not even usable for cooking with but that was then?