U.s. Amateur winemaking

[asterof]

is it worth a try to even enter this ?
40th Annual U.S. Amateur Winemaking Competition

 

[JohnT]

Absolutely!!!!

Entering competitions, even if you do not medal, is a great source of impartial feedback on your wine.

I say go for it! Gotta be in it to win it.

 

[BernardSmith]

Are all competitions equally good at giving useful (for the winemaker) rather than subjective (more about the judge) feedback?

 

[grapeman]

Are all competitions equally good at giving useful (for the winemaker) rather than subjective (more about the judge) feedback?

NO, not in my opinion.....................

 

[Runningwolf]

I agree with Rich. When judging hundreds or thousands of bottles of wine you are moving right along and not enough time to write many notes if any.

 

[JohnT]

I think it really depends on the competition itself.

IMHO, there are competitions that I consider "professional" in their approach, and there are competitions that I find are just a joke.

I personally like Indy, AWS, and Winemaker mag competitions. I find that the feedback these competitions provide are about as objective as it can get. I have gleaned a lot of info from them.

I try to stay away from things like State Fairs. They are more geared for country style wines and very rarely have (what I consider) a qualified panel of judges. The last one that I entered, I actually attended the judging and was shocked and pissed at the level of unprofessionalism...

- They set the wine entries out on a table in full sun for several hours before the judging. This was in August and the wine was beyond warm by the time it was tasted.

- The judges were made up local businessmen. I spoke to one of them and asked him what made him such a fan of wine. "I really am more of a scotch drinker" was his response.

- The judges did not taste the wine, they drank the wine. Midway into the judging, they were obviously drunk.

 

[franki1926]

Anyone enter this one? It's going on right now. I entered two bottles

 

[franki1926]

did anyone attend ? how was it?

 

[seth8530]

As mentioned above, it really depends on the competition. I did not really like the Winemaker magazine comp because they did not really give me good notes. But, for my meads I enter them into the Mazers cup and they give very good notes.. ( I might be partial to this competiotin since I did good at this one and not so good at winemaker magazine). But in all honesty, I did not think the notes I got from winemaker magazine were very informative.

 

[asterof]

Yea I entered one Merlot,

"Judging will be conducted on November 22, 2014 and the award winners will be posted on the Cellarmasters web site (http://www.cellarmastersLA.org) promptly. Awards and/or judging score sheets will be mailed in approximately eight weeks."

 

[franki1926]

sorry I was thinking of the AWS national that was held this weekend. I am looking forward to finding out the results, so far noting posted.