WineMakerMag Amateur Competition

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I think you'll find several on here have entered this competition. There are numerous other competitions available to enter as well. Just remember all judging is subjective. I entered 6 wines in the American Wine Society competition in November and was thinking about entering a few of the same wines in this one to see if the results would be different.
 
I entered it for the first time last year with a Pinot Noir of which I was very proud. They ripped it to shreds. I was just looking for feedback to see how I could improve my processes not looking for awards. When I mentioned it to some friends, we did a blind comparison with it and (4) commercial wines to see which one fit the results returned to me from the competition. They couldn't find ANY. Since then I spoke with someone who had entered this a couple years back and had similar results so he entered the same wine the following year and received a better score. I think you're best served to please your own palate and leave the competitions for the egos.;)
 
I entered it for the first time last year with a Pinot Noir of which I was very proud. They ripped it to shreds. I was just looking for feedback to see how I could improve my processes not looking for awards. When I mentioned it to some friends, we did a blind comparison with it and (4) commercial wines to see which one fit the results returned to me from the competition. They couldn't find ANY. Since then I spoke with someone who had entered this a couple years back and had similar results so he entered the same wine the following year and received a better score. I think you're best served to please your own palate and leave the competitions for the egos.;)
 
We've entered many wines over the years, and it's definitely a mixed bag. We've gotten a lot of really good feedback that really helped educate our own palates; a good example is a zinfandel that had a subtle note of what we tasted as a root beer kind of thing (not unpleasant), and all 3 judges commented on the slight oxidation and we were like "oh yeah I guess that is oxidized". Although they have a whole lot of judges who are familiar with fruit/country wines, mead, etc... it's fact that all wine competitions are biased towards vinifera grape wines, so feedback can be iffy on non-grape concoctions. If you can afford it, it can be informative, and you might get a medal out of it (which in my opinion is just a stamp of approval that you've made a wine with few to no faults, that someone else enjoyed).
 
I entered one year. Its a cash cow for the Magazine with some of the highest entry fees for a wine for any competition. I was hoping for better notes than I was receiving from the smaller events I had entered into but was not impressed with the notes. They were not any better and perhaps even worse. After all they have tens of thousands of wines to taste. I medaled in all wines but not as high as I had hoped for nor received from other competitions for the same wine. For me it was a one and done event.

Sadly many of the smaller amateur events have canceled the last year or so due to covid so there is also that now.
 
I gave some wine to a work associate and told him it won silver at a competition. He asked how many wines were entered and I told him about 500. He acted really impressed and said "you got silver out of 500 people" so I had to let him know how the medal system worked. I should have just said "yep".
 
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