SF Intl Wine Competition - Did anyone submit their juice?

The San Francisco International Wine Competition is the largest and most respected international competition in the United States. Celebrating its 30th year, the 2010 competition will take place at the distinguished Hotel Nikko in the heart of downtown San Francisco on June 18,19,and 20.


Did anyone submit any wines and if so which ones?

I submitted my 2009 Dacalier Premiere Rose in the Rose Blend category #300
I also submitted that same label to the label competition as well.

-dave

Thought about it, but decided not to since my wines were just bottled. There’s always next year…

our Rose received a bronze, which is respectable.

My Veleta Tempranillo 2007 captured a Silver - Not bad considering all the Tempranillos it competed against and where they were from…Now if I could get broader distribution…

The 2007 Keating Rockpile Malbec won a Double Gold Medal.

Wow congtats!

Thanks Nola!

congrats Eric, btw - I am taking your merlot with me camping this weekend.

Great! Look forward to hearing your thoughts on the wine.

Eric,

We tried the Merlot ala ‘pop n pour’ but it was just too over the top for us and we chalked it up to not really liking merlot, but we did take the 1/2 bottle of wine home and enjoyed it last night after being open for a day and it was much much better.

I admittedly don’t know much about Merlot, except that it doesn’t excite me like a Rhone varietal does, but I would seriously recommend to anyone to let this wine breathe for a while. (24hours for me) and it will be a much more enjoyable wine.

the front and mid palate were nice but the back palate was M.I.A lots of dark fruit which made it enjoyable with our pesto pizza.

Nope. Don’t think it will have any impact on sales, FWIW.

They want $2600 + 5 cases of wine for a 13-city tour for the Double Golds.

Let’s see… 200 case production? Already halfway to being sold out? I think I’ll pass.

Has anyone done this? If I am wrong and this is something I should pursue, please let me know. At first glance, for my business model it looks like a huge waste of money.

Perhaps you should talk to Tara and Rich Minnick of Tara Bella Winery. They won a Double Gold in the SF Chron Competition with their first bottling, '99 Napa Valley Cabernet, and declined the tour thinking it was also too expensive for a small production winery like theirs. Rich says he was out in the vineyard one day and it was like a voice from above was asking him “How many chances do you think I’m going to give you?”

They decided to go to New York with the tour. About a week after they returned to California they got a phone call from a CNN producer who had interviewed them in New York. Watch this video link: http://www.tarabellawinery.com/cnn_story.shtml You just can’t place a $ figure on the exposure something like this can bring to your brand. Is yours worth it? Your call.

Oh, Rich and Tara LOVE to talk about the CNN story. Give them a jingle.

Thanks for providing the link, Brian. That is fantastic that it worked out for Tarabella. Great story.

But it’s really not about “is mine worth it”, the wine is fantastic. It’s just a gamble that will likely lead to nothing.

I just think there are better ways to spend that money. For instance, I’d rather ship a free bottle to my top 50 customers as a thank you. Same cost, they deserve something for helping me, and maybe I retain their business longer. Or maybe send samples to people on this board to review.

The competitor in me likes to enter these, but I have won several Golds including a Sweepstakes Gold Medal in the 2009 Monterey Wine Competition and I don’t think I have seen one single sale from any of them. Maybe it looks nice on the website, I guess. I think I am just going to stick to wine competitions that allow me to pour (SF Chronicle, Sonoma County Harvest Fair, and a few others). Those have given me a little better exposure because people get to try the wine and hear the story versus simply reading a long list of winners.

Just thinking out loud at this point. Sorry for the short rant!

You’re right. It is a gamble at best. I’ll never win the Calif Lottery because I don’t play. I don’t see the value with the odds against me.
Didn’t mean to sound pejorative with the “is yours worth it” line. I’ll look for you at the Harvest Fair this fall.

No worries, Brian. Thanks for providing the link. I asked if anyone had success with this type of marketing, and you gave me a great example.
Stop by at the harvest fair! It’s always great to meet fellow berserkers.

Eric,
Congrats on the win. I have a question … do you affix a sticker or anything to the wine labels you ship, after winning, to indicate the award? I am sure you know what I am talking about but, here is a link to an example, http://www.vintages.com/circular/100724/index.shtml . Maybe I shouldn’t admit it but, it influences my decision sometimes when buying wine at the lower price points.

I think those are great for wine stores. When you are shopping for something you have never tried, sometimes seeing the award will justify buying that particular bottle (versus just guessing); might just even be eye catching.
But I sell mostly direct to consumer, so by the time they have purchased the bottle the sticker doesn’t really do much except look a little gaudy on the bottle. I will however include the award on the tasting notes included in the shipment.

Eric,
Thanks for the response. It is as I expected for your particular circumstance as you state it. The other place I see potential marketing value from the award would be on a wine list in a restaurant to which you sell product ( I just saw this in France). I only ask because I wondered if there were winemakers who entered contests and then didn’t use the awards in promotional material. Another way of saying it is, I wondered if there were winemakers who entered competitions for no other reason than strictly personal ones.

I know this is an ancient thread but I found it very interesting, as we just were awarded Four Medals (1 Gold, 2 Silvers & 1 Bronze) for our 2011 Russian River Pinot Noirs, in the 2013 San Francisco International Wine Competition and I was wondering whether these awards will be worth the paper (or tin foil) they are printed on?

They don’t post them until July, so nothing has happened yet.

Did anyone else here who medaled have any pickup in sales attributable to these awards? Did anyone do followup marketing like press releases etc, and did it help?

It does seems like a very large and well known operation, but we’ve won gold medals before for other competitions, and it does not seem to (directly) actually sell any extra product.

I guess I would ask, “What are these things (competitions) good for?”

Eric-