Results have just been released for the SFChron Wine Competition: SFChronWineCompetition
The one winner that stood out in my mind is the Sparkling Wine Sweepstakes Award: Trump Wnry Blanc de Blanc 2014. Won’t be long afore we’ll be hearing loud boasts coming from the WhiteHouse on who’s the World’s greatest winemaker. It’s a wine designed to be served in the Oval Office to football players w/ Wendy’s/McDonald’s/BurgerKing/DominoPizza fare.
A rather unusual list of winners. Meomi Sparkling first in the Blanc de Noirs. The best Gruner comes from NewJersey, making MikeOfficer’s GV just an also-run.
Anyway…interesting results…but don’t waste a lot of time poring over the them. They’ve not listed the judges yet, which would be interesting. No doubt the finest palates available.
I haven’t had the 2014 vintage but prior vintages of the Trump weren’t even the best sparkler out of Charlottsville. Granted its not the worst either. But that’s the problem with these wine competitions. They can only judge based on who enters and there is little upside for really good wineries to enter so they don’t. Leaving wines like you see on the list to beat out even worse wines.
Absolutely…blind judging. They categorize the wines into price brackets. The winner from each panel
then goes into a nomination for a sweepstakes award. But all done blind.
Tom
That was a ringer in a recent blind sparkling tasting our group had. It caused great debate - we argued about whether “Wine number 4” came from a bottle with a plastic cork, or not. It’s terrible. Actually, “terrible” should be able to sue me for libel after associating that term with Korbel.
That list is an abomination.
Those judges’ cards should be examined and the proper discipline meted out: I hear Nevada boxing needs judges with that level of sophistication.
I’ve been BURNED one TOO MANY times on Wilfred Wong wine suggestions. I’m not sure if he still ‘works’ for BevMo…but his opinion…in MY opinion…SUCKS HARD!
We (Uvaggio) participated in the first ever of these and we got lots of medals and nobody cared. To participate was not at all expensive and the event itself was an invitation to eat and drink way too much…at a very reasonable price,I might add. Have not attended since.
Some of those are my go-to cooking wines. Maybe that was actually what they were judging. What a sea of mediocrity though. You can see they give EVERYBODY a chance to win though with those tiny categories. Best Chardonnay between $32.00 and $34.99. Wow!
Also Arius should IMO rebrand to a name that doesn’t look so much like Anus. I’m not in marketing though, so what do I know.
Has anyone heard of most of these winners? I have never tasted any of them. The only thing worse than these winners is that the general public will pay $70 to taste this crap.
2019 San Francisco Wine Competition Winners medal-winning wines
Sparkling Sweepstake Winner
Trump Winery, 2014 Monticello Blanc de Blanc $34.00 (VA)
Sparkling Sweepstake Winner
Goose Watch Winery (NY) NV Finger Lakes Brut Rose $16.99
White Sweepstake Winner
Castello di Amorosa 2017 Napa Valley Chardonnay
Rose Sweepstake Winner (tie)
Turkovich Family Wines 2018 Rose of Grenache (Yolo County, Calif.)
Red Sweepstake Winner
St. Anne’s Crossing 2016 Dry Creek Valley Zinfandel (Calif.)
Red Sweepstake Winner
Las Positas Vineyards 2016 Livermore Valley Malbec
Specialty Sweepstake Winner
4R Ranch Vineyards & Winery 2017 Texas Nectar Nero
Specialty Sweepstake Winner
Prager Winery and Port Works NV Napa Valley Noble Companion (Calif.)
Label Sweepstake Winner
Bonterra Organic Vineyards 2016 California Equinox Red
Al my point exactly. Whether we have heard of them or not we are not drinking them. Good wineries don’t enter these pay to play events. They don’t need the press. Believe it or not there is an award show for Cold Climate wines and the biggest joke is the MN State Fair has gold medals awarded for our crap wines.
I joined the email list for St Anne’s Crossing a few months back. The winery’s line-up sounds good, but the prices are too steep to try a new (to me) producer’s bottlings without having read TN’s here or on CT.
I also would like to know what others think of St Anne’s Crossing’s Zins.
I’ve only had wine from one Minnesota winery, Four Daughters, outside of Rochester. It’s been a while but I recall it being better than wineries in Illinois and Iowa as well as the lower-end Michigan wineries. Though that’s an admittedly low bar.
Jason yes I agree low bar. I just hope tax payer money is not being used to research a wine industry in MN however the U of M is doing a lot of research so I am afraid that might be true.
