# Wine Comp experience



## Omerta (Jan 4, 2010)

Can anyone elaborate on their wine competition experiences? Did you make a batch with the intent to compete? Or did you feel it was worthy after tasting?


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## Tom (Jan 4, 2010)

I just took one off my shelf and sent it. In my wine club we "taste" each othere and suggest to send it sometimes. In a recent local wine competition my wine club took about 65% of the ribbons


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## JohnT (Feb 9, 2010)

Omerta said:


> Can anyone elaborate on their wine competition experiences? Did you make a batch with the intent to compete? Or did you feel it was worthy after tasting?



The way I see it, competitions are a chance to see what other people think of your wine. If other people's opinions do not matter to you, then save yourself the entry fee. 

What I do is to make wine first for myself, and if I feel that the quality is there, then enter. I also do not enter every year. I go a number of years, making wine each year, then (eventually) decide to enter the best wines I have. 

johnT.


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## Wade E (Feb 9, 2010)

I only send what I think is worthy.


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## Tom (Feb 9, 2010)

Like said before its to find out what others think of YOUR wine.
Join or start a Wine Club. Here you will get honest remarks from your peers. Wine Competitions dont always give you feedback. When they do you can get a 8 or a 18 score. WHY? Competition judges I feel lose "taste" after a while.
Last Winemakers Competion I sent a wine I won GOLD on in 2 competitions. It did not medal and the scores were all over (far from consistant).


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## JohnT (Feb 10, 2010)

Pallets are as individual as people.


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## rawlus (Feb 10, 2010)

palates may be individual but the criteria for tasting is not as subject to individual taste as one would think. analyzing a wine is a practiced skill, not an off the top of your head gut reaction. blackberry nose is different from black currant nose. astringency is different from bitterness. among professionals, there is no dispute here. 


whether you like a wine or not may be your own personal taste, but in judging, there is much objective criteria to discuss and rate from a shared experience and a common vernacular and basis of understanding. the problem may be that some judges do not have the experience yet to truly take apart a wine component by component in a blind tasting and do so in such a way that is repeatable and agreeable by other judges to get the same analysis.

palates can tire and any judge that is just going down a line and taking sips and writing notes is not compartmentalizing each entry sufficiently to make a fair judgement. 

and thats all just on smell and palate. judgements made on clarity, color intensity, hue, sweetness, astringency, acidity, bitterness, body, texture, balance and finish are even less variably open to interpretation. for the most part these are finite measures that while based on sensory perception, are still objective, quantifiable and would be universally agreed-upon among professionals of the appropriate experience and training. 

this is the sort of thing you get into when you go into master of wine programs, cwe/csw certification, etc. your tasting notes from class tastings are graded by the instructors for your ability to correctly classify and analyze a wine... detecting medium bitterness when it is in fact sourness combined with astringency will mean the different between an A and a B-.


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## JohnT (Feb 10, 2010)

rawlus said:


> palates may be individual but the criteria for tasting is not as subject to individual taste as one would think. analyzing a wine is a practiced skill, not an off the top of your head gut reaction. blackberry nose is different from black currant nose. astringency is different from bitterness. among professionals, there is no dispute here.
> 
> 
> whether you like a wine or not may be your own personal taste, but in judging, there is much objective criteria to discuss and rate from a shared experience and a common vernacular and basis of understanding. the problem may be that some judges do not have the experience yet to truly take apart a wine component by component in a blind tasting and do so in such a way that is repeatable and agreeable by other judges to get the same analysis.
> ...




Very well said. In a high end competition, all of the above is exactly true. The only problem is that not all competetions have high end judges. The new jersey state fair, for example, is judged by the members of the state fair comitee.


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## TheTooth (Feb 10, 2010)

JohnT said:


> The new jersey state fair, for example, is judged by the members of the state fair comitee.



Ugh... why would people even enter that? LOL


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## JohnT (Feb 10, 2010)

Entered only once. Unlike most competitions, no score cards were distributed. when I inquired further, I was shocked to find out who was judging it. I have not entered since. 

I remember reading about "cellar pallet" (tastes the eventually prefer the wines that are available), and was searching for objective critique. My mistake, NJ State Fair had a home wine judging, but was clearly not was I was looking for. 

Still, I won two gold medals.


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## TheTooth (Feb 10, 2010)

Wow... that was very uncool of them. Sounds like they just wanted to drink free wine. 

Congrats on the medals, though. I keep meaning to send some beer into a comp or two to get some objective feedback, but I always put off bottling any until the deadline has passed. LOL


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## Chateau Joe (Feb 10, 2010)

Omerta said:


> Can anyone elaborate on their wine competition experiences? Did you make a batch with the intent to compete? Or did you feel it was worthy after tasting?



The first one I sent was one that I and others thought worthy. I also have asperations of opening a winery in about 10 years. I would like to know what judges think of my wine. So far I have 4 medals for three wines in the last 2 years.


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