2008 winemakers competition

[Chateau Joe]

I personally believe in more "word of mouth" medals then actual ones.

I have the ability to have one of those judges local to me in Vermont. I had this person taste my wine to see if it would be medal quality before I spent the money to ship/give up my bottles.

Her assessment was:
Excellent color with dark cherry and dominating fruit at the nose. This is a very smooth, but light French Cab.

I also had a friend tell me this past weekend she had a local wine distributor from VT and he said it was very good.

With these two comments, I've been thinking more about selling my small batches of wine. I have not been able to get anything from anyone on FDA requirements, etc. Does anyone know of any FDA regs? Or is this just localized regulations?!?

Yep, you will need to get a commercial or farm winery license from Vermont. You will be subject to inspections, you will need to sell a certain amount of wine per year, if you have a farm winery license you will need to grow some of your own grapes and use them in your wine. Many many regulations!!!!!

 

[FentonCellars]

Ok... I'll leave that commercial winemaking for my dreams! I guess I have more wine for myself to consume and be happy with!

Thanks for the heads up everyone!!

 

[smurfe]

Smurfe,
How many BEER awards you win?

Missed this post a while back. I have a few but I don't enter competitions much anymore. I enter for critical feed back on my beers and wine. I get some decent feedback on beer depending on the competition and caliber of judges but I have never got any good feed back from a wine entry other than the Indy Wine Comp. I enter certain beer comps just to get feedback and help further develop recipes that I know are missing something but I just can't put my finger on it.

I hate large comps like the Winemaker Comp as they will take any judge they can get to fill the slots. I have got score sheets with absolutely no comments on them. I have got score sheets that said "Great Wine" but had lower scores or didn't even place without any comment of what I was dinged for. I am also a believer of "One" winner per flight. Competitions are very valuable though if you get quality feedback from a competent judge.