WineMakerMag Amateur Competition

[Bmd2k1]

Wondering if anyone's ever participated in the WineMakerMag Amateur competition & yours thoughts/feedback.

https://winemakermag.com/competition/competition-overview
Cheers!

 

[Bossbaby]

sounds interesting, I will keep this in mind.

 

[mainshipfred]

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.

 

[TurkeyHollow]

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.

 

[Newine]

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.

 

[Newine]

I entered a couple times. Seemed I always had one judge that ranked the wines very significantly lower than the other two judges. So the inconsistent and large variance in ratings from judge to judge left me questioning the value of the overall process and my involvement with it.

 

[Noontime]

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).

 

[ibglowin]

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.

 

[mainshipfred]

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".