Yes, the Sacramento Home Winemakers Club was the top amateur international winemaking club winner again this year!
Judy and I went to the 2013 WineMaker Magazine’s International Home Winemaking Conference held in Monterey, California, May 17th and 18th to hear the results of the wine judging. Judy is twice past president and has been on the Executive Board of the Sacramento Home Winemakers Club for many years.
It was an exciting time for the club, since they were the club winners last year and were hoping to be a winner again this year. It is such a stiff competition that some winemaker clubs were subsidizing their members by paying entry and shipping fees to their members. The Sacramento Home Winemakers Club did not do that for their members.
This was no small feat, since the judging was held from April 19-21, 2013, with a record total of 4,564 different wines at the Burlington Hilton in Burlington, Vermont. This year’s competition was the largest in the 11-year history and is again the largest wine competition of its kind in the world. The 4,564 entries arrived from hobby winemakers throughout North America in all 50 American states and 8 Canadian provinces and as far away as Italy and Australia. It was the single largest and most diverse collection of hobby wines ever assembled under one roof.
Over the course of three days, experienced judging panels worked through 923 flights, examining each wine using the UC-Davis 20-point wine scale evaluating appearance, aroma, taste, aftertaste and overall impression. The wines were entered in 50 different categories and included an astonishing array of varietals and wine styles. Kit wines competed alongside fresh-grape entries in this blind tasting.
Entries were awarded gold, silver, bronze and best of show medals based on the average score given by the judging panel. The Grand Champion wine medal was the top overall scoring wine across all categories. The Club of the Year was given to the club whose members won the most medals and the Retailer of the Year and U-Vint of the Year awards were given to the winemaking supply stores whose customers outperformed other similar shops.
Finally the Winemaker of the Year award was given to the individual entrant who has the highest average score across their top 5 scoring wines in the competition.
Winemakers of the Year &
Best of Show Dessert Wine
Rex Johnston and Barbara Bentley
In all, SHW won 13 golds, 10 silvers and 12 bronzes for a total of 35 medals.
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