Gold Medals
"Here's a gold medal. There's a gold medal. Everybody gets a gold medal!" If you want wineries to enter your competition they will expect some reward. There's nothing like a gold medal or a dozen gold medals to make them happy. No, the judging isn't crooked. They just give out a lot of gold medals.
This year there were just over 1,000 wines entered with almost 350 gold or double gold winners. There were well over 500 silver medals and well over a hundred poor wines with only a bronze medal. By my calculations 31 wines entered did not receive a medal! Maybe it's okay to do it this way, but this is different from the "olden days" where just getting any medal was an achievement.
I'd like to think any of the wines entered are just that good and maybe that's kind of true. But it seems the judging could set it's standards a little higher if they wished.
The Tasting
There are Fri, Sat, and Sun three hour sessions available for tasting. I attended the Friday evening event and poured wines Saturday. I have to say my palate was shot after about 2-1/2 hours on Friday night so I only made it to a couple cabernet sauvignons (saving these for last).
The Wines
All of the gold medal winners were available for tasting --about 350 wines! I tasted a few bubblies and red wines only. Of course, this was only a small sampling of what was available. In the bigger reds (zins, cabs, etc.) it seems softer, fruitier wines did best as has been the case for many years. In Pinot Noir I'm not sure what they were looking for as I mostly wasn't impressed.
Memorable Wines
These are ones that stood out favorably for me.
- Bordeaux blends: St. Francis Anthem 2015
- Grenache: Mathis Sonoma Vly 2015
- Red blends: Saini Vineyards Angelo's Paint Brush 2017, Trattore Stone Soup 2016
- Pinot Noir: Matrix Buoncristiani Vyds 2016
- Zinfandel: Saini Vineyards Old Vine Pear Block 2016, Seaton Family Lauren's Block 2016
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