Home Winemakers Awards

Last night was the awards ceremony for those California Home Winemakers who won ribbons at the state fair wine judging competition. Well, actually not a lot of ceremony, the winners were asked to collect their ribbons ad-hoc during the event and the announcements and presentations were restricted to Best of Class and Best of Show winners.

At the same time about 20 "best of" and "double gold" winners were asked to pour their wines so that other winemakers and invitees could taste the wines.

I have never had so many good wines in one place at one time. I am not exaggerating. I am so impressed with the quality of wines that were poured.

Because I was a volunteer at the judging event, I was also invited to attend the awards ceremony, although it may have been open to the public. I am told that 300 people had RSVP'd for the event and by quick count I think there were over 150 there at any one time. i am told it was the largest crowd that they had ever had for this event.

Although i was an invitee and could bring a guest, I was also asked if I could volunteer and my wife Susan and I were happy to have the opportunity. These events are always fun, and in general, you tend to meet the nicest people who are also volunteers and give of their time and passion to make things like this happen.

Speaking of passion, I can't say enough for the home winemakers themselves who were there last night. Not only did they pay to enter their wines into the competition, but some of them traveled long distances to be at the awards ceremony and they also brought their prize winning wines to pour for the rest of us. In some cases there may not have been that much wine made in the first place. And here they were sharing it with the crowd.

So back to tasting ... Susan and I tended to limit our tasting to "Best of"s and Double Golds and there were a fair share of them there. Probably about 50 wines total. Since I still had a 1 hr drive to get home i went light on my tasting, whereas Susan was able to sample a lot more.

One of our favorites was a Blueberry / Merlot fruit wine. 50% blueberries, 50% merlot grapes, fermented together. The same producer also had 5 other double golds for other fruit wines including a "tomatillo sherry". (I kid you not. A fortified wine made from little green looking tomatoes).

One of the best of the night, in my opinion was an Italian blend called "Italian Stallion" made by Chris Hamm.
It was perfectly balanced, the tannins were soft, it had lots of character. Included LaGrein, Niellucio (Sangiovese), and some other grape that i forget. A perfect wine.

After the ceremony was over, Susan and I went over to the Savemart tent because they were giving tastings of the commercial winery winners. 3 free tastings per person, so Susan and I shared and got to taste 6 wines. Guenoc had a good Sauvignon blanc from, I think, Lake County that had some New Zealand characteristics (grapefruit, aromatic, clean). We tasted 5 other Gold and Best of medal winners from the commercial wineries. They were good.

But when all was said and done, I think the Home Winemakers still won the night. Congratulations to the men and women who made such great wines and thanks for sharing them.

The BUMMER of the whole evening: after tasting a really perfect home wine maker award winning wine, you realize that you can't buy it, and you will probably never see it again. The only hope if to maybe taste a new vintage next year.

Here is the list of home wine maker winners:

john