Category — wine

The results are in from this year’s NYS Fair Home Wine Making Competition. Of 283 entries, 25 entries were from juice/concentrate, like the kind you make at Lakeland Winery. Nearly ALL the Concentrate wine won a medal! A DOUBLE GOLD went to Chocolate Raspberry Port (which is available for you to make in November) and the Estate Cabernet Sauvignon. GOLD went to Strawberry Riesling; Peach Apricot Chardonnay, and Orange Blossom Muscat. SILVER went to Sangiovese; Montepulciano; Cabernet Sauvignon; Grenache Mourvedre; Stag’s Leap Merlot, and Green Apple Riesling. BRONZE went to Rioja; Shiraz; Merlot; Gewurztraminer; Three berry Pinot Grigio, and Tempranillo Cabernet Sauvignon.

Thank you to those who made their wine at Lakeland Winery and submitted it for a chance to win. I’m sure your efforts were noticed by the judges, who some were surprised that your wines would taste so good.

As the organizer for this years competition, I am planning to also be part of next years event at the State Fair. I hope you will join me and learn what’s involved in judging wines. Get a close up, personal view of how judging is done.

These are the final comprehensive results for your viewing: 2008-home-wine-competition

This year will be a huge success and adventure for newbies at the New York State Fair Home Winemaking Competition. As this year’s new organizing official for the competition, I am encouraging everyone who has ever made wine at Lakeland Winery to enter a bottle of their wine. You may bring in a 750ml bottle and I will transfer it into the required two bottles, using two 375ml bottles (FREE).

Use this link below to download the application, and get your wine to me by the new deadline of August 13th. I will be available Monday and Tuesday for drop off at Lakeland Winery. The competition date is August 17th. The fee is only $10.00 each entry, and you are SURE to win a beautiful gold, silver or bronze medal. We need Volunteers!

Cut and Paste this link: http://www.nysfair.org/docs/entry/Home-Wine-Entry-Form.pdf

To Summarize:

Home Wine Submittal Deadline: August 13, 2008

Log-in and set up Date & Time: August 16, 2008

Volunteers: please arrive at the Art and Home Center at 9:00 AM.

Home Wine Competition Date: August 17, 2008

Volunteers: please arrive at the Art and Home Center at 7:30 AM.

Lunch provided to all volunteers.

Awards Ceremony: August 22, 2008 at Noon

Two 375ml entry bottles of wine may be substituted for two 750ml bottles.

If you have any questions, please call Andy at (315)572-4763 (cell phone)

Mail by UPS to: Agriculture Suite, 581 State Fair Blvd., Syracuse, NY 13209

I was recently asked to Judge the NYS Fair commercial Wine Competition last Saturday. This definitely was a day to remember - tasting and spitting; tasting and spitting, all day long. Of course, I had never experienced this before…usually I drink my wine. But seriously, there were some VERY good wines from all over the State. One thing I was thinking as I sampled the many different wines, “my own wines would win medals at this competition”. And I plan on entering some of them next year. Wish me luck:)

NEW YORK STATE FAIR COMMERCIAL WINE COMPETITION-2008

The committee was pleased to have 20 wineries entering for the first time.  There were 67 wineries entering a total of 437 wines.  On Saturday, June 21, 2008, twenty four judges from the east coast manned six panels to taste wines representing all seven wine producing regions of the Empire State.  The judges were selected on their knowledge of wines made from cold climate grapes.  The judging panels were representative of professionals in publishing, education, distributing, sales, restaurants, broadcasting, advertising, wine making, consulting and journalism.

Nearly every winery won an award.  There were 19 Double Gold awards given as well as 26 Gold, 133 Silver, and 161 Bronze.  The Best of Show “Blue Ribbon Award” went to Long Point Winery for their 2004 Long Point Cabernet Sauvignon.  This same wine took Best of Category-Red Wine.  In addition, Goose Watch Winery’s NV(non vintage) Snow Goose won Best of Category for White Wine.  The Best Sparkling Wine award went to Swedish Hill Winery for their NV Blanc de Blanc.  Hunt Country Vineyards won Best of Category Dessert Wine for their 2006 Vidal Blanc Ice Wine, Estate Bottled.  The Best of Category for Fortified Wine went to a first time entrant, Hudson-Chatham Winery for their NV Paperbirch Raspberry Fine Ruby. The Best of Category Fruit Wine was Torrey Ridge’s NV Scarlet Red.   Penguin Bay was awarded Best of Rosé/Blush with their 2007 Rosé of Chambourcin. As examples of consistency in winemaking, as well as judging, these last two wineries won the same awards in 2007.  A complete list of all the winners can be found online at www.nysfair.org/competitions.

A crew of 14 dedicated volunteers worked hard to keep up with the washing and polishing of glasses, pouring and serving the wines, and data entry of the wine scores, all while maintaining the integrity of a totally blind judging.  The State Fair Entry Department was notified of the results at the conclusion of the competition.

The committee was especially pleased with the 37 awards won by wineries that had entered for the first time.  Several judges commented on the high quality of wines entered this year.  We are excited that our competition continues to grow and improve.  We wish to express our thanks to all who participated and our congratulations go out to all the award winners.

Fairgoers can view the top award winning wines, which will be on display in the “Giant Wine Bottle” in the Horticulture building during the fair.  Samples of wines entered in the competition are available to fairgoers following most of presentations in the Demonstration Kitchen in the lower level of the Arts and Home Center.  Again, volunteers will be on hand to serve wine and answer questions.

Photo by joey norsen.

Stumbled across a study from last year, which points out that the New York wine industry is one of the fastest growing in the 50 states.

With more and more Personalized Winemakers and wholesale customers every day, is it just a coincidence that our winery is growing? Maybe—but we’re definitely working pretty hard to make it happen!

The Northeast also consumes the most wine:

Respondents from the Northeast region exhibit the highest incidence of drinking wine, followed by respondents from the West region. Three—New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey—out of the top ten
wine-consuming states (Adams Beverage Group) are in the Northeast region. Additionally, the New York wine industry is one of the fastest growing in the U.S. (Mintel/Simmons Spring 2006 National Consumer Survey)

I’ll have to dig through this study further to find more interesting tidbits…

…you realize they don’t sell wine. But, according to the Financial Times, that is now going to change:

“Amazon, the world’s largest online retailer, is to start selling wine in the US, entering a business fraught with regulatory complexities and littered with the wreckage of previous failures.

Amazon is looking to recruit a senior wine buyer, whom it says will be responsible for “the acquisition of a massive new product selection” for its site. The wine sales will augment a rapidly expanding non-perishable groceries business that Amazon launched two years ago.”

Amazon to enter US wine market [Financial Times via Tasting Room]

Steve Bachmann gives the top 10 reasons why wine is becoming more popular these days. And number 1 is:

People want “experiences” - Drinking wine is a sensory experience, like food, and wine offers a wide range of experiences based on different choices in grape types, regions, and wine-making styles.

Go check out the rest: Top 10 reasons driving wine’s growing popularity [via The Wine Collector]

Received this in an email:

It has been scientifically proven that if we drink 1 liter of water each day, at the end of the year we would have absorbed more than 1 kilo of Escherichia coli (E. coli) bacteria found in feces.

In other words, we are consuming 1 kilo of Poo. However, we do not run that risk when drinking wine (or rum, whiskey, beer or other liquor) because alcohol has to go through a purification process of boiling, filtering and/or fermenting.

WATER = Poo

WINE = HEALTH

Ergo: It is better to drink wine and talk stupid than to drink water and be full of crap. There is no need to thank me for this valuable information; I am doing it as a public service.