WinePress.US The Internet's Largest Home Wine Making & Grape Growing Discussion Forum

For reading material, you simply cannot go wrong with this magazine.
I have been making wine now for some time, and I seriously wish I had access to this magazine a long time ago. This magazine has some great information, articles on making kit wine, fruit wine, fixing wine that didn't come out too good, gift ideas, etc. This really is a great magazine.

Be sure to get your FREE trial issue and tell them you came from WinePress.US!!!

Email WinemakerMagazine Web Site

WineMaker
5053 Main St., Suite A
Manchester Center, VT 05255

Phone: 802-362-3981
Fax: 802-362-2377

WineMaker International Amateur Wine Competition Winners!	Dec, 2002

807 entries from 41 American states, 7 Canadian provinces and 4 countries. 27 judges and 162 flights of wine. Presenting the winners....

Last spring, we decided to start an amateur wine competition. We thought it would be wonderful for WineMaker readers to have a chance to vie with each other and with other amateur vintners from across the continent. Plus, entering a contest is an excellent way to hone your cellar techniques and get useful feedback from judges. So we set a date, hired award-winning home winemaker Gene Spaziani as our competition director, and crossed our fingers. By deadline day in early November, precisely 807 entries - twice the number we'd anticipated - had arrived in our Vermont headquarters, making our inaugural amateur wine competition one of the largest in the United States. The entries arrived from 41 American states, seven Canadian provinces and four different countries, and included an astonishing array of varietals and wine styles. Kit wines competed alongside fresh-grape entries in almost every category and made an impressive showing. The week before the competition, we carefully loaded hundreds of boxes into a U-Haul truck and drove to Connecticut for the formal hand-off to Richard Quental, the competition's judging director. Ric spent several long days working with our entry database and getting some 1,600 bottles (two for each entry) ready for judging. The wines were judged on November 23 at the Radisson Hotel in Cromwell, Connecticut. Gene had recruited 27 expert judges, who spent over eight hours tasting and rating 162 flights of wine. More than 400 gold, silver and bronze medals were awarded at the end of the long day to every wine considered worthy. The medalists are listed on the following pages. We're extremely pleased with the first WineMaker International Amateur Wine Competition. Congratulations to everyone who won a medal, and a sincere thanks to our sponsors and everyone wo took the time to enter. See you next year! Red Native American Varietal Bronze: J. Sommer; 2001 95% Concord 5% Grape Concentrate