I am quite far behind with everything in my life, but I sat down for an hour or so today and parsed through the results of the 2005 Dixie Fair.

It’s difficult to identify what’s going on in the industry from two very different wine competitions, and it’s made even more difficult because there are no lists of wineries that competed.   But for what it’s worth, here’s my take on the two competitions.

Indy Wine Competition

The Indy Wine Competition is well respected across the world.  It’s not the creme de la creme of wine competitions, but you’ll see some consistency with the winners from Indy also doing very well in other, more high brow, competitions.  Doing well at Indy is a good thing.   There were 3685 wines entered into the competition at Indy, of those 296 received a Gold, 1074 received a Silver and 1218 received a bronze.   That’s 2588 received some sort of award of the 3685 wines entered.  From a marketing perspective, the odds seem pretty damn good that you’ll get something at Indy if you have a half a brain.

Because of that I will not be listing those wines from North Carolina that won a bronze.  Big deal.  There’s so much bad wine in the world, congrats on beating out the worst of the worst for the coveted bronze.  

Dixie Fair

The Dixie Fair is a whole other story.  It’s just a fun competition.  The results mean nothing, so you beat out other North Carolina wines from a panel of judges at a fair.  If you are a winery and you win an award at the Dixie Fair and you put that award on your website it tells the world that your wine probably sucks and that’s the only award you could get.  Virtually every wine at the Dixie wins some sort of award.  I don’t have the numbers in front of me, but it’s like 90% or something of all wines win a prize.  It’s about the only game at the fair that you have legitimate shot at winning something. 

Summary

North Carolina wineries won 23 awards at the Indy Wine Competition.  

I was very happy to see that Raffaldini entered this competition.  More and more I am digging the prowess and marketing savvy of the folks at Raffaldini.  I think they are in a league of their own.  This can only be a result of a talented team and the collective experience of the owners and managers.  They have been successful in other ventures outside of wine and are applying that knowledge to make fine wine in North Carolina.  They are to be lauded.

I don’t know how many wines they entered in this competition, but they received two awards.   One was a bronze for their Pinot Grigio, no biggie there.  However they took home a BEST OF CLASS for their 2004 Bianco – a White Vinifera Blend.   That’s a GOLD at Indy and that’s pretty damn good.

Here’s more information:

2004 Raffaldini Bianco – Gold Medal Winner and Best of Class at 2005 Indy Wine Competition

A blend of Chardonnay, Malvasia Bianca & Vermentino. “Springtime in a bottle.” Tropical fruit fragrances predominate in this refreshing blend. Notes of white peaches and pineapple on the finish.

and guess what?  It’s only $11.00 from their website.

Nice work.   I also have to laud Raffaldini for not diluting their brand by entering their wines in the Dixie Classic competition.  I’m assuming they didn’t anyways, because I didn’t see any of their wines on the results.

Childress Vineyards

It seems that the Childress marketing machine is in high gear.  They entered a ton of wines and came away with a bunch of bronzes and one silver:

2003 Childress Vineyards Syrah / Shiraz – Silver

That’s a notable accomplishment, congratulations go out to Childress.  That’s a wine I need to try. 

Looks like it’s sold out at the winery, however it did retail for $16.99 when they had it in stock.

RagApple Lassie Vineyards

RagApple took home a silver for their 2003 Chardonnay.  RagApple has consistently done well with the Chardonnay and Viognier.  It’s nice to see that their hard work continues to pay off!

“…A barrel fermented, sur lie: Full bodied and buttery, this wine is sophisticated and polished with a beautiful golden color and floral fragrances.  It offers plenty of heady lemon custard and orange blossom flavors with hints of mango, papaya, and pineapple in the margins.  Vanilla and a touch of spice complete the long silky finish…”

$15.00 from their website. 

Biltmore Estate, Duplin and Silver Coast Winery

Biltmore Estate always seems to do a nice job with their wines.  However, most of the grapes they use to accomplish this success are bought from outside North Carolina.  Therefore, I don’t give them much press.

Gold – Sparkling Brut (Nive work regardless of where the grapes originated!)

Silver – 2003 Cabernet Sauvignon, Chateau Reserve

Duplin won several Golds and Silvers for their Scuppernong and Muscadine wines, but that shouldn’t be a big surprise, that’s pretty much what they specialize in and seem to do a really good job.   I have never been to Duplin, but they get quite a bit of press for their wines.

Silver Coast Winery won a Silver for their 2004 Viognier and also a bronze for their 2004 Merlot, which I thought was notable as it was the only red wine from North Carolina that earned an award.

It’s priced at a whopping $28.00!  For that price it had better be good!

“..A very clean, crisp and austere example of this elegant grape variety. Nuances of jasmine and honeysuckle flowers marry seamlessly with white peach and melon fruit…”

Shelton Vineyards was curiously absent from both competitions, although I did see one wine place in the Dixie Competition. 

 

 

I’ve been meaning to add a Wine Competitions category to this blog for quite some time. Today, I got an email requesting more information on what Yadkin Valley Wineries have recently won medals at wine competitions both local and regional / national.

Unfortunately, there is no one resource to visit to see what wineries have done well at wine competitions. To that end, I am hoping this post and all subsequent posts in this category will help clear the air and possibly provide the catalyst for a database where all North Carolina wineries can submit their recent awards /medals and be instantly posted to the web.

I encourage all North Carolina winery owners who read this blog to submit their wine awards / medals along with complete information on the competitions and your wines to info@greatncwines.com.

For the purposes of brevity I am going to break down wine competitions into three groups:

1) State Fairs
2) State Winegrowers Associations
3) Nationally / Internationally Acclaimed Wine Competitions

Sure there are more and I will build out a database of the most relevant in the coming weeks.

Many wineries in the Yadkin Valley like to tout that their wines won this medal or that medal at the state fairs. Personally, I’ve seen no correlation between state fair accolades and decent wine.

FAIRS

In North Carolina, there appear to be two fairs that are followed closely, the Dixie Classic Fair in Winston Salem and the North Carolina State Fair in Raleigh.

The 2004 Mid Atlantic Southeastern Wine Competition was held at the Dixie Classic Fair in early October 2004. They publish a six page pdf of all the “award winning” wines, which seems encompass nearly every wine entered! Indeed, if your wine didn’t win an award at the Dixie, I would consider hanging it up immediately! Here are the Download 2004 Dixie Classic Mid Atlantic Southeastern Wine Competition Winners. The Best of Show went to Shelton Vineyards for their 2002 Port. Overall Shelton does do exceptionally well versus other major labels in many of the major competitions. They must be doing something right at Shelton. If you want to check out all of Shelton’s awards for 2004 only, click here to view the PDF (Thanks to Jason Moser at Shelton for giving me a call with their most recent information!)

Now let’s move on to the North Carolina State Fair held in Raleigh. Much like the Dixie Classic, this fair loves to award medals. So much so that a full 67% of all entrants receive a medal. 101 out of 150 to be exact. Who’s paying for all these medals? Hopefully not the taxpayers.

Probably the most coveted award in the state of North Carolina for wine makers is the Winegrowers’ Cup which is awarded to the best of show at the state fair. In 2004 it was awarded to Rag Apple Lassie Vineyards for their 2003 Chardonnay. In 2002 it went to Westbend Vineyards for their Muscat Canelli which is a white varietal, brilliantly spicy, fruity and plentiful. It’s lightly sweet elegance combines with honey, grapefruit, and peach flavors which finishes rich and clean.

Here is a list of the double gold winners at the 2004 North Carolina State Fair, for the full list vist here:

Double Gold

· Biltmore Estate Winery Biltmore Estate Merlot
· Biltmore Estate Winery Chateau Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon
· Biltmore Estate Winery Signature Biltmore Syrah
· Biltmore Estate Winery Biltmore Estate Century
· Biltmore Estate Winery Biltmore Estate Pinot Grigio
· Biltmore Estate Winery Biltmore Estate Riesling
· Hinnant Vineyards Strawberry
· Old North State Winery Starlight White
· RagApple Lassie Vineyards Chardonnay 2003
· RayLen Vineyards Cabernet Franc 2001
· Shelton Vineyards Yadkin Valley Family Reserve Claret ‘01

State Winegrowers Association

The North Carolina Department of Agriculture & Consumer Services maintains a list of wine competition results grouped by NC winery, but even they admit it’s out of date, but they do keep the NC State Fair results current.

The North Carolina Wine Grower’s Association does net yet sponsor a wine competition. Maybe someday.

NATIONAL / INTERNATIONAL WINE COMPETITIONS

I am not speaking authoritatively here, but the Atlanta International Wine Summit would be appear to be a place wheere NC wines might first start to garner some national recogntion. There’s some pretty stiff competition here from some well known national brands.

I was encouraged to see that Shelton Vineyards managed to pull away with three awards in 2004:

Silver – Madison Lee White
Bronze – 2003 Riesling
Bronze – 2003 Madison Lee Red

I actually have a bottle of the 2003 Riesling I am trying tonight for Wine Blogging Wednesday v4.0!

Surprisingly Rockhouse Vineyards in Tryon did scored a Bronze with their 2002 Cabernet Franc, I’d like to try that! I sent them an email, who knows if I’ll ever hear back from them, their website is the worst I have ever encountered in my adult life.

Grand Harvest Awards are handed out each year by viticultural region. The latest results are for 2003, 2004 will be released in February:

Silver
Chatham Hill Winery, 2001, Chardonnay, 0.75rs, 400 cases, $14.00
Rockhouse Vineyards, 2001, Cabernet Franc, 0.05rs, 74 cases, $16.75
Shelton Vineyards, Inc., 2002, Riesling, 2.5rs, 1038 cases, $10.00
Shelton Vineyards, Inc., 2000, Cabernet Sauvignon, 1rs, 2499 cases, $18.00
Shelton Vineyards, Inc., 2001, Merlot, 1rs, 2058 cases, $16.00

Bronze
Shelton Vineyards, Inc., 2001, Chardonnay, 0.3rs, 2289 cases, $19.00
Shelton Vineyards, Inc., 2002, Sauvignon Blanc, 1.5rs, 526 cases, $12.00

International Eastern Wine Competition

This is a pretty decent wine competition with entrants from all over the United States. Virginia has a pretty strong showing. North Carolina on the other hand was represented by only three wineries:

Rag Apple Lassie took a bronze with their 2002 Chardonnay (2003 won the NC winegrower’s cup)…so something good is happening there.

The Biltmore Estate was well represented with their best showing being a Gold with their 2002 Chateau Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon. Nice work!

And again, Rockhouse Vineyards did extrmeely well with at least 4 of their wines winning bronze medals including their:

- 2002 Cab. Sauv.
- 2002 Merlot
- 2002 Cabernet Franc
- 2002 Meritage

What’s up with that? I think this place deserves a visit!

SAN DIEGO INTERNATIONAL WINE COMPETITION

Very nice website and lots of entrants. Only wine I saw from North Carolina was the Rockhouse 2002 Cabernet Franc, which won a bronze.

2004 HILTON HEAD WINEFEST TASTING

Another very well attended wine competition. Shelton took four silvers for their 2001 Cab. Franc, Madison Lee Red (NV), 2001 Reserve Claret and 2002 Shelton Port. RayLen also made a showing with two silvers for their 2002 Carolinius and 2002 Chardonnay.

SAN FRANCISCO INTERNATIONAL WINE COMPETITION

Obviously a very strong competition in the heart of California wine country. Guess what? That’s right the only NC wines on the list are from Rockhouse Vineyards. 2002 Merlot and the 2002 Cabernet Franc. How far is it to Tryon? I need to see what’s up for real.

That’s it for me for today. This is a comprehensive overview of the wines that are winning awards in the Yadkin Valley. If you want to check out more competitions, please visit: the Wine Competition Guide