Sonoma County Harvest Fair annual wine judging for local juice had someone either not paying attention or trying to cheat.

I guess the rules only matter if you win, and Adler Fels won big. Then lost.

Press Democrat article

Is the primary point of the contest to recognize good wine or to be a marketing tool?

What gets me is the 75-case floor. At 75 cs., that wine wouldn't get past the winery's gift shop w/respect to accessibility. I love it when WS gives a 97 pt. score and a "highly recommended" to something or other that has a 42 cs. production run, or there are 10 cases imported....as if!

quote:

Originally posted by kybo:
What gets me is the 75-case floor. At 75 cs., that wine wouldn't get past the winery's gift shop w/respect to accessibility. I love it when WS gives a 97 pt. score and a "highly recommended" to something or other that has a 42 cs. production run, or there are 10 cases imported....as if!

WA has the same issue re # of cases imported. But understand that these are both internatioanl magazines, so figure that someone else would get the balance of the goods. It would take a degree of effort but at least they should report where 75% of these are routed too.

I gave up ages ago with the WS weekly splash report. Agin marginal production,and no hope of getting them.

I'm not really worried about where the other 75% goes. However, if a wine is produced in so little quantity as to only be accessible to a microscopically small percentage of wine drinkers, then what's the point? Oh, other than to amp up the secondary market prices...

I have to disagree. As a burg lover ultra-small production is a part of the game, so I don't mind that they review very small production wines as long as they review across the entire accessibility range. Plus, stumbling across rare gems is always a nice surprise, and it's good to perhaps have seen a review of the wine, or a similar wine, or perhaps a different vintage even when such an opportunity arises.

There would no point (much less) in buying their magazine if they including too many small production wines in their lists.. especially top 100.