We had a great turnout with over 60 wines entered this year! A summary of Best in Show and category winners is provided below. Congratulations to you all!
Thank you to all those who volunteered to make this year’s event a success, from preparing and planning, to serving judges and collecting scores. It truly takes a village!
A special thank you to Dennis & Page Campbell for once again hosting the event at their beautiful home. I’d also like to recognize Alexey & Elena Smirnova for sacrificing much of their time during the event behind a computer preparing score sheets, collecting wine scores, and generating award ribbons. Your dip in the pool was well deserved!
We also honored Steve Foisie for 34 years of wine education. Several commercial winemakers acknowledged Steve’s role in the success of their wineries. We presented Steve with an engraved decanter.
I’ve received some feedback regarding the lack of comments provided by judges on the score sheets. We plan to address this next year by providing detailed instructions to the judges prior to tasting. One of the primary benefits of entering our wines into Winefest (besides the bragging rights that come with winning) is to use the judges comments to understand where we can improve the quality of our wine. I welcome any additional feedback or comments.
Winefest 2018 Results
Best in Show
Red Wine - Larry Westerlund, 2015 Merlot, 20 pts, Gold medal
White, Rose, or Fruit Wine - Tom Wiitala, Semillion, 17.3 pts, Gold medal
Category Winners
| First Name | Last Name | Category | AVG | COLOR | PLACE | Entry Name |
| Steve | Foisie | Table (Dry) Wine - Cab Savignon (75% or >) | 16.3 | SILVER | 1 | Cabernet Sauvignon |
| Larry | Westerlund | Table (Dry) Wine - Cab Savignon (75% or >) | 15.0 | SILVER | 2 | 2013 Cab |
| Larry | Westerlund | Table (Dry) Wine - Cab Savignon (75% or >) | 14.8 | BRONZE | 3 | 2015 Cab |
| Larry | Westerlund | Table (Dry) Wine - Merlot (75% or >) | 20.0 | GOLD | 1 | 15 Merlot |
| Al | Cutshall | Table (Dry) Wine - Merlot (75% or >) | 19.3 | GOLD | 2 | Cutshall Cellars - Merlot2015 |
| Dennis | Campbell | Table (Dry) Wine - Merlot (75% or >) | 18.8 | GOLD | 3 | 2014 CDC Merlot |
| Mike | Doherty | Table (Dry) Wine - Red Blend | 16.7 | SILVER | 1 | 2015 Red Blend |
| Steve | Foisie | Table (Dry) Wine - Red Blend | 15.8 | SILVER | 2 | Cabernet/Mourvedre |
| Larry | Westerlund | Table (Dry) Wine - Red Blend | 15.0 | SILVER | 3 | 2014 Cab - Merlot |
| Mike | Doherty | Table (Dry) Wine - Red, other | 17.7 | GOLD | 1 | 2015 Petite Verdot |
| Dennis | Koepke | Table (Dry) Wine - Red, other | 17.5 | GOLD | 2 | Petit Verdot |
| Charles | Marquis | Table (Dry) Wine - Red, other | 15.8 | SILVER | 3 | Marquis Cellars |
| Tom | Wiitala | Table (Dry) Wine - Syrah (75% or >) | 17.8 | GOLD | 1 | Wiiitala Wine Thief |
| Kent | Westbrook | Table (Dry) Wine - Syrah (75% or >) | 17.5 | GOLD | 2 | Kents 2017 Syrah |
| Kathryn | Chalfan | Table (Dry) Wine - Syrah (75% or >) | 15.5 | SILVER | 3 | 2009 Stillwater Creek Syrah |
| Tom | Wiitala | Table (Dry) Wine - White / Rose | 17.3 | GOLD | 1 | Wiiitala Wine Thief |
| Marty | Weisman | Table (Dry) Wine - White / Rose | 16.3 | SILVER | 2 | 2017 Chardonnay - Portteus |
| Lennart | Johnson | Table (Dry) Wine - White / Rose | 16.3 | SILVER | 2 | Crawford Rose |
| Tom | Wiitala | Table (Dry) Wine - White / Rose | 15.5 | SILVER | 3 | Wiiitala Wine Thief |
We look forward to a bigger and better Winefest in 2019!
Cheers,
Jon Barbour
BEWBC VP of Wine