Alta Colina's posterous

In each of our first two vintages, we have dipped our toes into the wine competition waters. So far, it has been pretty affirming to our winemaking approach and, most importantly, to our vineyard's fruit quality. The 2007 GSM and 2007 Syrah were entered into the Finger Lakes International Wine Competition last year, and each won a Gold Medal. This is no slouch competition--788 wineries from 19 countries entered 3298 wines. We were very happy with our result. If you are wondering why we chose upstate NY for our first wine competition, it was to impress my colleagues on the board of a small high-tech company, based in Rochester. It was effective, especially with two golds, but not enough to repeat the process.

This year, we tried two California based competitions: the CA State Fair Wine Competition and the San Francisco International Wine Competition. The state fair is the longest running competition in America, having commenced in 1854. They have not yet announced the statistics for 2011, but in 2009 more than 600 California wineries submitted more than 3000 wines for judging. The beauty of submitting in 2011 is that our wines have 15 months of bottle age on them--a big advantage over the 15 days when judged by Robert Parker--and it showed. The 2008 GSM received:
Double Gold Medal
98 Points
Best of Region Red Wine (our region is San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara Counties)
Best of Class Wine (in our region--the class being Rhone Blend)
Needless to say, we were elated with this result. There are 11 regions in California, so one could argue that the 2008 GSM is one of the 11 best reds in California! There is a Best of State red chosen from this field which, sadly, we did not receive. Oh well--not bad considering 2008 was only the second vintage from our estate vineyard.

Turning to the San Francisco International Wine Competition--in 2010, 1290 wineries from 28 states and 27 countries submitted wines. If you figure multiple wines per winery, this is a big competition. The 2008 GSM garnered a second Double Gold Medal! An amazing corroboration of the two judging processes, and more validation of this wine.

All in all, this was a very satisfying competition season for Alta Colina Vineyard & Winery. Our professed goal is to make world class estate wines from our vineyard, and do it every year. The ultimate judge of our success is our patrons, but it is a boost to morale when we are able to get great competition scores as well.