by Andrew Chalk
Wine competitions offer wineries a stackable form of marketing. Win a medal and you get publicity from the competition. Then, media sources, referring to the competition results, amplify that publicity when they tell their audiences about you. The result can be an inexpensive source of state and national publicity.
LIKE YOUR GRAPES, CHOOSE YOUR COMPETITIONS CAREFULLY
Not all competitions are created equal. Some are a waste of time, carrying no prestige or sell through but substantial bottle commitments to participate. Choose the right competition and you can do very well. For example enter one of these competitions and you will have the chance to beat some serious names:
San Francisco International Wine Competition
San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition
New York International Wine Competition
Decanter World Wine Awards (London)
COMPETE WHERE YOU DON’T SELL
Even if you don’t sell a single bottle in the locations of these competitions, the prestige of matching or beating a major name translates directly into dollars (as well as prestige). Well-trained tasting room staff can point out that the wine they are pouring won a gold medal in said competition to the smiles and nods of happy visitors. Then they drop the context-pinning 16-tonne weight. “Oh, and that beat wineries X, Y, and Z (famous names) and equaled the gold medal won by Tablas Creek Winery (an example of a famous name in Rhône varieties) in the same flight.” Sale confirmed.
DOES COMPETITION ENTRY WORK?
Figure 1 (below) shows that competition participation has worked. Texas wines have done better and better as quality has improved commensurately. This graph looks only at medals won in out-of-state wine competitions. This is not to say that in-state competitions are of no importance. Rather, the field of competitors in competitions on the coasts is generally tougher and the competitions reported in these results are almost entirely the first two in the list above, plus the Finger Lakes Competition in New York. Entering there gets you more prestige than winning on your home turf. Texas wines with the resources should seriously consider entering the (more costly) Decanter World Wine Awards when they have a wine that their critical drinkers would describe as ‘markedly superior’ or their younger generation of drinkers (with their limited vocabularies) would call ‘badass’.
ANOTHER COMPETITION TO ADD TO YOUR A-LIST
The purpose of this article is to draw your attention to another competition: The Sommelier Challenge International Wine & Spirits Competition held in San Diego each September. The judges are your customers (sommeliers) who also possess expert palates. As the organizers describe themselves “Sommelier Challenge International Wine & Spirits Competition attracts entries from across the globe. This prestigious tasting is 100% judged in a double-blind format by certified Sommeliers – some of the most respected palates in the industry. Platinum award winners receive full reviews in WineReviewOnline.com and SpiritsReviewOnline.com in the weeks following the competition. Sommelier Challenge was founded in 2007 by wine writer Robert Whitley.”
Another nice thing about this competition is that it includes spirits. With Texas a hotbed of whisky, gin, and vodka distilling this competition should be useful to them to.
With 10 months until the next competition you have plenty of time to plan. Investigate it and maybe enter for two years and then assess its value. If you enter, please let me know, and let me know later how it works out.
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