Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Local wineries win medals at Lone Star International Wine Competition

By Pegasus News wire

GRAPEVINE — The 2007 Lone Star International Wine Competition (LSIWC) marks the twenty-third annual competition and has grown into a contest for commercial wineries from all around the world. Each year, the Texas Wine and Grape Growers Association coordinates the competition with help from the Grapevine Wine Pouring Society.

LSIWC is three competitions in one – a Texas Competition, an International Competition and a Limited Production Competition. To qualify for the Texas Competition, a wine must be 75% volume from Texas grapes, and the vintner must have made at least 50 cases of that specific wine or roughly 115 gallons.

To enter the International Competition, there are no restrictions on where the grapes were grown, although 200 cases or more of the wine must have been produced. The Limited Production Competition is for wines from around the globe with production levels below 200 cases. Wines could have been entered in more than one competition should they have met the requirements for more than one competition.

In the Texas competition, three grand star awards were given, which could be described as best of show. In the International competition, four grand star awards were given, while in the Limited Production competition two grand star awards were given. On the first day of judging, each wine is evaluated on its own merit. The second day involves judging the gold medal wines from the first day against one another.

According to Michael Zerbach, Competition Chair, and a former president of the Association, “After the final blind judging for the grand star awards, the judges are offered the opportunity to view and taste the winning wines with corresponding ordering information”. As a result the wineries' exposure to the market and public wine consumer is greatly increased”.

This year’s competition had a record number of entries with fifteen states and several foreign countries represented in the field of wine entries.

Texas currently has 138 wineries and over 3,700 acres of family-owned vineyard land.

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