Fruit Wine Competitions?

Sometimes there is nothing better than drinking a wine that has been made by yourself. Being proud of a well made wine and having people around you truly enjoy it too is a great feeling. What can make that feeling even better is winning an award for it in a wine competition that is judged by wine professionals who understand and appreciate a well made wine and have ranked it high along side other well made wines. Not only can this help your ego but it can also help the bottom line and your marketing efforts if you are selling this wine. If you don’t rank very high, this can be very constructive and push you to learn more and make a better wine in the future.

I get asked rather often about commercial and amateur wine competitions that are specific to fruit wines. Hope this list will help.

Here is a sad fact: The vast majority of wine competitions do not have a fruit wine category in them. Call it snobbery or a serious oversight of a growing and exciting segment of the “wine world” but still a fact.

Many regional wine competitions in the USA and Canada will have a small section or category for fruit wines made in that area but there are very few of the large, prestigeous competitions that do.

For the benefit of the readers out there, the following is a resource of wine competitions that fruit winemakers can consider entering some of their wines into. The list below includes competitions that are either exclusively fruit wine competitions or have a fruit wine category.

WineMaker Magazine Wine Competition (open to amateur fruit winemakers)
http://www.wineinfonet.com/Competitions

All Canadian Wine Competition
http://www.canadianwinetrail.com/

The Fruit Wines of Canada
http://www.fruitwinesofontario.ca/

Pacific Northwest Wine Challenge
http://www.vinochallenge.com/nwsummit

Vineyard & Winery Management Magazine
http://www.vwm-online.com/Competitions/IEWC/2010_Registration.htm

Pacific Rim International Wine Competition
http://www.nationalorangeshow.com/wine_competition.htm

New Zealand Fruit Wine and Cider Maker’s Association Competition
http://www.fruitwines.co.nz/moreinfo.html

A list of Other Wine Competitions
http://www.wineinfonet.com/Competitions/winecomp.jsp

One area where I have had a lot of trouble finding competitions that allow fruit wines has been Europe. The fact that almost 70% of all wines on earth are made in Europe, I find it sad that fruit wines unfortunately get lost in that “wine lake”. I am sure there are a few competitions that will have a fruit wine category but I have not been able to come across any. If any one knows of a good one, worth entering, please do not hesitate to let me know!

To all of you that have won awards in any wine competition, congrats! To any that will enter some of their best, I wish you all the luck!