The day of the event was a glorious fall foothill day with all of the vineyards showing their colorful fall display of red, yellows and oranges.  The winery being honored is one of El Dorado Counties oldest and most respected; Lava Cap Winery which was founded by one of the regions tireless promoters and great ambassadors; David Jones.  The wine that won was their incredibly well made 2004 Petite Sirah sourced from the Granite Hill Vineyard in the El Dorado AVA.  We will discuss this wine at great length in our 'Winery in the Spotlight' article on Lava Cap in this same edition of California Wine Magazine.

There were four representatives from the Orange County wine competition committee in attendance at the festivities to the present the award; Larry Graham, the Chairperson, Carol Esslinger from Wine Administration, and Dennis Esslinger and Bob Trout, the Directors of Judges.  Tom Jones the Lava Cap winemaker, Charlie Jones, the vineyard manager, and winery owner Jeanne Jones were in attendance with about fifty guests, many of them involved in the wine and grape industry in the local region.  It was a great opportunity for us to meet and discuss the wine with the principals involved in its creation and the Orange County group during the lunch and wine tasting that followed the presentation. 

Wine competitions are a great way to learn about what the wine regions of California are doing and what wine styles and varietals they excel at producing.  The reason we have gravitated to wine competitions instead of one person rating wines is that you can get opinions from a cross section of wine professionals from many regions of the country.  The best competitions have some sort of criteria on how the judges are picked and some even make the candidates pass a test before they are allowed to pass judgment on someone else’s wines.  If a wine wins awards at multiple competitions you can be fairly certain this is a wine of some merit and probably worth a try.

The Orange County Fair Commercial Wine Competition is one of the most prestigious in California, open only to wines made from grapes grown within the state.  The competition began in 1977 and has grown to being one of the largest single judging events of California wines in the world.  The co-sponsors of the event are the Orange County Fair Commission and the Orange County Wine Society.  The Wine Society is a non-profit organization devoted to the promotion of education in the areas of winemaking, viticulture and wine appreciation.  It is the Wine Society that does the work of obtaining and classifying the wines as well as staging and conducting the competition.  Continued ...