SF Chronicle Wine Competition

The results of the SF Chronicle Wine Competition are in, and you can access the results here: http://winejudging.com/medal-winners/. In case anyone is interested, there is also a public tasting of the award-winning wines in San Francisco at the end of February. While this is a US-centric, and to some degree California-centric, wine competition, I was excited to see the broad geography and diverse varietals that were included in this year's competition. They also had a record of over 7100 entries submitted (up from 3300 in 2006), which is further testament to the rapidly growing wine industry in this country. Two Finger Lakes winners - a Riesling from Wagner and a Gewurztraminer from Keuka Spring Vineyards - are excellent. And several Finger Lakes red made the list (Belhurst's Cab Franc, Merlot, and Bordeaux blend, among others)! My personal favorite Finger Lakes reds hail from Shalestone. Rob Thomas, the winemaker and owner, is a thoughtful, creative type and he bucks the trend to make exclusively dry reds in a region where that is certainly not the norm. But he does it quite well. And although I haven't yet been to Texas wine country, it is certainly interesting to see their Aglianico and Montepulciano varietals win best in class. Some of the other winners hail from Lodi, which is also a rising wine region (in 2006 seven new subareas were established within the Lodi AVA based on different soils/topographies). I was also excited to see Bluestone, one of my favorite Virginia wineries, take 4 medals (2 for their Bordeaux blends, 1 for a Petit Verdot, 1 for a Chardonnay). All in all a worthwhile list to peruse if you have the time - the diversity of wine in this country continues to amaze me!