Inside the San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition

Math problem of the week: Take more than 60 judges, serve them 4,235 wines over four days, and what do you get?
Answer: Plenty of kudos for wines with Sonoma County pedigrees, including four of the seven chosen as sweepstakes winners. Plus a handful of tips on how to get the most out of wine sampling, whether you do it in a local tasting room or at the 2008 San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition’s public tasting on Feb. 16.
This year’s event, held recently at Citrus Fairgrounds in Cloverdale, was “the competition no winery wants to miss,” said executive director Bob Fraser.
It has grown to become the world’s largest judging of American wines. It’s also the year’s first and attracts the country’s biggest name judges. Once they’ve had their fun with the wine in a traditional state fair setting, the judges’ top picks are taken to San Francisco, where the world’s most ardent wine drinkers can partake.
“San Francisco has one of the world’s largest per capita rates of wine consumption,” said Fraser. “It’s among the top three wine cities, along with New York and Paris. We bring the tasting from the country to the city.”
While they’re in the country, panels of judges attack the entries with a vengeance, each sampling more than 100 bottles every day for four days. They’re charged with winnowing the gold medalists from the rest of the pack, then narrowing them to best of show winners and, from that group, winners of five sweepstakes categories. This year two categories were tied, resulting in seven winners.
Since entrants are required to provide six bottles with each entry, nearly 26,000 bottles of wine rotate through the fairgrounds. Volunteers dirty about 20,000 glasses over the span of the event, pouring flights of 10 at time for each member of the tasting panel. Judges then swirl, sniff, sip, slosh, smack and spit – sometimes more than once – in the process of rating each wine.
They explain their rankings by saying things like:
“It’s got sulfur up the kazoo.”
“Very hot in the finish; disjointed and a little stinky in the nose.”
“It was big and meaty. It grabbed you by the wontons.”
“This is what you put on your driveway just before harvest.”
Far more wine goes down the drain than into the judges’ stomachs, although a few admit to the occasional swallow. Studies have found that even when they conscientiously spit, however, judges wind up ingesting about 5 percent of the wine they sample through their nostrils or under their tongues.
By the end of the day, the air smelled sweet, like during crush, and judges who had been assigned to the merlots and cabernets were easy to spot. They were the ones walking around with stained lips, teeth and tongues. All were circumspect about what they accomplish at events like this.
New wineries use the competition as a way to introduce themselves, their entries serving as calling cards. Judges view the event as a way to stay current, and consumers use the results as a tool to help them shop.
“I’m here to get a leg up on buying good wine, to keep my palate fresh, to educate the public and to give back to the industry,” said Ray Spencer, owner of Lake Street Wines & Spirits in Penn Yan, N.Y.
William Bloxsom-Carter, the food and beverage director at the Playboy Mansion West, said he comes to stay on top of his game. “I bring the winners back with me and figure out how to plug them in. It helps me look good to my peers.”
Said Fraser, “All competitions give consumers a barometer of the new vintages. We’re here to make sure consumers are getting the most for their money.”
Although Sonoma residents are more wine savvy than most, “you don’t need to know a lot to drink good wine,” according to Ray Johnson, the competition’s assistant director and author of “The Good Life Guide to Enjoying Wine” (The Writers’ Collective, $13.95). “Even so, learning a little can add to the experience. It’s like knowing a little French when you go to France.”
Any time judges get together, the conversation invariably turns to technique. The best tip from this group: smell them first to examine the nose. That will help you detect any that are flawed and should be discarded. If you begin to feel confused about differences between the wines, take a sniff of your own skin. That will bring your nose back to neutral.
Your nose is 70 percent of the judging. Does the wine smell good enough to drink? When in doubt, create a “super nose” by putting your hand over the top of the glass as you swirl. Dip your nose in for a whiff of the aroma you have trapped in the glass.
Taste is more subjective. Take a good-sized sip and swish it around. Move it to the sides of the tongue so you can activate those taste buds. Smack a little bit, like you would if you were chewing with your mouth open, to let some air slide in. Move the wine to the back of your mouth so it can coat your palate. Then spit it out. Smack a little more while you examine the aftertaste.
Grand winners will be available for public tasting from 2 to 5 p.m. on Feb. 16 at Fort Mason’s Festival Pavilion in San Francisco. Tickets are $50 in advance at winejudging.com, or $70 at the door, with proceeds benefiting Santa Rosa Junior College’s Wine and Culinary Arts Programs.
Four “best of show” winners will also be poured Feb. 28 at the gala benefit for the San Francisco Orchid Society’s 2008 Pacific Orchid Exposition. For information, go to www.orchidsanfrancisco.org.
Note: Local F•L magazine wine writer and sommelier Christopher Sawyer served as a judge in Cloverdale this year. – Kathleen Hill, Food & Wine Editor.