I am pleased to inform you that my friend Val and I won a total of 4 Double Gold Medals, 15 Silver Medals, 5 Bronze Medals, and 5 Honorable Metion at the 2009 California State Fair Home Wine Competition. Panel judges used the same stringent criteria used for commercial wine competition.

One thing that was truly unexpected is that this is the first time that I have read of a citrus wine earning Double Gold Medal! At best, I have read citrus wines earning bronze or silver, and the double gold came as a surprise to me! So there is quite universal appeal for citrus wine especially if they are done using our process. I have been making Calamondin wine of the same consistency in terms of quality, just trying different levels of sweetness to determine one's palate. I now have an idea about the level of sweetness that can bring out the best character for award winning Calamondin wine.

I have been rooting for the highest Medal on my off-dry 2007 Yuzu, off-dry Calamondin and my dry Chardonnay-Calamondin wines, but they only got silver medals. The 2008 Calamondin wine, which is sweeter (3% residual sugar), won the Double Gold instead. Regardless of what the judges have concluded, the Off-dry Calamondin wine is the one that I loved best.

I have also made other citrus wines such as the Mandarinquat, Kumquat, Lemon and Orange but did not have enough bottles for submission (they require 2 bottles per entry).

Blueberry, Shinseiki Asian Pear, Merlot Pomegranate also won Double Gold medals, and I expect them to gain awards, and so was quite pleased that it was Double Gold.

Yes, I also made grape wines such as Cabernet Sauvignon, which got silver medal, Merlot, Honorable mention. And my best bet for Gold, the White Zinfandel, did not win any award! Very surprising. The Perlette grapes on the other hand, which is never used for wine making (except as a filler), won Honorable Mention.

My best bet for dry white wine, Chardonnay (70%) - Calamondin (30%) got Silver Medal.

The award winning wines, those in the double gold medal category will be displayed at the California State Fair at Cal Expo between Aug 21-September 7.

Here's a quick guide to the Home Wine Competition
http://www.bigfun.org/pdfs/competitions/homewine/HomewinePro.pdf

Here's the complete set of rules:
http://www.bigfun.org/pdfs/competitions/homewine/HomeWineBook.pdf

Here's the entry form:
http://www.bigfun.org/pdfs/competitions/homewine/WineEntryForm.pdf

And here's the summary of our winning entries:

By joereal at 2009-08-03


All I can say is that Citrus Wines have great potential, and let's all drink to that! Cheers!

Congrats, that sounds so good, sipping a glass chilled on a hot summer evening! Excellent!

Congratulations to you my friend. We have some real talent among our membership. Next year, perhaps you can make a 100-in-1 varietal wine from your multi-grafted tree. Way to go Joe - we are proud of your accomplishments. For a different white wine, look into a grape called Traminette. It is nearly identical in fruit character of the Gewritztrominer, but exhibiting more fruit and spice. BTW, I see you are a speaker at the 2009 CRFG Festival Of Fruit in California. Busy man. - Millet (1,262-)

Thanks Millet! I'm going to look for the Traminette.

If you can, I have a special wine tasting event at Festival of fruit, but I won't be there. Phil Pieri, the chapter president will be pouring my wines for the tasters. More than half of these were award-winning entries from California State Fair. Some of my wines, I haven't tasted myself because I don't really drink that much wine, so be the first one to taste them.

This was too late to be included in the web site information but here is the event details:

California Rare Fruit Growers
2009 Festival Of Fruits, Year of the Olive
Redwood Empire Chapter

Fruit Wine Tasting August 14, 2009 6:00-7:30 PM, Flamingo Hotel, Santa Rosa
Fruit Wines Courtesy of Joe Real


Tasting Order, Varietal(s), Vintage

Dry/Off-Dry Wines
1, Calamondin, 2007
2, Indian Blood Peach, 2005
3, Citrus Yuzu, 2008
4, Cabernet Sauvignon, 2004

Sweet Whites
5, Passion Fruit, 2004
6, Perlette, 2007
7, Pineapple, 2008
8, Shiro Plum, 2006
9, Calamondin, 2008
10, California Gold Banana, 2005
11, Flavor Queen, 2005
12, Fuji Apple, 2008

Sweet Reds
13, Weeping Santa Rosa, 2007
14, Flavorosa, 2007
15, Pomegranate, 2007
16, Merlot - Pomegranate, 2007
17, Merlot - Marionberries, 2008
18, Merlot - Pomegranate, 2008

Fortified or Port Style
19, Babcock White Peach, 2004
20, Calamondin Port 2008,
21, Hibiscus Sabdariffa, 2005

For more information about the festival of fruits:
http://festivaloffruit.org/

Joe, The Fruit Gardner list you as a speaker at the Festival of Fruit talking on -" Backyard Citrus & Persimmon Growing. How to Grow the Most in the Least Space". Is that talk not going to take place? - Millet (1,262-)

That one is a go. I will speak at 1:30 saturday.

Congrats on your wines Joe! When you get your winery going and can ship, I definitely want to buy some! Thanks also to you for getting me back into wine making by suggesting the blueberry wine! I love it! I also love my lemon wine!

Good going Joe. Your wines are excellent. Scott brought me back your Cal & blueberry wines, very good indeed !

After much head-scratching I came to the conclusion that LBAM is light brown apple moth.

I'm also curious about the varietal blackberry wine question, as after starting my first batch of Wal-Mart jam wine, I'm now starting some Costco Marionberry jam wine.

Fofoca is right about lbam. We can still receive stuff from non q areas but not send out. Blueberry cuttings would still be nice. This was my first time to make true varietal bb. I think it would be next to impossible to have distinct bb varietal wines but I will try.
Sorry 4 d typo sent fr iPhone lousy kbrd!

Well, congrats Joe!! You are a busy man. I've slacked off on making wines lately but I liked the BB I made 3 yrs ago so maybe I'll try it again.

Joe,

I talked with Richard Wallace today, the guy from Armstrong State University in Savannah that spoke on bananas at the CRFE event. He told me he very much enjoyed your speech of Backyard Citrus & Persimmon Growing and was impressed with your knowledge about fruit growing in general.

Glad to see how well you did with the wines! I don't see how you are able to find time to do all that you do.

Ned