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July 25: Karnataka based relatively new winery KRSMA bags the first-ever Gold Medal for India in a recognized international wine competition with the Sauvignon Blanc 2013 awarded Gold Medal at the recently concluded San Francisco International Wine Competition. Their flagship red Cabernet Sauvignon 2012 had to be content with Silver while Chardonnay 2013 and Sangiovese 2012 won a Bronze each.
DelWine had announced a few years ago that the winery getting the First Gold Medal in a recognized international competition would get a mention in the Main Headlines of this weekly eNewsletter which has currently over 30,000 subscribers in 67 countries . Although Double Gold is the highest category at SFIWC but it is given to those Gold Medal winning wines that have a consensus among the jury for the top medal. Gold implies that not all members of the jury agreed upon a Gold-not a rare situation in such competitions.
The 34th annual San Francisco International Wine Competition took place at the Nikko Hotel in downtown San Francisco on June 20, 21, and 22, where 4,570 products were entered from 26 US States and 31 countries including India. Fifty-eight judges from the areas of retail, restaurants, winemaking, media, and consulting from the USA and overseas participated. The Competition implemented a new 100 point score system for all Gold and Double Gold medals this year. According to the website 17 new judges were added to the team of 58.
American wine competitions (numbering hundreds) are famous for awarding a medal to practically every entrant. San Francisco International Wine Competition is considered one of the mostpopular competitions. It was interesting to see that only 76% of the wines were awarded. (In most international competitions of repute the number varies from 30-40% with Gold Medals managing about 5% of the share). Touted as the biggest wine competition in the US, there were a total of 4569 entries out of which 76% wines won a Gold, Silver or Bronze.
There were 484 Gold medals, 1,579 Silver medals and 1,432 Bronze medals, totaling 3492 wines as awarded. Double Golds were awarded to 197. However, in this competition, seemingly the Double Gold is awarded to all Gold medal winning wines that receive a concurrence from all the judges in a panel unlike most competitions where Double Gold would be awarded to say wines with over 95 points, thus relegating Gold to the second highest medal.
Thus, strictly speaking, it would appear that 3692 wines have been awarded (81%) medals and 15% of the total wines have won Gold (subject to any error that may be pointed out in the calulations).
The website also shows KRSMA bagging the 2014 Best of Nation Award Winners although it is not clear whether they were the only participants or there were other entries from India. 22 such National Trophies have been awarded.
Following are details of the winning wines from KRSMA for which delWine heartily congratulates KRSMA and its owners Krishna Prasad and his wife Uma who are based in Hyderabad. These wines are available currently in Bangalore but will soon be available in the USA. Prices indicated are the retail prices in India.
Gold Medal 91 pts KRSMA 2013 Sauvignon Blanc, Hampi Hills, India $12
Silver Medal KRSMA 2012 Cabernet Sauvignon, Hampi Hills, India $25
Bronze Medal KRSMA 2013 Chardonnay, Hampi Hills, India $18
Bronze Medal KRSMA 2012 Sangiovese, Hampi Hills, India $18
For details of Awards, visit www.sfwinecomp.com
Subhash Arora
KRSMA has already won Gold Medals and higher in some other competitions. Unfortunately, delWine does not recognize these competitions and does not report those achievements. As an international judge with over 35 competitions under my belt, I follow our own standards for recognition-editor
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