Now in its eighth year, the International Cold Climate Wine Competition (ICCWC) is the only wine competition in the world devoted exclusively to cold-climate wines — and it takes place right here in Minnesota. Gordon Rouse, chief of competition and primary organizer of the event, says the aim of the Minnesota Grape Growers Association (MGGA) in starting the competition was twofold: to promote good wines and the cold-climate grape varieties to winemakers.Rouse provides some insight into the effect of competition in wine-making: “Wine competitions promote quality because judging wines and putting them in competitions helps the best wines win awards and get reputations of being quality. And by having a competition and giving awards, you promote the wine varieties themselves.“People are figuring out how to make good wines out of grapes that haven’t been used a lot in the past, and we can bring that together in one place where things get compared and awarded.”Gary Gardner, Ph.D., a faculty member at the University of Minnesota in horticultural science who has been instrumental in the university’s grape growing program, agrees: “People here wanted a place where winemakers could get real feedback, and the best quality wines made with these grapes would get recognition.“Part of the problem with a lot of these grapes and the wines made from them is that, in most competitions, they’re relegated to ‘other’ categories because of the dominance of European varietals. The ICCWC was started to recognize quality wines made from these hybrids. If you’re used to tasting and judging Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, some of the cold-climate grapes have different flavors, so you need to have a competition that separates the flavor from the quality of the winemaking. My analogy is this: Chicken doesn’t taste like beef; that doesn’t mean it’s bad meat. You judge it by different standards. So part of the issue is finding judges who have an understanding of what these grapes do and what their flavor is so they can judge on technical quality and flavor. The competition is designed to recognize and set as an example the best quality wine made from these grapes.”Judge Judge, and Judge---------------------------------Rouse, who organizes the ICCWC’s judging, was an amateur winemaker with training as a judge by the American Wine Society when MGGA members and U of M faculty tapped him to organize the first competition. “Since I had been involved in Minnesota wine and had won awards using cold-climate varieties, I kind of got volunteered for the job!” Rouse recalls. He participated behind the scenes in some other wine competitions to get a sense of how they were run before organizing the first annual ICCWC in 2009.“I never serve as a judge myself because I’m organizing the competition, although I judge at other competitions. We don’t want any perception of favoritism. We want to make sure we have a high-integrity competition.”All judging is blind — the judges don’t know what they’re drinking — to eliminate any chance of favoritism.Gardner sheds light on the judging process:21 judges are selected from all ends of the wine business — academics, winemakers, liquor store owners and wine buyers, chefs, restaurateurs, wine judges from other parts of the country. “We try to bring in about a third of the judges from out of state so we don’t get too parochial in how we look at things,” he says.Judges are assembled in seven panels of three judges each.Wines are organized in flights by flavor and are judged on quality, not ranked within the flights.Judge fills out ballots for each flight to help keep track of their impressions, but the points are not tallied.Judges’ must talk about each wine, reach consensus after tasting and give it bronze, silver, gold, or unanimous agreement for double gold.Wines that get gold medals go on to the best in show category. Last year, the competition had four best in show categories — Best White, Best Red, Best Specialty (Reserve/Sparking) and Best Rosé — plus the Governor’s Cup for the best Minnesota wine.For the Governor’s Cup, judges are divided into four groups of five or six judges, and they taste all the gold medal winners in that category and rank the top three. The consensus pick is awarded.“We don’t rank wines. Every wine stands on its own,” says Gardner. “We can have a lot of gold medal wines, or we can have none. In that sense it’s not like this one is better than that one — we’re just looking at wine industry standards, like ‘Is this appealing to the palate?’”But How Good Are They, Really?---------------------------------If these wines require such a specialized palate to appreciate, are the winners still likely to wow general wine-drinking audiences?Yes and no, Rouse says. “Generally when you’re looking for wine quality, there should be no difference in how you judge the wine. On the other hand, they are challenging varietals. How do you judge a Frontenac Gris if you haven’t tasted one before? If you’re not familiar you could misjudge it. The acidity tends to be high because of our shorter growing seasons. Sometimes this is balanced with sweetness; some winemakers have gotten better at acid reduction or making a more balanced wine with what we have. Ideally, there should be no difference, but the varieties are new and unique enough that there’s a bit of an educational component.”According to Gardner, “People that win the best in show awards generally make really good wines. A couple of wineries from Vermont have done an outstanding wine with the Marquette varietal. On New York Times wine writer Eric Asimov’s top 10 wines of 2015, number two was a Marquette from Vermont. That’s just judging its quality against all other wines, not with an asterisk next to it or anything.”Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes---------------------------------Never a static affair, the ICCWC has changed over the years. “We revise the list of eligible varietals every year. There’s a newer variety that’s eligible called Petite Pearl, which is now getting a lot of interest. It’s very different from any other cold-climate reds,” says Gardner. Also new this year is a Winery of the Year award, to be presented to the winery that does the best overall.Rouse has been pleasantly surprised by the level of participation in the ICCWC over the years, which averages about 300 entries per year: “What I’ve been really happy about is the broad participation. What I think the concern originally was that the participation would be a Midwest thing, but we’ve consistently gotten wines from 15 to 18 states and Canada. We get really strong participation from the East Coast. Vermont is always pretty strong; their climate is challenging as well. We’re only cold-climate varietals — we’ve stuck to our guns.”Held August 18 this year at the St. Paul campus of the University of Minnesota, the competition is closed to the public. For the first two years, it was held at the Minnesota State Fair, but onlookers couldn’t taste the wines (to minimize the burden of submission for smaller wineries, entrance to the competition requires only two bottles), so it never took off a spectator sport. Last year the MGGA organized a Summer Wine Festival shortly after the competition to give the public a chance to try the wines from many Minnesota winemakers, including past and current ICCWC winners. This festival is being held at the shops at the West End, Saturday Aug. 6, from noon to 5 pm.Positive Direction---------------------------------Gardner opines on the changing state of the Minnesota wine industry: “More people are tasting local wines and liking them. A lot of people have a bad impression of Minnesota wine from tasting it once 20 years ago when it wasn’t even being made from these grape varieties, but that’s changing. Even Surdyk’s, which had been reluctant for years to carry much in the way of Minnesota wines, is now featuring some of them in their current summer wine sale, which is a sea change in terms of attitude.”Last year the MGGA started a new bottle stickers program to allow wineries that win awards in the competition to place the ICCWC logo on their bottles and increase awareness of local quality among wine-shoppers.Rouse agrees that the competition has done a lot to further the recognition of quality cold-climate wines: “What we’ve seen is, particularly these trophy wines, they sell out fast, and people recognize, ‘Oh, it’s a La Crescent,’ and suddenly La Crescent is well-known. We’ve built varietal recognition that I don’t think existed years ago. To be fair, you can go buy good wine from Italy, Spain, Chile, France or California and you’re going to pay the same price or even less, so if you’re going to pay the extra to support Minnesota, you’re going to want your money’s worth.“What we’re all about is promoting quality through competition. Hopefully the best wines are being awarded, the cream is rising to the top, and best wineries will thrive.”More at: http://www.minnesotauncorked.com/international-cold-climate-wine-competition/
