San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Veteran judges enjoy seeing how industry is evolving
It seems like such a glamorous adventure — being invited to be a judge at the largest wine competition in the United States. And it is indeed exciting for the more than 50 experts who participate, evaluating everything from many hundreds of Cabernet Sauvignons, to exotica like Southern Italian Fiano, hard ciders, meads, spritzers, nonalcoholic wines and even packaging and labels.
But it’s also a lot of work as each judge tastes between 90 and 110 wines per day and evaluates multiple batches in flights of a single varietal within a certain price point.
The judges volunteer their time, many traveling from North American wine regions coast-tocoast. They commit to an entire week of long days swirling and sniffing, sipping and swishing, scoring and working with their co-panelists in lively debates to agree on a final winner.
These judges are all wine experts in various fields, from media to sales to making their own fine wines, and each gains valuable takeaway knowledge about the ever-evolving industry from the exercise.
Plus, the effort is a noble cause. Great wines need to be celebrated, the judges believe, and get the critical recognition they deserve.
Some of the competition’s judges have participated for decades, others are new talents. Get an insider’s look from these longtime judges:
Jim Trezise President of WineAmerica
As a professional wine judge for more than 35 years, Jim Trezise is one of the competition’s very first judges, returning each year to lend his expertise. It is a substantial time commitment for him to travel from New York to Northern California to participate in the competition.
In fact, the toughest challenge, he said, is “getting there.
It takes a full day and multiple flights each way.”
But the effort is priceless to him, and he thinks competition results are especially important for helping boost the fluctuating wine industry now.
Trezise has been president of Wine America since 2017 after serving for more than 20 years on the executive committee of the organization’s board of directors. Based in Washington, D.C., WineAmerica is the only national wine association in the U.S. and its goal is to improve legislation regulating winemaking, sales and distribution
He also co-founded the New York Wine & Grape Foundation in 1985 and worked as its president for 35 years, plus created the International Riesling Foundation and received Australia’s International Wolf Blass Award for promotion of Riesling worldwide.
After all this time, he still counts Riesling as his favorite grape.
“That’s due to its variability — dry, medium dry, sweet, ice wine — and food friendliness,” he explained. “There are ‘cold-hardy Minnesota’ (hybrid) varieties like Brianna, LaCrescent, Frontenac and Marquette, for example, which
can withstand winter temperatures of minus 40 degrees and still make amazingly good wines. That allows our Earth to be more productive in regions once thought inhospitable to grapevines.”
This year, 68 Rieslings took home medals.
Still, with all Trezise’s expertise, he likes to suggest to everyday consumers that “The best wine is the wine you like best.”
Plus, he never gets tired of wine, he noted.
“Wine is a living marvel, a gift from the earth, liquid poetry, different with each year, every varietal and every winery,” he said. “It’s always evolving, and good competitions like SFCWC let us keep up with this ever-changing magical elixir.”
Laura Ness, aka “HerVineNess” Wine journalist and columnist
Based in Santa Cruz, Laura Ness writes about the wine industry in such publications as the San Jose Mercury News, Wine Industry Advisor, Edible Monterey Bay, the Tasting Panel and Somm Journal.
She started judging in 2001 and recalled, “it was such a thrill.” She immediately got hooked on the exploration.
“The wines were from all over the world, but most were from the Midwest and Northeast with all manner of fascinating grapes I had never heard of like Concord, Chambourcin, Niagara, Vignoles, Frontenac, Traminette and Vidal Blanc.”
These days, she judges more than a dozen competitions, mostly in California. And the thrill continues with her San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition experience.
“The Sweepstakes are truly amazing with a plethora of good wines from all over the country,” she said. “This year, we had lots of whites that weren’t from California, including Michigan, New York, Virginia, Texas and Arizona. One year, a Sauvignon Blanc from Mexico was the best white. Honestly, the category, “Other Whites,” is my favorite. I always discover something new.”
Mark Chandler Partner at Burlington Chandler Wines
When people call Mark Chandler “the Mayor of Lodi,” they’re not kidding. The Lodi native actually was mayor in 2016, 2019 and 2022, plus he served on the
Lodi City Council from 2014-2022 and for 20 years, he was CEO of the Lodi Winegrape Commission.
In between, he has found time to run his own winery with his wife, Jan Burlington Chandler, making wines for more than two decades. Today, he runs the California State Fair Commercial Wine Competition, and as he has since the mid-90s, judges at numerous other events, including every year since the first year the San Francisco Chronicle took over the competition in 2000.
After tasting more than a hundred wines in a single day, he sometimes feels the effort can get a bit “tedious,” he admitted, but he has never lost his love for it.
“Like most of the judges, wine is more than a beverage to me, it is a passion,” Chandler said. “It has afforded me a terrific career that has sustained me, where I have worked with marvelous people. It has brought me a lot of joy, and the opportunity to travel the world to learn of its various interpretations. To me, wine is infinitely entertaining. It is the most elegant intersection of culture and agriculture.”