WINE COUNTRY: State wine win for Temecula Winery

Golden State Winery of the Year Awarded to South Coast

By NICOLE SACK - Staff Writer | Saturday, July 26, 2008 10:51 PM PDT ∞

WINE COUNTRY ---- A little golden bear may have just put the region on California's winemaking map.

Earlier this month, South Coast Winery received the coveted Golden State Winery of the Year Award at the California State Fair in Sacramento.

Competing in this year's commercial wine competition were 649 wineries that submitted roughly 2,900 wines to be judged. In the end, 5-year-old South Coast was recognized as having the best of the best.

The Golden Bear Trophy ---- a shining, 10-pound statue ---- is the pinnacle of California wine awards, given out annually to the winery that wins the top prize at the state fair. And one is now resting in the award cabinet at South Coast Winery.

"It's a pretty big deal," said Kate O'Neil, the agriculture events and exhibits supervisor for the California State Fair. "We host the largest wine tasting of award-winning wines in the world. We go through 25,000 glasses of wine during three days of judging."

In fact, the state's Web site calls it "the authentic granddaddy of American wine competitions." First held in 1855, it is by far the oldest wine competition limited to vitis vinifera grapes in America, and trade publications credit it as the premier competition in America through 1967.

"Best of Show is good," O'Neil said. "But the Golden State Winery award is very impressive."

And the California State Fair competition is unique. It is the only competition that requires all wines to be entered based on the viticultural area ---- known as an appellation ---- where the grapes are grown, not where the winery is located, O'Neil said.

One of the objectives of the state fair's competition is to increase the awareness of consumers throughout the world so they will be better informed about California appellations.

Jim Carter, the owner of South Coast, said his winery's winning the top award will bring attention to all vineyards and wine with the Temecula Valley appellation and that it only reinforces what many people in the region have argued for years: There is good wine here.

There are 30 wineries in Wine Country. Tomi Arbogast, executive director of the Temecula Valley Wine Growers, said it is projected that during the next five years an additional 20 wineries will open in the area.

Carter began his endeavors in Wine Country in the mid-1990s when he grew grapes at his 400-acre Wild Horse Peak Mountain Vineyard. He opened his 38-acre South Coast Winery and Resort in 2003.

That same year, winemaker Javier Flores and master winemaker Jon McPherson began working at Carter's winery. Flores and McPherson have been making wine together for the last 19 harvests.

"We can grow as good of a grape here in Temecula Wine Country as anywhere in else in California," Carter said. "And these two guys are making the best wine in California."

Flores and McPherson were in Sacramento on July 10 for the awards gala. While the judging for the wine competition takes place in June, the results are kept secret until the gala. While they had reason to believe their wines performed well, getting the golden bear was a surprise.

"I couldn't believe it," Flores said.

His colleague echoed that thought.

"This is a very elite crowd that has won this in the past," McPherson said. "And we got it in our fifth year."

The California State Fair determines the winner of the Golden State Winery of the Year as the winery that has the greatest number of wines winning the highest number of awards. A minimum of 10 wines must be entered by a winery to be eligible for this award.

The panel of judges presents medals for individual wines and assigns each wine a point value, measuring from 1 to 100. All wine glasses are labeled with secret codes, ensuring that judges vote blindly, not being influenced by labels, names, colors or even the shape of the bottle. The scores range from bronze, 82 to 87; silver 88 to 93; gold 94 to 97; and double gold 97 to 99 points.

South Coast Winery brought in 39 awards, including one best of state, one best of region, 12 best of class, one double-gold and five golds.

While the winery hopes to draw more interest to local wines, interest in wines from the state in general has been growing.

Nationally, sales of California wine continued to increase in 2007 to a record high 457 million gallons, up 2 percent over the previous year, according to the Wine Institute, a public policy advocacy association of California wineries.

According to state officials, the wine industry benefited California to the tune of $45.4 billion in 2004, including wine's impact on tourism, travel and numerous other ancillary industries.

Flores said that besides being the top wine-producing state, California is the fourth-largest producer of wine in the world behind France, Italy and Spain. He said the state is poised to be the top producer in the world as early as 2010.

A local winery winning the top prize could be a boon to Temecula's Wine Country.

"We're hoping this will call attention to this region," Flores said. "We're alive."

Contact staff writer Nicole Sack at (951) 676-4315, Ext. 2616, or nsack@californian.com.