By Fran Gitsham, Commercial Wine Competition Chair

Who could have imagined 50 years ago that, for the love of wine, the world’s largest California-only wine competition was being born? The OC Fair Commercial Wine Competition is now celebrating its golden anniversary. From the outside, the competition seems to run flawlessly, however, it is the workings behind the scenes that makes the competition a reality year after year and, unless you’ve volunteered for this amazingly, professionally run and labor-intensive event, you could have no idea what it takes. The fact that everything is done by volunteers is truly mindboggling and somewhat unbelievable.

The competition, which is the cornerstone of our organization and traditionally held the weekend following Memorial Day each year, is not technically completed until the last bottles are sorted and the awards medals are mailed toward the end of June. Initial planning actually begins for a competition three years prior with the hotel contract being negotiated and executed but, just barely two months after one year’s competition has been completed, the committee is in full swing for the next year.

The Commercial Competition Committee is comprised of 20 volunteers from the Chairperson, who heads the committee to the Director of Judges, who contacts and coordinates 90+ professional winemakers and winery principals to judge the competition, to the Facilities Coordinator who handles the rooms, meals and everything else hotel related, to the Tech and Data Entry Supervisor, who oversees data entry and equipment, to the Volunteer Coordinators, who schedule and direct almost 300 volunteers to the Judges Scoring Coordinator, and so on and so on. Amazed yet? No? Just keep reading.

How about a most vital role as Head of Cataloging who oversees upwards of 2,500 wine entries? That is not 2,500 bottles. It can be up to 15,000 bottles, as each entry consists of three to six bottles each. Then take into consideration the Bagging Coordinator, as the competition is a blind tasting, so the entries to be tasted must be bagged and labeled for pouring at the competition. Then everything that is done must be undone.  No sooner does the competition end, than a Steering Committee of five compiles all the information and confirms the awards results. This is followed by each and every entry being photographed for publication on our results website (www.WineCompetition.com) and mailing notifications to the award-winning wineries, followed by the medals.

The above does not even take into consideration the Judges’ Liaison, Sorting Coordinator, Label & Bottle Competition Coordinators, Computer System Admin, Photography Coordinator and Marketing Coordinator, as well as more statistics and positions.

The bottom line is that all of this is accomplished at the hands of dedicated volunteers whom without the Commercial Wine Competition and the OCWS overall would not be what it is today. Truly amazing!

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The 50^th annual Orange County Fair Commercial Wine Competition is fast approaching. This marquee event is put on by us, the Orange County Wine Society. The judging will be held May 30and 31 at the Costa Mesa Hilton. Many members volunteer for this huge event that will feature around 2,500 entries with about 100 wine professional judges in panels of five to taste the entries.

There are miles and miles of effort that goes into the logistics of this behemoth event. But the real magic is how all the entries show up in brown paper bags just in the right box and in the right order for the correct judging panel.

The footwork for this near impossible outcome is done by the cataloging crew, headed by Teri and John Lane with past crew chiefs Liz and Lloyd Corbett. The wineries enter their wines online and then ship the entries to the OCWS office. There is no fee to enter; the wineries only need to ship six bottles (yes, you counted right, that is 15,000 bottles of wine to deal with).

The cataloging crew labels each of the six bottles with the correct entry category and a letter A-F. This means, for example, they must know if the 80% Cabernet Sauvignon, 15% Merlot and 5% Malbec goes in as a Cabernet Sauvignon varietal or as a Meritage (this may take a telephone call to the winemaker to confirm their desired category). After the wines are labeled, they are sent to a correctly numbered and lettered box for temporary storage. The A and B boxes are the boxes for the Commercial Wine Competition. The A boxes are for serving the tastes to the judges and the B boxes are transported to the hotel to be available if a bottle has a fault such as a bad cork. Each year we use a handful of the B bottles.

All the boxes are double checked to confirm all the bottles are in the correct box. With the help of the Commercial Competition computer program, the pouring orders are set up with varietals and residual sugar content and new box labels are printed.

During the week before the competition volunteer crews place the 2,500 or so bottles into the labeled paper bags and get them into their final box that is labeled with the panel number and the day it will be served. On Friday, the 5,000 A and B bottles are transported to the hotel and end up on the correct steward table.

If you want to have some fun, meet other members and interesting wine makers and be amazed how it all comes together, volunteer for the 50^th annual Commercial Wine Competition.

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By the time you read this, the 2025 competition will have taken place, but the competition is not technically completed until the last bottles are sorted, the award medals are mailed, and the Double Gold and Best of Class plaques have been hand delivered. Planning for the next year then begins barely two months after completion of the prior competition. The hotel contract for 2025 was negotiated three years ago, with the 2026 and 2027 in place, and the 2028 contract having just been negotiated. The first of several communications to over 4,000 wineries will be sent in September for the 2026 competition. This is just the tip of the iceberg.

The Commercial Competition Committee is comprised of a number of people, from the Chairperson, who heads the committee, to the Director of Judges, who contacts and coordinates 90 professional winemakers and winery principals to judge the competition, to the facilities coordinator who handles the hotel and banquet arrangements, to the volunteer coordinator, who schedules and directs 300 volunteers over the course of the competition season, to the judges’ liaison, who provides the judges with competition information and is available to them the entire weekend, to the data entry room supervisor, who sees that all the judge’s results are entered into the software data base, and the scoring and verification lead, who oversees confirmation of every judge’s individual scoring. Impressed yet?

How about a most vital role, Head of Cataloging who, with her crew, oversaw 2,465 wine entries this year? No, that is not bottles, it is entries, which equates to no less than 12,000 to 15,000 individual bottles processed. Then there’s the bagging coordinator, as the competition is a double-blind tasting. 

And let’s not forget that the wines and all equipment are transported to and from the hotel, which is the responsibility of the move coordinator. There’s also a technology supervisor and major support staff, as well as the supervisor for the Wine Sort, which places the wines in the Courtyard Cellar and storage for use at The Courtyard at the OC Fair and the next year’s wine auction. And, let’s not forget the Label Competition coordinators, whose team handles that competition throughout the weekend and, last, but not least, the OCWS marketing committee who has brought exposure of the competition to new heights this year.

I could continue to bore you with more statistics, positions and a complete list of the players who, out of their passion for the OCWS and the goodness of their hearts, take lead roles but, suffice it to say, all of this is accomplished at the hands of hundreds of dedicated volunteers without whom the OC Fair Commercial Wine Competition would not be what it is today. Truly amazing!

–Fran Gitsham, OCWS Vice President

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We try to flexible and ask the same of our volunteers. We can work together to make this another fun event. There are many areas where volunteer help is needed, stewarding, glass washing, drying and bagging a few days before the event.

Continuing the efficiency, the computer room, scoring verification and medals mailing will be assigned. A sign-up form is included on the website that identifies stewarding days, bagging nights and other work parties with times and dates. To qualify for stewarding, you are required to sign up for two additional work parties. We offer bagging, moving of wine to and from the competition site and sorting post competition.

We need your support for our work parties to run a successful competition. The good news is that we have hired help for heavy lifting. No training is necessary as newer members will be teamed with competition veterans.

Carrying trays of glasses is required if you volunteer to steward. It’s physical and can get tiring. Along with stewarding, you need to be prepared to assist your steward captain by opening wine bottles at the required time, preparing glasses for tags and cleaning up the judges’ tables as needed, while listening to your captain for direction. We are expecting to have carts this year, more than we had last year, as we found this increased our effectiveness greatly.

It is imperative that the wines are NOT opened first thing in the morning as has happened in the past. We have been asked to have as much consistency in timing for the opening of the wines per flight, so all are open as close to the same time as possible. 

If you have any questions, please feel free to phone me at (562) 822-3382 or email at strompharms@earthlink.net.

We look forward to your participation in this very important event. Thank you.

—Robyn Strom, Volunteer Coordinator

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The 48^th annual Commercial Wine Competition was held on June 1-2 at the Hilton Hotel in Costa Mesa. The weekend found 88 professional winemakers and winery principals from throughout California judging 2,518 wines in the largest California-only wine competition in the world.

The high caliber of the wines was clearly evidenced by the awarding of 19 Best of Class designations, 147 Double Gold medals, 439 Gold medals, and a plethora of silver and bronze medals.

The Competition Committee worked tirelessly for nine months prior to the actual event to bring to fruition another unbelievably successful competition. Following are the committee members who put their hearts, sweat and tears into making the competition a reality:

Kevin Coy, Director of Judges

Bill Redding, Facilities Coordinator

Teri and John Lane, Head of Cataloging

Liz and Lloyd Corbett, Cataloging

Robyn and Dean Strom, Volunteer Coordinators

Rochelle Randel, Judges’ Liaison

Dave Stancil, Data Entry Supervisor

Marcy Ott, Scoring Verification Coordinator

George Ott, Move Coordinator

Dave White, Bagging

Greg Hagadorn, Sort Coordinator

George Cravens, Assist Extraordinaire

Carol Frank and Sam Puzzo, Label/Bottle Competition Coordinators

Carolyn Christian, Marketing

And the hundreds of volunteers who stewarded, staffed the kitchen, dried glasses, directed traffic, verified scores, input data entries, coordinated judges’ food, etc.

Each year I seem to marvel yet again at the dedication and cohesiveness of the hard-working committee members and volunteers. The competition is a living testament to what we can, and do, accomplish as a team. My heartfelt gratitude goes out to everyone who played any part in the success of the 2024 competition!

For competition results check out WineCompetition.com and look to enjoy some of the fruits of the labors of the winemakers who enter and support the competition and the OCWS.

—Fran Gitsham, 2024 OC Fair Commercial Wine Competition Chair

 Home competition wrapup

The 48^th annual Home Wine Competition was held on June 8 at the OC Fairgrounds Huntington Beach Building. Five-hundred and 21 wines were judged and 462 awards were handed out to 183 winemakers.

It is amazing how the overall quality of the wines get better and better every year, since our winemakers founded the OC Wine Society in 1976, and held our first competitions in 1977. Although home winemakers cannot sell their wines, we tell our judges to evaluate each home wine as if it had a retail value of $20.  Many of our wines would sell for far more, with some of them possibly even competing with wines selling for over $100.

This year, I am happy to announce our Best of Show winners in five categories:

Don Sowers, Newport Beach, Best of Show Red Wine, for his 2018 Cabernet Sauvignon
Adam Gomolin, Oakland, Best of Show White Wine, for his 2023 Chardonnay
Thad Rodgers, Auburn, Best of Show Dessert Wine, for his 2022 Merlot Port
Rochelle Randel, Huntington Beach, Best of Show Fruit Wine, for her 2024 Estate Lemon Wine
Chris Miller, Fallbrook, Best of Show Label, for his 2022 Cabernet Sauvignon label.

We had 78 judges taste the entries and were supported by 82 people who worked behind the scenes before, during, and after to support such a complicated event.

As in years past, our OC Wine Society Cooks’ Caucus provided a hot breakfast and lunch for our volunteers. Both were FABULOUS, and we want to thank the 12 people who started weeks ago preparing the menu, purchasing the supplies and starting out early in the morning to make our competition such an enjoyable event!

Thank you to all of you who helped us on competition day and the weeks before and after. And special thanks to our Home Wine Competition leadership group, including Stacey and Wendy Taylor, John and Teresa Lane, Ed Reyes, Cheryl Knapp and Lynda Edwards for their weeks of involvement.

Because of all of your contributions, we were able to, once again, provide the high-quality competition that we are so proud of.

—Kevin Donnelly, OC Fair Home Wine Competition Chair

Wine Defect Identification Workshop Wrap-Up

The first OCWS Wine Defect Identification Workshop was held on June 15 with nearly 40 people attending. This event was designed to compare the Faulted “A” bottle, identified by the OCWS Commercial Wine Competition judges against the Non-Faulted “B” bottle. Attendees had the opportunity to experience 42 different faulted wines and learn about the defects. Working in groups, lively discussion ensued as the blind tasting made the identification of the faulted wine challenging. To make the task more interesting, each group also had to identify the varietal of the wine.

The collective energy of the groups was stimulating for everyone, regardless of the attendee’s experience level. Several members of the Winemakers’ Group attended as did several new and long-time OCWS members, all seeking to improve their wine knowledge. Each group collectively evaluated seven different wines, then all participants were invited to sample any of the 42 wines. The feedback from the participants was very positive, with a strong recommendation to make this an annual event.

Thank you to OCWS members CL & Adrienne Keedy, Mary Ann Mayer, Carolyn and Damian Christian, and Ed Reyes, who helped me make this inaugural event a great success. We hope to see you all at next year’s workshop.

 —Don Mayer

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From that handful of passionate people and one small table at the very first competition, which had a whopping three varietals to be judged with a total of 49 entries, the OCWS continues to elevate the OC Fair Commercial Wine Competition, which now finds entries of upwards of 2,500 California commercial wines each year being judged by a distinguished panel of nearly 100 renowned California winemakers and winery principals.

One can only further envision just what it takes to successfully pull off the competition year after year. The event is overseen by the Commercial Competition Committee, which is comprised of a number of people from the chairperson, who heads the rest of the committee, to the cataloging coordinators who catalog and handle upwards of 15,000 bottles of wine. There is the director of judges, who coordinates all the judges and their activities and the facilities coordinator, who handles the hotel arrangements, room bookings and meals. There is also a judges’ liaison, the judges’ scoring coordinator, the data entry supervisory and the volunteer coordinators and the bagging, moving and sorting coordinators.

And, lest we forget, the more than 300 OCWS volunteers working each year doing all other jobs to make the competition more successful than the one before.

The competition itself isn’t, technically, complete until the results have been tabulated, medals awarded, remaining duplicate bottles sorted and photographed for publication and posted on our results website, winecompetition.com, and put to bed for further sorting for various purposes, such as pouring to the public at The Courtyard at the OC Fair and the annual Wine Auction.  And then, after just two months of taking deep breaths after the competition is completed, it all begins again in preparation for the next one.

If I have not provided enough information yet to have your heads spinning, I could continue to bore you with more statistics, positions and lists of people who, out of their passion for the OCWS, and the goodness of their hearts, take on all manners of positions.

This is truly just the beginning wherein you hear about volunteers running this organization. It is the hearts and minds of the OCWS members who bring everything we do to fruition in an amazingly competent and successful way.  All that can truly be said at the end of the day is that there is no organization, nor group of dedicated volunteers, anywhere that can rival the Orange County Wine Society!

Fran Gitsham, Chair, 2024 Commercial Wine Competition

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We understand that these are changing times and conditions; please be flexible and we can work together to make this another fun event. There are many areas where volunteer help is needed, stewarding, glass washing and drying. Continuing the efficiency, the computer input will be assigned.

A sign-up form is included on the website— ocws.org/2024-commercial-competition- volunteers/—that identifies stewarding days, two bagging nights and other work parties with times and dates. In order to qualify for stewarding, we need you to sign up for two additional work parties. We can offer bagging and moving of wine to and from the competition site, including sorting. We also will be assigning the ribbon mailing crew.

We definitely need your support for our work parties in order to run a successful competition. The good news is that we will have hired help for heavy lifting. No training is necessary as newer members will be teamed with competition veterans.

A quick check—if you volunteer to steward, it involves carrying trays of glasses. It’s physical and can get tiring. Along with stewarding, you need to be prepared to assist your steward captain by opening wine bottles, preparing glasses for tags, cleaning up the judges’ tables as needed and listening to your steward captain for direction. It’s really all about teamwork for this to be successful.

If you have any questions, please feel free to phone me at (562) 822-3382 or email strompharms@earthlink.net.

We look forward to your participation in this very important event.

—Robyn Strom,
OCWS Volunteer Coordinator

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