Who could have imagined that a small band of 16 like-minded, wine-loving people getting together 48 years ago could grow the largest competition of California-only wines in the world?

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