OC Fair Commercial Wine Competition
2022-06-04 - 2022-06-06 | Hilton Hotel, 3050 Bristol Street, Costa Mesa, CA, United States
The 46th OC Fair Commercial Wine Competition will be held June 4-5th at the Hilton Hotel in Costa Mesa.
The Orange County Wine Society and the OC Fair and Event Center sponsor the Competition which judges wines made only from grapes grown in California. There are no entry fees and the wines are judged by professional winemakers or winery principals. The wines are cataloged by varietal, price and sugar levels. In 2021, over 2400 wines were entered.
The wines will be available to purchase by the glass at the OC Fair in the Courtyard staffed by OCWS volunteers. This year’s Fair, “Feel the Sunshine”, begins Friday July 15th and runs through August 16th.
For more information on the 2022 Competition, contact info@winecompetition.com
Thank you to the Orange County Fair Board and Staff, the Judges and Volunteers for their participation in this year’s event.
OC Fair Commercial Wine Competition
88 Fair Drive
Costa Mesa, Ca 92626
714-708-1636

OC Fair Home Wine Competition
2022-06-12 | CA
The Orange County Wine Society, in conjunction with the OC Fair, has sponsored the OC Fair Home Wine Competition since 1976. This competition is open to all amateur home winemakers in California. It is one of the largest amateur home wine competitions in the USA. The judging is double blind and the scoring is based on a modified UC Davis 20 point scale. To ensure continuity in the valuation and scoring of the wines, we hold judging workshops prior to each year’s competition.
The winemakers who enter the competition do so not just for the bragging rights of the awards but also to get feedback from the judges. Judges have some discretion. Some wines have faults and some do not. If a judge marks a wine lower for a characteristic that can be corrected, the winemaker can then make an adjustment to his/her wine prior to finishing and bottling. That is probably the most valuable feedback for the competition entrants.
The competition is held in early June. Four Best of Show awards (for Red, White, Fruit and Dessert Wines) are announced the day of the competition with the remaining awards posted the next day. The medals will be mailed about 4-6 weeks later.
Labels are also judged during this competition. Awards are presented for Best of Show along with Gold, Silver, and Bronze in each label category.
The OCWS Winemakers group provides the management for the competition. This continues to be the largest annual activity for the Winemakers group.

OC Fair Commercial Wine Competition
2023-06-03 - 2023-06-04 | Hilton Hotel, 3050 Bristol Street, Costa Mesa, CA, United States

OC FAIR HOME WINEMAKERS COMPETITION
2023-06-10 08:00 - 17:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | OC Fair & Events Center, 88 Fair Dr, Costa Mesa, CA, 92626, United States

OC Fair Commercial Competition
2024-06-01 08:00 - 2024-06-02 17:00 | Hilton Hotel, 3050 Bristol Street, Costa Mesa, CA, United States
The OC Fair Commercial Wine Competition is one of the largest single events that the OCWS coordinates and runs each year. With an average of upwards of 2,500 wines being judged in any given year by a prestigious panel of 90 judges of the caliber of such well known winemakers as Steve Lohr, Carol Shelton, Joseph S. Franzia, Gary Eberle and Shauna Rosenblum, just to name a few, running of this competition is no small feat to accomplish. Success is directly attributed to the efforts of hundreds of volunteers. It is rewarding to be a part of the largest competition of California wines in the world. Sign up today to join in the fun and camaraderie and the knowledge that you are part of something of a magnitude unparalleled elsewhere!
Fran Gitsham – Commercial Competition Chair
Volunteer signups are available

OC Fair Home Wine Competition
2024-06-08 | Courtyard of the OC Fair Grounds, 88 Fair Dr., Costa Mesa, CA, 92626, United States
Hello to all of our OCWS Winemakers, and all of our Winemaker Wannabes and Friends! Our upcoming Home Wine Competition will be held on June 8th, 2024, and as with every year, we will be looking for volunteers to act as Stewards, support tasks, and even Judges. In return, the Cooks’ Caucus will provide a hot breakfast and lunch, wine tasting at the end of the event, and LOTS of FUN will be had by all!
If you would like to be involved with this year’s Home Wine Competition, please go to our website at https://ocws.org/home-wine-competition/ and watch for our 2024 update, or contact me at kevindonnelly@ocws.org. I look forward to seeing you all on June 8th!
Kevin Donnelly
Chairman, 2024 OC Fair Home Wine Competition

Commercial Wine Competition
2026-05-30 - 2026-05-31 | Hilton Hotel, 3050 Bristol Street, Costa Mesa, CA, United States
Save The Date
The 50th Annual OC Fair Commercial Wine Competition will be held May 30th and 31st, 2026 at the Hilton Hotel in Costa Mesa.
The Orange County Wine Society and the OC Fair and Event Center sponsor the largest California-only wine competition in the world. There are no entry fees and the wines are judged by professional winemakers or winery principals. Wines are cataloged by varietal, price and sugar levels.
Wines entered will be highlighted and available for tasting and purchase by the glass at The Wine Courtyard at the OC Fair staffed by OCWS volunteers. The 2026 OC Fair runs for 23 days, Wednesdays through Sundays, July 17th through August 16th, 2026.
For more information on the 2026 Competition, contact info@winecompetition.com.
OC Fair Commercial Wine Competition
88 Fair Drive
Costa Mesa, CA 92626
714-708-1636

Gearing Up for the 50th Anniversary Home Wine Competition
2026-06-06 | Courtyard of the OC Fair Grounds, 88 Fair Dr., Costa Mesa, CA, 92626, United States
Home Wine Competition Entry Tips
Winemakers, the entry deadline for the 50th annual OC Fair Home Wine Competition is May 22. New this year is a Best of Show Rose award to go with Best of Show awards for red, white, fruit and dessert wines. If you plan to submit wines, here are some things you can do to give them their best chance to show well.
Make sure you’re using sound winemaking practices. This means tasting regularly, topping off carboys or barrels and maintaining SO2 to prevent oxidation and spoilage. Oxidized wine is a common fault and it can happen to any wine. I’ve tasted commercial wines that suffered from oxidation, right out of the bottle.
If you haven’t bottled the wine yet, you’ll need to do it soon. Taste your wine before bottling to make sure there’s nothing wrong with it. Notice I said taste, not drink. As tempting as it is, don’t drink during bottling. It’s too easy to make a mistake or forget a critical step with a foggy mind. I celebrate with a cold beer after bottling.
When it comes to bottling, make sure that’s the only thing you’re doing on bottling day. Make any chemical additions or adjustments at least a week prior to bottling. This will allow enough time for those changes to integrate into the wine. If you’re making a blend, your blending components and their percentages should already be determined. You don’t want to be figuring out your blend at the last minute.
Resist the urge to submit anything that has just been bottled. Bottle shock is a real phenomenon. I’ve found my red wines need at least 30 to 45 days to recover after bottling.
Don’t skimp on packaging if you’re shipping your wine to the competition. You want your wine to get here safely after all your effort. You can also deliver submissions to the OCWS office, Monday through Friday during regular business hours. Competition wines are stored in a temperature-controlled environment after they’re received so you don’t have to worry about exposure to extreme temperatures.
If you’re entering the label competition, send an original label. It shows much better than a photocopy. Make sure the label is entered into its correct category. Sometimes labels have characteristics that might make it a worthy contender in more than one category, say both humorous and viticultural. In this case I recommend entering it into the category where it makes the better impression.
Finally, make sure you complete the entry form clearly and thoughtfully. Enter your wines into their correct categories. If you’re entering a specific varietal wine, say Zinfandel, make sure there is at least 75% of that varietal in the wine. Rose wines should be entered as such so they’re not judged against their red counterparts. Specify the grape’s AVA, if applicable, and vintage in the entry form “description” section.
If you’re entering a blend, be sure to specify the percentages of each blend component in the “description” section as well. Fruit wines should be entered into their appropriate category. Note the wine’s sweetness level and enter that into the appropriate category. All that information will be on the judges’ score sheets for their consideration.
I know a lot of this isn’t rocket science. But by putting care into your wine and thoughtfulness into the entry process beforehand, you can help them to show their best on competition day.
—Ed Reyes,
ed@OCWS.org
The OC Fair Home Wine Competition is Saturday, June 6 at the OC Fair and Event Center. To learn more about serving as a judge for the competition, contact John Lane at John@OCWS.org.
