Retired statistics professor Robert Hodgson has owned Fieldbrook Winery in northern California for 35 years. He collected data on scores wine competition judges gave the same wine tasted at different times at competitions and on scores wines received at different competitions.
“The second paper I wrote had to do with tracking wine through U.S. competitions. About 99 percent of the wines that get gold medals one place, get no award someplace else.
Several gold medal-winning wines were entered in five competitions. None of them got five golds. None of them got four golds. It’s amazing, the lack of consistency. I put together a study that showed these are the results you would get if this were a completely random process,” Hodgson told interviewer W. Blake Gray for a piece archived online at Wine-Searcher.
The gist of the reported analysis is that wine competition gold medals are nearly random and virtually unrepeatable.
Then there is this:
• NV McFadden Sparkling Brut – BEST OF SHOW – 2014 California State Fair Wine Competition
• 2009 McFadden Reserve Brut – GOLD MEDAL – 2014 Press Democrat North of the Coast Wine Competition
• NV McFadden Sparkling Brut – DOUBLE GOLD – 2014 San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition
• 2009 McFadden Reserve Brut – DOUBLE GOLD – 2014 San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition
• 2009 McFadden Reserve Brut – DOUBLE GOLD – 2013 Mendocino County Fair Wine Competition
• NV McFadden Sparkling Brut – DOUBLE GOLD – 2012 Mendocino County Fair Wine Competition
The June 15, 2014 issue of Wine Spectator magazine featured a list of 150 top sparkling wines for summer.
23 of the 150 sparkling wines were entered at the largest judging of American wines in the world, the 2014 San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition, where McFadden was the only bubbly producer to take two Double Gold (unanimous) medals for sparkling wines. Two of the 23 tied for Best of Show in Sparkling, and one of the 23 matched the two McFadden sparkling wines with a Double Gold, but fully 20 of 23 wines from Wine Spectator’s list of top sparkling wines failed to match the medal result of either of McFadden’s two Brut wines.
This only matters because the folks who defy the odds, the one verifiably repeatable Gold (or better) winning wine is McFadden’s Sparkling wine (and there are two to choose from) but Wine Spectator missed including the bubblies from this inland Mendocino producer for their list.
Recent invitations extended to Wine Spectator’s writer for our area to tasting events have received no reply, and the only previous reply from Wine Spectator to an event invite came a week after an event was over and was addressed to the wrong name. I do not think that inland Mendocino wineries, for the most part, receive much respect from much of the wine media.
By contrast, Wine Enthusiast magazine’s Virginie Boone has visited the farm, and included McFadden as an Editors’ Pick for Top Year End Bubblies and a Recommended Producer of Zinfandel. I had a chance to speak with the magazine’s Jim Gordon (who has tasted and rated three McFadden white wines 90 points and listed two as Editors’ Choice wines) and he told me he looks forward to visits to inland Mendocino County as part of his wine coverage.
I agree that repeated Gold Medals are rare, incredibly rare, but I have worked at two places where it happened regularly; first with Carol Shelton when she was the winemaker at Windsor Vineyards and now at McFadden with our bubblies. While I would love to have hosted, as our guest, the Wine Spectator writer at our farm for a recent dinner and wine tasting with the owner Guinness McFadden, we have a tasting room open daily – I’m in on weekdays – from 10-5 in the heart of downtown Hopland and offer complimentary tasting, and even if I can’t get wine writers to visit a place with such great wine, everyone is invited to come and taste excellence (Wine Spectator writers included).
John on Wine - a wine blog 