American Wine Reviewers: Oregon Wine Experience 2018 Competition

Oregon wine experience 2018 best of show round

Getting serious during the OWE 2018 Best of Show judging round

The results of the 2018 Oregon Wine Experience Competition are in and have recently been announced, and since I was more-or-less directly responsible for said results, I thought that I’d share some of them with you all here.

Before I do, however… a couple of thoughts/insights/dime-store-philosphocal-treatise on the experience of the OW Experience:

Wildfires suck; we hardly saw a clear, smoke-free day during the competition, and while the ever-present used-fireplace smell is somewhat pleasant, the destruction behind it all certainly isn’t anything short of tragic, and major props are due to the firefighters who shared my flights into and out of Medford for their difficult, tireless work in fighting the recent blazes.
There’s (much) more to Oregon than Willamette Valley. Duh. Southern Oregon is a lot smaller in volume, less developed in both land and sense of place, warmer in climate, and diverse in potential vinous offerings than its more famous northern wine AVA siblings. What should have wine geeks excited and giddy is that the premium fine wine scene in S. OR is really just getting its groove on, and the results are ridiculously promising already. The fact that the region is probably among the top ten most beautiful wine country settings in the world is just icing on the cake. To wit…
You’ll see a lot more coverage of some key S. OR producers here over the coming weeks, because I found their stories – and their development in wine quality – quite compelling. More to come.

Anyway, here are some of the wines that wowed our judging panels at the 2018 OWE Competition…

Best of Show Red: Old 99 Cellars, 2014 TEMPRANILLO [ Editor’s note: good luck finding it, though :-( ]
Best of Show White: Awen Winecraft, 2017 VIOGNIER
Best of Show Specialty category: Quady North, 2017 GSM ROSÉ [ Editor’s note: the Quady winemaking team kicked total ass in this year’s comp., and are responsible for a number of the medal-winning wines; just sayin’. ]