Connoisseurs Prepare For Wine Competition
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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowThe event billed as the largest scientifically-organized and independent wine competition in the country is set for next week at Purdue University. This year's Indy International Wine Competition will feature over 2,000 entries from more than a dozen countries and nearly every state in the U.S. July 24, 2014
News Release
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – The Indy International Wine Competition will return to the Purdue University campus July 30-Aug. 1, with a new award recognizing an outstanding small winery in Indiana.
The event, the nation's largest scientifically organized and independent wine competition, annually receives more than 2,000 entries from 15 countries and 40 U.S. states. It also attracts wine writers, winemakers, winegrowers, enologists, chefs and sommeliers, wine distributors and retailers, and consumers.
The competition, organized for the 23rd time by the Purdue Wine Grape Team, will take place in the Purdue Memorial Union ballrooms off State Street. The public can observe the judging from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. each day. Also open to the public for viewing is the Wine of the Year taste-off from 11 a.m. to noon on Aug. 1.
Major trophies include Wine of the Year, White Wine of the Year, Red Wine of the Year, Sparkling Wine of the Year, Ros? Wine of the Year, Dessert Wine of the Year, Winery of the Year, Winemaker of the Year and the Governor's Cup for winningest Indiana winery.
Added to that list this year is Indiana Farm Winery of the Year, an award that honors a small, up-and-coming winery. Purdue wine professor Christian Butzke, chairman and chief judge of the competition, noted that there are now more than 75 wineries in Indiana, most of them small, family businesses.
Any proceeds from the competition support graduate students in Purdue's enology lab.
“It's one way we support our wine research here at Purdue,” said Butzke, an enologist. “Proceeds go toward research, which, in turn, helps the wineries make better wines. So it goes full circle.”
The Purdue Wine Grape Team also will be at the Indiana State Fair, which for the first time will offer wine tastings. The fair runs Aug. 1-17 at the state fairgrounds in Indianapolis.
“That' s a reflection of how important the wine industry as part of agriculture has become in Indiana,” Butzke said.
Results from the wine competition serve as a buying guide for consumers. They will be published Aug. 1 soon after the taste-off at http://www.indyinternational.org.
Source: Purdue University