• Wine competition entries in 2023 included nearly 200 wines from all 6 New England States and New York.
• Require two bottles (750ml or equivalent) per entry compared to the average wine competition minimum of a half a case or higher.
• Entry fee of $40
• Judges from a variety of backgrounds sommeliers, educators, enologist, winemakers, writers, importers, retailers and industry consultants from throughout the East coast.
• Each wine is judged on its own merit, not by how it compares to other wines in the flight.
• While we recognize that wines go through various stages of quality development, each wine entered is judged for what it is at the time of judging, not what it might become in the future.
• Maintaining the integrity of the competition is of utmost priority, therefore, wines are blind judged in flights.
• Each wine is identified only by a computer-generated code number.
• All flights are staged in a climate control room and distributed to the judging room.
• Invited guest judges are comprised of restaurateurs interested in providing New England wines in their restaurants and we use the competition as an educational tool.
• All medal winners are displayed in the Farmers Market during The Big E exposing New England Wines to a potential audience of nearly 1.5 million Fairgoers.