Eligibility Requirements:

1. Wineries are members in good standing of the Okanagan Wine Festivals (OWFS) Society and must be based in British Columbia
2. The wine is labeled and bottled and have a UPC.
3. Table wines have an inventory of 50 cases at time of entry & 5 cases at time of the start of the Okanagan Spring Wine Festival.
4. Specialty wines have an inventory of 25 cases at time of entry & 2 cases at time of the start of the Okanagan Spring Wine Festival.
5. Wine must be made from 100% BC grown grapes, or 100% BC grown fruit
6. There are no restrictions on the vintage that a winery can enter but each winery can only enter a maximum of two wines per category.
7. Only wines not eligible for another Varietal category may be entered in the white/red single varietal category.
8. A varietal category must have a minimum of 5 entries from different wineries before a category can become official. If a member has submitted a wine to a category that does not meet the minimum, the member will be advised and the wine shall be entered into the White Single Varietals or Red Single Varietals category.
9. No new categories will be added after the entry forms have been sent out.
10. If a wine entered wins a Best of Varietal category (in previous competitions), that particular vintage may not be entered again into this competition.
11. The Judging will be held in the latter part of April each year.
12. The judges will continue to be the winemakers and qualified tasters from the Okanagan wine industry. The entry forms will be altered to request each winery to submit a name of a qualified winemaker or experienced taster as a judge of the Best of Varietal
13. Each category will have one overall winner while 20% of the entries in each category will be awarded Best of Varietal Finalist. For example, if we have 5 entries in a category, one wine will be the overall winner while one other wine would be a finalist. If there were 15 entries, one wine would be the overall winner and there would be 3 other wines as finalists.
14. Two bottles plus an Entry Fee of $84.00 (gst incl) per wine entered must accompany each wine entered. No entries will be allowed without full payment.

Entry Forms & Payment must be sent to and received no later than Thursday, April 9, 2010,
payment may be made via credit card or cheque:
Okanagan Wine Festivals Society
1527 Ellis Street,
Kelowna, B.C., V1Y 2A7
Ph: 250.861.6654
Fx: 250.861.3942

Important Note:

All samples of wines entered must be submitted between Monday April 19 - Tuesday April 20, 2010 directly to:
Attn: Okanagan Spring Wine Festival Judging
c/o Penticton Ramada Inn & Suites,
1050 Eckhardt Ave West
Penticton, BC V2A 2C3

2 bottles of each wine entered must be shipped and delivered to the Penticton Ramada Inn & Suites, Penticton with delivery dates of Monday April 19 & Tuesday Apr 20, 2010… note if you will be unable to deliver the wine during this delivery week you must advise our office to make other arrangements:
ph: 250.861.6654 or or info@thewinefestivals.com

The genesis of the Best of Varietal Competition was to provide a boost to new releases each Spring by providing a more consumer oriented judging competition whereby consumers could learn what are the "best" wines each Spring across the major varietals. We also tested out the idea of inviting our member wineries to act as judges and this was viewed as both educational and a good way for the judging competition to be run over a day rather than 2-3 days which would be required if we used the format for judging in the Fall. I want to re-iterate that all member wineries are invited to participate in the judging - without the support of wineries, the judging could not occur.

With respect to rules of entry, all wines must be bottled, have at least 50 cases available except for specialty wines. Multiple vintages and multiple entries are allowed where wineries have more than one brand name in a given category. Unlike other competitions where there are multiple medals in each category, only twenty percent of entries receive awards in each varietal. We also have employed a check system whereby the scoring drops the highest and lowest score for each wine so that no one judge has undue influence on the results. If there is a tie in scores we use ordinals to determine the winner.

The Best of Varietal Spring Judging will continue to grow as part of our integrated marketing of our members' wines. If any of you have constructive suggestions as to how to improve the Best of Varietal Judging, please pass them along.

Yours very truly,
The Okanagan Wine Festivals