One really exciting thing that happened for us this year was entering our wines in the Indy International Wine Competition this past summer. Some say the "Indy" wine competition is the third largest in the country.  It says on the website its the largest. "Wait, what's that?" you say. Yes, that's right, it is one of largest competitions in the United States with over 3000 entries for the past several years. Over two & a half days of 60 people just sitting around & tasting wine... right here in little old Indiana!

I was honored to be one of the judges this year. I've been a judge for several years now & the final tasting for the Best of Show rarely has Indiana wines in it & has never had ours. In order to get into the final Best of Show tasting, the wine has to be awarded a double gold medal & be the only wine of that particular variety. A double gold happens when all judges on the panel award the wine a gold medal. That means all five people on the panel have to agree.  I think five people agreeing on anything is difficult, especially when it comes to wine. And, for the 6 years I've judged at the competition, I can count a total of maybe 7 or 8 double golds my panels have awarded. Suffice to say, it doesn't happen very often & when it does, the judges like to share the excitement with each other.  (It's fun being a judge. Every wine & judge is different, and each judge has their particular varietal & style preference. The challenging part is to judge the wines for how well they represent the varietal & how well they are made.)  The judges like it when they can come to an agreement! I think it's especially nice when you get to the final tasting of the show, where all the judges taste all the double gold wines & one of your panel's wines is on the table... that's pretty cool! Then you can say to your neighbor, "that wine was on our panel. What a great wine!"

It was the morning of the final day of judging. I thought our panel had tasted our Chambourcin Rosé on one of the previous days' flights. I wasn't sure, but it got a silver or bronze & it just didn't seem like it showed as well as I was hoping it would. It seemed a little off on the flavor, just not as full-flavored & fruity as I was used to it being, but the color was right. I was disappointed but not too much because I figured it had won a medal but then I wasn't 100% sure it was ours. It is so hard to tell if you are tasting one of your own wines. I don't want to know if I'm judging one of ours, but once in a blue moon it happens, when I will get a wine in a flight that is the right varietal & vintage date & residual sugar (this is the only information we are given) & I wonder if it's ours & then I evaluate it for what it is, next to all the other wines in the flight.

I went into the final day with little to no expectations of seeing our wine bottles lined up on the awards table. It is a beautiful table. All 6 of the Eagles... & all the other awards. Best overall wine, best red, best white, best rosé, best sparkling & best dessert, best Indiana grown fruit, best indiana grown varietal, etc etc.

The Pit Cru (the guys that do all the hard work) had all the wines divvied out (35 of them or so), the scoring sheets, sharpened pencils, spit cups, crackers, roast beef, cheese, all the judges need to taste & score the wines. They gave us directions on how the scoring would work... We started the tasting. I went through the list of wines. A chambourcin rosé was on the list. I looked at it. Smelled it. Tasted it. And immediately got goose bumps. It was very very close to ours. It was the right everything. And tasted just the way I remembered. I closed my eyes & took a deep breath.

It was killing me. The judging was taking forever. Each judge had to stand up for whatever wine they liked best in each category. They picked the winners for each category.  (We know just the wine entry numbers at this point.) The makers of the Best of Show wines were finally going to be announced...

They brought out the cart... Our Chambourcin Rosé bottle was on it! I was literally jumping in my seat! I had goosebumps & my ears were ringing so loud I almost didn't hear what they said when our wine was then awarded the Best Rosé of the Show! This is the first time an Indiana winery has won such an award. There were only five wines that competed for the overall Best of Show, and our Rosé was one of them!

Amazingly, I was there to see it & just have to say that it was the coolest thing I've ever experienced in the eleven years of working for our winery. It was such an honor & a real victory for little old Butler Winery. I turned to my neighbors & said, "that wine is ours! What a great wine!"  I had always wanted to see this happen but never thought I would.  Now we have one of the Eagles... & you can see it at the vineyard!