The Sonoma County Harvest Fair is the largest regional wine competition in the United States. Any wine made with grapes grown in Sonoma County, with a Sonoma County designated AVA as the only region listed on the bottle is eligible for entry.

Best Of Class Winner – 2023 Sonoma County Harvest Fair 

Winemaker Notes: 

“I’ve been making Chardonnay for years for other wineries. This is the first time I’ve bottled one for Miro Cellars. Aromas of apple and lemon blossoms tempt the first sip. Flavors of ripe Granny Smith apple meld with pineapple and honeysuckle. The mouthfeel is satiny, buttery, yet crisp on the long and satisfying finish. This wine is bound to become one of your favorite Chardonnays. Only 350 cases produced.”

Alcohol: 14.2%

​The Competition:

After 34 years of conducting one of the nation’s most respected wine competitions, wine columnist/ journalist Dan Berger has changed the name of his former Riverside International Wine Competition.

In 2016, the event’s name changed to Dan Berger’s International Wine and Cider Competition which is now in its second year.

The list of twenty-four (24) internationally respected wine judges remains roughly the same, and the event’s carefully written rules — based on those created 50 years ago by Prof. Maynard Amerine at UC Davis — remain applicable and scientifically valid. As in the past, judges will evaluate with an eye to regional identity, using appellations to benefit both wineries and consumers.

The New Orleans International Wine Competition, in its second year in 2019, set a very high standard last year for evaluation and reward for wines from around the globe. Wines entered are placed into classes which describe their varietal components, their points of origin, their pricing, and their styles. No wine will be classified and compared to other wines that are not comparable to the entry.

Besides assuring the fairness of the evaluations and the competition among the wines, The New Orleans International Wine Awards has taken great care in selecting competent, experienced and knowledgeable professional judges. These men and women were chosen from among restaurateurs, winemakers, sommeliers, wine journalists, and wine industry personnel.

The Harvest Challenge is a wine competition that bases its judging on a group of vineyards (or even vines) from the same region, belonging to a specific appellation, and sharing the same type of soil, weather conditions, grapes and wine making savoir-faire, which contribute to give the specific personality to the wine.

In other competitions, this factor is ignored. At the Harvest Challenge, judges taste wines with other wines of the same appellation. Thus, with cross-regional competition removed, the inherent quality of wines can be seen without the influences that sometimes eclipse even a wine of very high quality.

Read more on the Harvest Challenge website…

The Sonoma County Harvest Fair is the largest regional wine competition in the United States. Any wine made with grapes grown in Sonoma County, with a Sonoma County designated AVA as the only region listed on the bottle is eligible for entry.

Our 2017 Miro Cellars Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon from Pine Mountain Vineyard received a Gold Medal in the 2019 Sonoma County Harvest Fair professional wine competition.