By OWEN MORRIS
I stopped by the Jefferson Cup Invitational yesterday. It's one of the premier wine judging competitions in the country, and it just happens to take place right here in Kansas City (at Starlight Theater this year). As luck would have it, I arrived just as the event's volunteers had finished serving judges and were now serving themselves.
"We've poured over 2,100 glasses of wine today and hardly broke anything," said Matt Nevinger, head of the volunteers and founder Doug Frost's right-hand man. "Just one glass I think," said a volunteer behind Nevinger and he quickly followed her line of thinking. "Yep, no broken bottles. No dropping of racks of glasses or dropping an entire case. This year we waited until we were done pouring for the judges before letting the volunteers drink and that makes a large difference."
The volunteers had been working since 9 a.m. to make sure that each of the judges -- all of whom sit in an adjacent room curtained off from the volunteers -- received the correct wine samples. Depending on which panel they were on, judges tasted 100 to 150 wines yesterday. (Compare that to wine-tasting novices, who are instructed to never sample more than six because it overwhelms their palates.)
As the competition's name suggests, each wine was from a winery that had been invited to participate. The Jefferson Cup is in its ninth year, though this was its first at Starlight. Every year, it's gotten a little bigger.
"In the wine industry, if you want to be more well known, the best way to promote yourself is in competitions... What makes this competition special is that these wines come from all over. Not just Napa Valley or France," said Jim Anderson, the executive director of Missouri Wines, which is a free-standing board in the Department of Agriculture.
He was obviously rooting for the Missouri wines competing, but said the overall event was about raising awareness across the country. "There's 5,000 wineries in the United States. At least one in all 50 states. Yet I travel to places in Arkansas where there are still dry counties. They're like 'We know this would be great to grow but we can't sell wine here.' If you're an adult who is of age and wants to drink some good wine and wine is made in your state, you should be able to."
Most of the the volunteers were no longer concerned with the state of the wine business as they were with trying as many samples as they could. Everyone I spoke to gave me a slightly different number on how many wines there were but it was a lot. The picture above shows fewer than half the wines that were corked and ready to be judged.
The judges' job yesterday was to whittle down the 700 or so bottles of wine to around 70 finalists. Those finalists are being judged this morning, and the results should be announced later today and tonight at the cup's premier cocktail event, called Wine Flight, at Starlight.
Wine Flight raises money for the charity Angel Flight and offers what organizers call "the rare opportunity to experience wines entered in The Jefferson Cup Invitational... giving guests the unique exposure to the best wines from nearly all 50 States in one evening."
The cost for Wine Flight is $150 but it all goes to Angel Flight. You can still find tickets here.
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