ADRIAN, Mich. – Adrian College is pleased to announce that three wines produced by students were awarded medals on May 21, 2011 at the annual WineMaker Magazine Wine Conference in Santa Barbara, California.
Students from Adrian College submitted wines produced as a part of the college’s “Exploring Wines and Vines” course taught by Dr. Paul Rupert, Assistant Professor and Chair of the Chemistry Department at Adrian College.
Medal winners were as follows:
- Gold Medal – Merlot Sam Costello and Tom Zimnicki
- Silver Medal – Zinfandel Luke Hamel and Debi Batey
- Bronze Medal – Chardonnay Brittany Trottier and Lauren Fabian
The WineMaker International Amateur Wine Competition is the largest competition of its kind in the world. 4,235 entries were submitted by non-professional winemakers living throughout North America and as far away as Spain, Norway, and Israel. The judging took place in Manchester, Vermont April 8-10, 2011. Over the course of three days, esteemed judging panels worked through 772 flights, examining each wine using the UC-Davis 20-point wine scale evaluating appearance, aroma, taste, aftertaste and overall impression.
“I am very pleased that our wines were judged as medal winners,” said Dr. Rupert, who accepted the medals on behalf of the class at the conference. “We were confident that the wines we submitted were very good but considered our chances of medaling to be small, given the number of entries and the winemaking experience and skills of the competitors.”
