The USA Wine, Beer & Spirits Ratings competitions will be assessed and judged by a leading panel of top-level wine, spirits, and beer buyers with current direct commercial buying responsibility. Or consultants and experts who are also directly involved in the development of new spirits brands or buying spirits for commercial resale.

Three separate competitions (USA Wine Ratings, USA Spirits Ratings, and USA Beer Ratings) combine to form the USA Ratings competitions, spanning across Wine, Spirits, and Beer products. This is a wonderful opportunity for beverage brands to showcase products to the buying community in one of the leading trade-focused competitions in the USA.

Enter Wines  Enter Spirits  Enter Beer

The list of judges will be drawn from leading retail chains, wholesalers, distributors and on-trade groups across a variety of channels and disciplines including multiple retailing, convenience stores, cash and carries, specialist retailers, casual and fine dining, hospitality and the travel industry.

With that in mind, here’s a full listing of the judges of the USA Ratings event in San Francisco.

Wine Judges | Spirits Judges | Beer Judges

How The Scoring System Works

Each submission is assigned a unique submission reference number. The wines are to be assigned a score for quality and value on a blind-tasting basis. Following this, the wines will be brought to the judges and arranged together for the packaging score for that flight.

Quality Score (Q) + Value Score (V) + Package Score (P) = USA Wine Ratings Final Score.

Quality:

The USA Wine Ratings is not only about recognizing wines that achieve high quality scores, but you would struggle to drink more than a glass of. We want to celebrate wines that are both enjoyable and easy to drink. Wines that are well balanced, where their acidity, tannins and alcohol levels all work seamlessly together. That’s the quality factor.

Value for money:

You don't need to be the cheapest wine on the shelf to offer the best value for money. Far from it. A wine may have a high price tag, but can still offer great value providing it delivers the right quality and taste for a wine at that price point. The USA Wine Ratings will assess each wine for how much value it is offering its customers.

Package and Design:

This is arguably the most important part of a wine brand to get right. For, after all, what a wine brand looks like is how every consumer chooses the wine they want to drink with their eyes first. Up to 65% of consumers will try a new wine just because it looks good and if you can match that with a price and quality of wine that offers great value for money, then you are more than halfway home. The USA Wine Ratings will reward those brands that show they understand their customers, and the price category they are operating in, and have produced a design and package with the right personality to attract and keep their attention. 

Commercially relevant:

Crucially all the winners in the USA Wine Ratings will give future trade wine buyers, be they for a supermarket, specialist wine retailer, casual dining or upmarket restaurant, the re-assurance that these are wines that their customers want to buy.

A separate weighted score will be given for each of the parts of the judging process. The scores will be added up to give a final score from which individual prizes will be awarded.

What’s new for 2021?

In the forthcoming competition, Judges will also be entering tasting notes for each wine which will result in a unified tasting note that will be provided by USA Wine Ratings to the entrant in a way a sommelier would talk about the wine to its customer. 

Entrants will get score breakdown, tasting notes and shelf talker templates in their zones which will further help wine brands position their message and communicate to end consumers.

“We are very pleased with the first panel of judges that are planned for the 2021 USA Wine Ratings. Our aim is to not only provide more value to the wineries and wine brands that enter, but also support the hospitality industry and sommelier community in 2021 with our global drinks guides initiatives like Los Angeles Drinks Guide, New York Drinks Guide, Chicago Drinks Guide, San Francisco Drinks Guide, London Drinks Guide where top winners of the USA Wine Ratings will be promoted to drive brand awareness and foot traffic where these top wines will be sold.” - Sid Patel, CEO of USA Wine Ratings and Beverage Trade Network.

Benefits to Medal Winners

As a result of winning a medal at the 2021 USA Ratings, you will be able to:

1. Winners will be promoted and stories will be shared on Los Angeles Drinks Guide, New York Drinks Guide, San Francisco Drinks Guide, and Chicago Drinks Guide platforms to help promote the drinks and producers that win and the venues selling them.

2. Entrants will now get tasting notes, shelf talker templates with tasting notes, and scores when the 2021 results are announced.

3. Winners to get unparalleled global reach via the BTN network. See Winning Impact for further details.

4. Showing your package to the top influencers of the US on-trade market.

5. Get valuable feedback on how you scored on quality, value for money, and packaging.

6. Get featured in the SommelierBusiness.com which is the leading resource for US sommeliers and on-premise buyers.

7. Attract additional PR and media attention for award-winning wines

8. Winners will be promoted to 20,000+ sommeliers and wine directors of the US market.

KEY DATES

Final Deadline: June 30, 2021
Warehouse Deadline: July 5, 2021
Judging: July 26, 2021
Winners Announcement: August 10, 2021

Quantity Discount Now Available

4 to 9 entries: 10% discount
10 to 14 entries: 15% discount
15 or more entries: 20% discount

For more detail, visit www.usawineratings.com | www.usaspiritsratings.com | www.usabeerratings.com

Enter Wines  Enter Spirits  Enter Beer