If you are a wine importer or a wine distributor in the USA and if your focus is the on-premise sector, Sommeliers Choice Awards is the perfect platform to help you market your wines.

As restaurants open back from lockdown and as we serve the new consumer in this COVID phase, sommeliers and wine directors are going to look for brands with proven track records. Support from wineries to their on-premise customers will play a big role.

When you look at the US wine market today and especially as it bounces back from the lockdown, one thing is clear: there’s lots of noise when it comes to pitching your wine to a sommelier or a restaurant buyer. 

A huge variety of domestic and internationally-produced wine is clamoring for attention. And variety is the keyword: there’s California Chardonnay, for example, or natural wines from Greece; there are inky reds from the Barossa Valley and the fashionable breed of gluggable, strawberry-scented Beaujolais, to name just a few of the wine world’s many mouthwatering options. In truth, wine has never been so diverse and confusing.

Given the noise, how do you get the attention of savvy sommeliers? The best way is the Sommeliers Choice Awards (SCA). The SCA is specifically designed to recognize those wines that would make a compelling addition to any wine list, so it’s where sommeliers and wine buyers look first when they’re aiming to shake things up. Now is the perfect time to enter: special entry pricing ends on June 30, 2020.

The wines are judged in five categories: food parability, typicity, quality, value, and packaging. The judges ask: would I stock this wine, and is it good enough for customers to order a second glass? Wines are graded out of 100, with only those above 95 points winning the coveted Double Gold award. There are also category awards, with best in show given to white, red, sparkling, rose, and an overall winner every year, by the bottle and by the glass – reflecting how wine is presented in restaurants. If your wine deserves more attention, this is the best way to ensure you get it.

The key to the SCA’s credibility is the quality of the people doing the judging. They really know what they’re talking about. The awards are promoted through Beverage Trade Network’s variety of platforms, where it will be seen by tens of thousands of people. More than 50,000 trade professionals in the Beverage Trade Network’s community, plus articles on BTN News, Sommelier Business and Bevroute News. The news will also be sent out to 20,000 sommeliers and on-premise wine-buyers around the country. The top 100 wines are also then marketed under top 100 on-premise wines and the list is sent to more than 20,000 sommeliers and wine directors in the USA.

You can find key details on entry process here:

Key Dates:

Special Pricing Ends June 30, 2020 

Warehouse closes July 20, 2020

Judging: August 12, 2020

Winners Announced: August 31, 2020

Pricing:

$ 95 - Special Pricing, till June 30, 2020

$ 125 - Regular Pricing, July 1 to July 15, 2020  

$ 145- Late Pricing, July 16 to July 20, 2020

Visit Sommeliers Choice Awards to enter your wines before June 30 to save $30 per wine and ship your samples by July 20, 2020. The competition is set to take place on August 12, 2020 in San Francisco.