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San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition concludes today

By Andy Perdue on January 9, 2015

The San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition is held in Cloverdale, California.

The Cloverdale Citrus Fair in northern Sonoma County is home to the San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition – the largest judging of American wine. (Photo by Andy Perdue/Great Northwest Wine)

CLOVERDALE, Calif. – The San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition – the largest wine judging in North America – concludes today with the sweepstakes judging.

For the past three days, about 60 judges have evaluated more than 6,400 wines from 28 states. It is the largest judging of American wines, as well as the biggest competition held anywhere in North America.

Today, the judges will evaluate wines from all categories that were pushed forward to the sweepstakes round to determine best red, best white, best pink, best sparkling and best dessert wines.

Results of the San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition will be posted on SFGate.com and winejudging.com by midafternoon. Full results from the Pacific Northwest – including wines from Washington, Oregon and Idaho – will be posted on GreatNorthwestWine.com by midafternoon.

The competition is in its 30th year in operation. For the first 15 years, it was a regional judging known as the Cloverdale Citrus Fair Wine Competition. But 15 years ago, the judging was sponsored by the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper and has carried the name ever since.

It started as a regional competition, then became an all-California judging before growing a West Coast competition and subsequently a nationwide judging.

Each year, the San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition stages a public tasting at Fort Mason in San Francisco. This year, the public tasting is from 1:30 to 5 p.m. on Valentine’s Day — Feb. 14. Tickets are $65 in advance. They almost always sell out, so don’t count on buying a ticket at the door for $80.

In addition to the San Francisco Chronicle, other major sponsors of the competition include BevMo, Stella Artois and Whole Foods.

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About Andy Perdue

Andy Perdue is the editor and publisher of Great Northwest Wine. He is a third-generation journalist who has worked at newspapers since the mid-1980s and has been writing about wine since 1998. He co-founded Wine Press Northwest magazine with Eric Degerman and served as its editor-in-chief for 15 years. He is a frequent judge at international wine competitions. He is the author of "The Northwest Wine Guide: A Buyer's Handbook" (Sasquatch, 2003) and has contributed to four other books. He writes about wine for The Seattle Times. You can find him on Twitter and Google+.