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Great Northwest Invitational Wine Competition
Great Northwest Wine conducts a one-of-a-kind wine competition each October. It’s called The Great Northwest Invitational Wine Competition, and the 2020 judging was staged Oct. 7-8 at the historic Columbia Gorge Hotel in Hood River, Ore.
- See the 2020 results
- See the 2019 results
- See the 2018 results
- See the 2017 results.
- See the 2016 results.
- See the 2015 results.
- See the 2014 results.
- See the 2013 results.
Here’s how it works:
- We invite influential wine professionals to join us in this competition. (The panel size has been reduced this year in order to achieve social distancing and safety for the backroom team and judges as we work in the hotel’s historic Benson Ballroom.)
- Judges nominate as many as 120 Pacific Northwest wines to be invited.
- The panel then evaluates the wines in a blind competition.
This year’s nominating judges included:
- Amberleigh Brownson is the wine buyer and director of operations for Leader Block Wine Co. & Eatery in Ferndale, Wash.
- Kathy Byrd oversees distributor management and sales for Real Wine Alliance in Woodinville, Wash.
- Deb J. Carter is executive director of the Walter Clore Wine & Culinary Center, Prosser, Wash.
- Ilene Dudunake owns A New Vintage Wine Shop near Boise, Idaho. (Read her profile in the Idaho Statesman.)
- Clinton Hoiland is owner/operator of Twisted Vine Wine Tours, Lewiston, Idaho, and works Northern Idaho on- and off-premise sales for Idaho Wine Merchant.
- Ellen Landis is a certified sommelier, wine journalist and renowned international wine judge based in St. Petersburg, Fla.
- Sophia McDonald Bennett is a journalist based in Eugene, Ore., who contributes to SevenFifty Daily.
- Tim Norris is proprietor of Eyes on the Vine wine services in Kent, Wash. (He is an alumni of Wine Press Northwest magazine’s Match Maker series during his days as GM of Reds Wine Bar.)
- Katelyn Peil is beverage director of the Seattle-based Heavy Restaurant Group.
- Sara Wicks is the owner and wine buyer of Vin Wine Bar and Cellar in Moscow, Idaho.
Chief judges for the 2020 Invite were Kristine Bono, general manager of Tertulia Cellars in Walla Walla, Wash., and Dana Van Nest, a writer and communications strategist as well as a student of the Northwest Wine Academy at South Seattle College.