Award-winning Fresno State wines
After recently winning another Fresno Bee People’s Choice award, the Fresno State Winery added its first medals of the year at the San Francisco Chronicle International Wine Competition.
The student-made wines won one gold medal and three silver medals in the largest North American wine competition that evaluated nearly 5,700 wines from over 1,000 wineries.
Fresno State’s 2019 Chardonnay Carneros, a first edition made from Sonoma Valley grapes, received a gold medal.
The 2018 Presidents Reserve Barbera, grown from fruit from the 120-acre campus vineyard, received a silver medal.
Also receiving silver medals were the 2018 Alicante Bouschet, sourced grapes from the Papagni Wines vineyard near Madera, and the 2018 Sergeant Zinfandel, made from Amador County grapes.
Winery staff are equally proud of the fact that the fruit from the off-campus vineyards have strong ties to Viticulture and Enology Department alumni and supporters.
“The Chardonnay comes from a special area that has perfect soil and a unique microclimate near the ocean,” said campus winemaker Tom Montgomery. “It has a classic Chardonnay character and can easily be aged for another three to four years. The Amador County Zinfandel is a classic Sierra foothills wine from an area that is known as an epicenter for Zinfandel. We’re also equally proud of the Barbera and Alicante Bouschet that are a testament to the high-quality grapes that can thrive in the Central Valley.”
All four wines are currently available through the Fresno State Winery online store and in person at the Gibson Farm Market on campus.
The campus winery has won more than 300 awards since it became the first commercially-bonded on-campus winery in 1997. A list of recent winners is available at: https://fresnostate.edu/agf/winery/awards/index.html.
A complete list of San Francisco Chronicle competition awards is at: https://winejudging.com/medal_winners_2021/awards_by_winery.php.
Earlier this year, the winery also won its fifth top honor in the past seven years in the Fresno Bee People’s Choice poll. Other top distinctions came from 2015 through 2018.
