Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Food & Drink

Do You Have What it Takes to Be on Team USA for Wine Tasting?

Sam Slaughter
By

Not everyone has the chance to be an Olympian. Try as you might, you probably won’t even be asked to audition for the team, never mind standing on the podium, a tear trickling down your cheek as “The Star-Spangled Banner” plays to a raucous, sold-out crowd that is busy cheering for you. There is a sport, though, that is about to have the preliminary round to determine the 2018 Team USA and anyone can apply to try out. That sport? Wine tasting.

The World Wine Tasting Championship is being held for the sixth time this year and for the fourth time, the U.S. is going to participate. But in order to participate, the country needs a team. To find that team, a blind tasting competition is being held. Cue “Eye of the Tiger” here.

Related Videos

Wine Acuity will be holding the U.S. Open Blind Wine Tasting Competition on August 11, 2018, at the Marina Del Rey Hotel in Marina Del Rey, California.

Wine Acuity

Teams of two will be asked to blind taste six white and six red wines from around the world. Teams will gain points by identifying primary grape, country of origin, region of origin, vintage, and producer. This mimics the finals, but halves the number of wines.

The winners will eventually represent the red, white, and blue at The World Wine Tasting Championship, which will be held on October 12, 2018, in Chateau Saint-Pierre de Serjac, Languedoc, France.

At last year’s contest, Sweden — yes, Sweden — came in first. Britain came in second while Luxembourg took home the bronze. The home team, France, came in (wait for it) eleventh out of 24 teams and the U.S. finished in the bottom half of the rankings. (France and the U..S, at least, did better than Italy, which came in last.)

The best finish for the U.S. was in 2016 when we placed third, a significant improvement upon the dead last placement in 2015.

The placements may seem like this is a pro-only event but CEO of Wine Acuity, John Vilja (who was part of the 2016 team), stressed that the blind tasting is open to anyone and that you don’t have to be a professional to enter. In fact, only one of the four members of the 2016 US team had any formal training.

“It is about being passionate for wine and having a desire to represent the U.S. in a world event,” Vilja said.

Basically, what do you have to lose? If you love wine and think you know about it more than your friends, it can’t hurt to enter a regional competition to check your skill level. Who knows, you might surprise yourself (and your parents, when you tell them you’re going to the U.S. Open Blind Wine Tasting Competition).

You can learn more about the regional competitions here. To register directly for the finals, go here.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Here’s how to make a margarita, according to top bartenders
The only margarita recipes you'll ever need
margarita tequila cocktail lime strainer

The best margaritas do not grow on trees, nor do they show up in a can (although there are some tasty canned drinks these days). No, the tastiest version of the tequila classic is made fresh, with love and care and some wisdom from a couple of top bartenders.

It's a balancing act, for sure, but when it's dialed-in, the margarita is one of the best and most refreshing cocktails ever devised. The classic mix of agave spirit, lime, salt, and a touch of sweetness is great alone or with any number of dishes, especially within Mexican cuisine (the nation where the drink was born).

Read more
Bubbly? Full-bodied and red? Zesty and white? Your favorite wine types, explained
All the primary types of wine (and everything you need to know about them)
Glasses of different kinds of wine

Trying to understand everything about wine all at once is an impossible endeavor. Wine is a beautifully complicated, ever-changing quiddity, and even the most decorated and prestigious wine experts in the world often find themselves confounded by its constant little surprises.
That isn't to say that, if you care to, you shouldn't become educated on the subject of wine. It's a hobby and a passion that's tremendously fun to pursue, and there's much to learn on the matter.
If you find yourself in the beginning stages of your wine education, just as in everything, you'll want to start with the basics. It's possible that up until now, you haven't put much thought into the several different kinds of wine there are, except for, say, red and white. But while there are obviously exceptions within every hard and fast rule, for the most part, wine can be broken down into roughly nine categories. Here we'll take a minute to break those categories down, explain what they mean, which wines fall into them, and, our favorite - how to drink those wines.

Sparkling wine

Read more
This St. Patrick’s Day, grab an Irish beer from one of these 5 craft breweries
Irish beer: Celebrate the luck of the Irish in the best tasting way possible this year
Group of happy friends drinking and toasting beer at brewery bar restaurant.

The annual celebration of St. Patrick’s Day comes with a few guarantees. Green t-shirts will be adorned with obnoxious sayings. Leprechauns will be blamed for causing mischief. And the dry Irish stout Guinness will be inescapable on tap, in bottles, and in cans from coast to coast.
Guinness is so synonymous with Ireland, it is practically the national beverage. However, this mindset overlooks the dozens of smaller craft breweries found throughout Ireland’s cities and townships, and dotted along its famously beautiful countryside. If you’re ever lucky enough to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day in Ireland, enjoy your token Guinness in the airport and then head out to experience one of these independent breweries for an Irish beer you haven't tasted yet.

Galway Bay Brewery
Ballybrit, County Galway

Read more