New Clairvaux winery earns golden bears
At this year’s California State Fair Wine Competition, the oldest wine competition in the United States, one winery, New Clairvaux of Vina, walked away with three of the six coveted Golden Bear awards.
It is an incredible achievement for a double-blind competition, reported the winery, part of the historic New Clairvaux Abbey and Trappist-Cistercian Monastery.
New Clairvaux Vineyard started in 2000 and planted such grapes as Albariño. It took 24 years before their vineyard earned its first 99-point, Double Gold Albariño with a Best of California standing.
This year the vineyard, under a partnership with the Sunseri wine family and Aimee Sunseri, received a Golden Bear for a 99-point, Double Gold, Best of Show-White with their 2023 St. James Block Moschofilero, an aromatic Greek wine.
Ironically, they took the Best of Show-White last year and won their first Golden Bear, with another Greek varietal, Assyrtiko, making the Vina vineyard the first in the Americas to be growing both grapes.
Being a double-blind competition means the judges and controllers of the event had no idea who any of the wine-producers were and bottle labels belonged to. The event has its own computer program used for the intricate judging process of nearly 2,000 entrees.
Wines were grouped by similar categories, such as the varietal Albariño, a Spanish grape grown in many parts of California. The judges were then given up to 12 wines at a time, and they grade either no medal, bronze, silver or gold. If all three judges give the entry a gold, it is deemed Double Gold. All Double Gold entries in each varietal come back to be judged again to determine which one is the Best Albariño in California.
New Clairvaux earned a second Golden Bear in this year’s competition with their 2023 Poor Souls Block Barbera Rose that got a Best in Show-Pink, also 99-points, Double Gold.
In addition to these wines, the vineyard and winery earned four more 99-point scored wines, some were deemed Best of California, others Best of Region, but they all received Double Gold medals.
For so many high scoring wins, they won the ultimate achievement at this year’s competition with a third Golden Bear for “Golden State Winery of the Year”.
New Clairvaux Vineyard is the first Trappist-Cistercian Monastery in the Americas to grow, vinify and bottle its own wine. It was in 2000 that the Monks partnered with the Sunseri wine family, a fifth generation California winemaker. They produced the first New Clairvaux Vineyard wines in 2003 and Aimée wines from the Sunseri Vineyard in Napa in 2008.
