The Wine Battles is the world’s largest (and most fun) wine competition! Sixteen wines enter and only one can emerge the champion. Each Friday at 6:30pm Pacific, members open, decant and rate two wines ? the scores come in real time and members are encouraged to share their findings. For 13 weeks the wines compete in a peer to peer competition bracketed competition, similar to World Cup Soccer or Madness, until one emerges victorious.
All I have to say about Wine Battles is, where have you been all my life? Okay, only the past six years, but still, that’s six long years of swigging back wines all willy nilly with my husband and best friend! Instead, we could have been tasting, enjoying, and arguing over which wine is better.
Whether you consider yourself a wine newbie, aficionado, or some where in-between, Wine Battles is the perfect way to experience the complex and delicious beverage. I jumped into an already on-going battle between the Core Wine Hard Core 2007 and the Marilyn Remark OSP Monterey 2009. Both of these reds were winners from previous rounds.
I knew the perfect time to uncork our Wine Battle experience, a trip to the beach with my family and best friend’s family. To purge our gloom of the cold, rainy weather, we unsealed the very official letter in the picture above (all the instructions, guidelines, scoring cards, and blips on both wines) and dove into the game.
The object is to taste and compare the competing wines side by side while exploring their nuances. A couple of rating sheets are provided and each tasting should have at least two battlers! You could battle men against the women, or my favorite, the newbs against the connoisseurs! When the battlers are chosen, make sure you have the following ready to go:
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Select the correct Battle Pack that corresponds to the current week’s match-up
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Uncork both wines and decant (optional) (Also optional, quoting How I Met Your Mother at this point: “The wine has to breath!”)
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Elect a Battle Sommelier
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Have two glasses per battler ready to go.
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When you’re ready to taste, have the Battle Sommelier do their job!
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Rate the wines on four constructs (Aroma & Bouquet, Body, Acidity, and Sweetness)
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Have fun
We had a little too much fun battling the wines against each other, but, that’s what it’s really all about! Just like the Madness going on right now, you could find yourself filling out a Wine Bracket and rooting for your favorite wine to make it to the next round (hands down the Hard Core won at the beach, just fyi!) week after week! It’s the perfect way to find a new favorite wine you may have not thought to purchase before!
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Buy It
You can purchase wine bottles individually or an upcoming Wine Battle here; prices vary
