Henscratch Farms Receives Awards At Wine Competition

LAKE PLACID - Henscratch Farms Vineyard & Winery of Lake Placid participated in the Wines of the South 2007 competition.

Wines of the South is an annual regional wine competition designed to promote and celebrate the great tastes of Southern vintages. The competition was strong with 72 wineries and 411 wine submissions.

For the past 20 years, the Tennessee Farm Winegrowers Association has held a wine competition that is open to wineries in the 13 states contiguous to Tennessee. The "Wines of the South" competition provides southern wineries with a unique venue in which they can compare, compete and promote "Southern Vintages."

Bill Morris, professor of food sciences at the University of Tennessee, is the competition chairman coordinating judging, wine entries, tastings, scoring and medals. Experienced professionals from around the region judge the entries. All wines are judged blind, and ranked with the industry standard 20-point scale.

Henscratch Farms, Florida's 12th winery located in Lake Placid, is the recipient of the Concordance Gold Medal for its Country White Scuppernong wine along with the "Best of Southern White Wines." Concordance Gold, often times referred to as Double Gold, is awarded when all the judges agree that a particular wine deserves a gold medal. A unanimous decision represents outstanding wine quality with in the category. Next, those wines awarded the concordance gold are narrowed to a "Best Of Category" to receive the highest competition honors.

Also received were silver medals for the Country Blueberry Wine and the Golden Sunrise Scuppernong wine. Florida has 15 Florida Farm Wineries licensed by the Division of Alcohol and Tobacco and certified by the Department of Agriculture.

All of these varieties of wine are produced from fruit grown on the 20-acre u-pick berry farm and winery. The winery will produce 4,100 gallons of wine this year. All the wine is sold directly from the farm.

Tours of the farm and winery, and complimentary tasting are offered during Henscratch business hours of Tuesday through Saturday 10 a.m. - 5 p.m. and Sunday from noon - 4 p.m.

For more information, contact Henscratch Farms Winery at 699-2060 or go to www.henscratchfarms.com