by Andrew Chalk
[ED: MAJOR UPDATE on this story. See here]
When I heard that the New York International Wine Competition (NYIWC) was returning after a pandemic hiatus, my first reaction was happiness that another wine competition had made it through COVID. However, my Facebook post making the competition known to Texas winemakers met with an interesting response from one Texas winemaker. Andrew Snyder reported that his winery won a medal in a competition run by the same man, Adam Levy, and has never received it.
That winery, Chapel Creek Winery, won a Silver medal in the 2017 Asia International Wine Competition. Physical possession of the medal is very important to a winery’s sales. It can be put on display in their tasting room next to the winning wine. It can appear on advertisements with the wine. And it can appear in newspaper articles announcing the winery’s success, proudly brandished by the winery’s principles.
Not to mention that the entry fee, delivery fee, and cost of the bottles of entered wine exceed $200.
Snyder emailed Levy about the medal - several times. He called him - several times. He even met him face-to-face last year in Louisville at the American Distilling Institute Conference, where both parties had booths. Levy promised to send the medal, but never did so. Much to Snyder’s surprise, while he was exhibiting at the conference, three other wineries appeared who had also not received medals owed to them by Levy.
I contacted Levy at his NYIWC email address, one I would expect him to check frequently, but he had not replied as of press time.
If you ran a wine conference and had not sent a winner their medal, you would probably be embarrassed and send it as a top priority when the omission was pointed out. Adam Levy appears to feel no such obligation.
Until Chapel Creek Winery gets its medal it might be best for other wineries not to enter any of Adam Levy’s competitions. They may not get the medals the judges award them.