Montefalco Wine Consortium: 2015 Blogger Contest

Fancy traveling to the medieval town of Montefalco, the heart of Sagrantino production this Fall?    

Umbria is an island in the beautiful sea of Italy.  The only region in this country not bordered by coastline or another country, Umbria’s landscape is dotted with agricultural horizons, rare Etruscan relics that relay a sophisticated pre-Roman civilization, and walled cities that house currents of modernity that ebb and flow within the historical underpinnings of the region.

The Umbria region in central Italy is greatly surpassed in volume wine production by its neighbor to the northeast, Tuscany.  But the character of Umbria rivals the best the country has to offer.  Like the sturdy, indigenous grape variety Sagrantino, that dates back thousands of years surrounding the village of Montefalco, this region has a homegrown sense of place that is authentically….Umbrian.

 The Sagrantino grape variety is in a continued renaissance as a high performing and age worthy grape variety from Umbria.  It contributes 100% to the Montefalco Sagrantino DOCG wines and 10-15%, by law, in Montefalco Rosso DOC wines. The Consorzio Montefalco, an organization of wine producers that formed in 1981 to promote quality and visibility of the Sagrantino grape, aims to nurture this renaissance at the 2015 Wine Bloggers Conference with the “Discover Sagrantino, Umbria’s Signature Wine” whose aim is to bring one lucky winner to Italy’s “green heart” of Umbria and to the center of Sagrantino production:  the walled, medieval hamlet of Montefalco.

DETAILS OF THE CONTEST

Overview:

Twitter entries accepted through midnight EST on June 30.  14 finalists will be selected and will be shipped two bottles of Montefalco wines (1 Montefalco Sagrantino DOCG, 1 Montefalco Rosso DOC).  The 14 finalists then have until July 30 to publish a blog post.  One winner will be announced via a blog post on the Wine Bloggers Conference website on Friday, August 7.  This contest is open to all Citizen Bloggers in the United States.

1^st Phase – Twitter Contest

• Bloggers have between now and June 30 to publish tweets to enter the Consorzio Montefalco contest.
• 14 bloggers will be chosen from the tweets that are published on Twitter.
• To participate, bloggers must:
  • follow @ConsSagrantino on Twitter (so you can be DM’d if you are a finalist!)
  • publish a tweet or tweets that include @ConsSagrantino and the #WBC15 hashtag.
  • originality, authentication about Sagrantino and the Montefalco region, and imagery is encouraged.  You are entered to win with just one tweet although multiple tweets are encouraged.
• 14 contest finalists will be selected by June 30 and contacted via DM on Twitter.

2^nd Phase – Wine Shipment

• Consorzio Montefalco will confirm if the finalists are willing to accept wine samples and if so, will ship two bottles of wine directly to all finalists.
• Finalists must communicate in their finished blog posts that they received wine samples from the Consorzio in order to meet legal requirements.

3^rd Phase – Blog Post

• The finalists will have until July 30 to publish their blog post submission on their own blog.  Bloggers may choose to write about one or both of the wines.
• Finalists must also email montefalco@colangelopr.com to formally submit their blog post for consideration in the contest.
• The Consorzio Montefalco will choose one winner from the 14 published blog posts and will announce the winner on Friday, August 7 via the WBC website. The winning blog post is determined by a number of factors including, but not limited to:
  • written quality and ability to effectively and factually communicate about Sagrantino and the Montefalco area.

4^th Phase – Traveling to Montefalco!

• The winner will receive an all-expenses paid trip from their home in the U.S. to Montefalco, Italy for a three-day/three-night tour.  These three-days include visits to seven wineries in the region.
• The winner may travel AS SOON AS September or October, 2015 and must travel anytime before October 31, 2015.

Thank you, Montefalco Wine Consortium for organizing the opportunity to dive deep into wines from the Montefalco region of Umbria!