Since there's already a home meadmaking competition thread, I thought I'd start one for us commercial folk.
1. 4 bottles? Really? Some of my stuff is so rare even I don't have more than 2 bottles. My own fault, I know, but it's hard to part with this stuff. <sniff>
2. Where do we send it? When can we send it?
I'm sure there will be more, but I just thought I'd get this started.
Brad,
We need those bottles for a number of reasons including breakage during shipping, breakage during transportation to the site, breakage moving mead from point a to point B during the competition, a problem with the bottling (cork, cap seepage, leakage, contamination, infection, etc.).
Bear in mind that in year's past if you wanted to exhibit at the festival (which we are not having, this is just a competition) you would need to send a minimum of 2.5 CASES (not bottles) of your mead, and a minimum of at least 1 case if you wanted your mead to be poured at the fest and in the competition.
Also bear in mind that the fees for entry are drastically lower that in years past in order to garner more entries as well as to be reflective of the times and the meadmakers in the business who aren't yet fully established. Again, in years past the starting entry was a minimum of $300 just to get your mead in the door.
We think this is pretty reasonable. I'd also advise that just about every professional meadmaker we speak with has some very rare stuff. We have folks entering from Eastern Europe, Costa Rica, etc that are spending more money to enter and ship their mead than what they can reasonably charge for a case of their best and rarest. We were treated to a bottle of 40 year old Polish mead last year on the awards night that was stellar. I'd say that's pretty rare in and of itself.
Don't get me wrong, I've had some of your mead and it's excellent, and well worth saving and conserving, but . . . . the rules are there for a reason and this is how we can ensure that everyone gets a fair shake.
Hope you understand and see fit to enter.
The site is being updated with the shipping and entry fee information.
Pete