What is the BOA Evaluation Program all about?

BOA is a new kind of wine evaluation system, which is carefully designed to identify, appreciate and reward regionality in wines. The evaluation process follows from the proposition that...

Central to the evaluation process is a close and objective look at the terroir and technological practices (both viticultural and vinicultural) that lay behind the character and quality of the region's wines, individually and collectively. The ultimate aim of the program is to raise appellation consciousness and celebrate regional diversity as a means of enriching the North American wine culture and expanding the market. To download a detailed brochure on the Program, click here: http://wine.appellationamerica.com/docs/About-BOA-program.pdf

Is BOA another wine competition?

Not really. While the BOA offers participating wineries some of the rewards of a wine competition (medals, good press, etc.), the Program is specifically designed as an exploration of the character of the appellation, rather than as a competition among its wines. The wines are tasted with, not against, their regional peers with the aim of identifying the evolving themes of positive commonality and variation in regional character.

When do/can I send in my wines for evaluation?

Appellation America welcomes submission of wines for the BOA Program at any time, on the winery's initiative. It is this winery-initiated flow of wines into the Program that drives the scheduling of BOA tastings in our Napa and Canadian offices. Generally speaking, the sooner the winery gets its wines into the Program, the sooner they will be put into an appropriate tasting flight for assessment.

In situations where the flow of submissions of certain varieties from a particular appellation is insufficient to compose a representative tasting, Appellation America will issue a special call to wineries for those varieties before a scheduled tasting date. However, don't wait for the call and be left out as the awards are being made and your peers' wines are being advanced to the Best-of-Appellation Wine Lists. Take the initiative now, and submit any/all wines, which you feel merit Best-of-Appellation standing.

Does Appellation America now charge for reviewing wine?

Absolutely not! In the past, Appellation America's Regional Correspondents and Senior Editors recommended wines that appealed to their personal tastes. We will continue to publish these personal/subjective Recommendations, but only with wines which have been vetted through the BOA Evaluation Process, which is aimed at assessing the wine against objectively defined regional criteria. This is an expensive Program to run, and there is a modest evaluation fee (which, for the sake of comparison, is about half the average entry fee for most wine competitions). For details of how the wines are evaluated in the BOA channel, click here: http://wine.appellationamerica.com/about-the-best-of-appellation.aspx

I already sent wine in for review; what happens now?

Appellation America's Recommendation process has been subsumed in the BOA Evaluation Program. All incoming samples must now come through the BOA Program channel, with the detailed Product Information Forms. Having your wines positioned on the region-defining BOA Wine Lists will have far more powerful and lasting benefits, in terms of Winery Status Building/Maintaining and Marketing Reach, than a "one-off" review.

If review samples have already been shipped to us, please call the BOA Program Coordinator at 1-888-345-WINE (9463).