USCMAC Wine Tasting Contest Rules (revised for 2008)

1. Once again, the USCMAC Wine Tasting contest will be tasting RED wines. All varietals of (more or less) still red wine are acceptable. Although French and California wines are traditional, wines from other famous domestic (e.g. Silver Slipper Cabernet, Nevada) or foreign (e.g. Black Opal Shiraz, Australia) growing regions may be represented.
2. All entries should be contained in an approximately 750 ml. in size bottle.
2 (a). Bottles should be sealed with: 1) cork, 2) screw cap, or 3) pull-tab.
2 (b). Jugs, pails, leather bottila, gills, hogsheads, boxes, etc. are not allowed, as they are hard to fit into the paper bags.
3. The price of the entry may not exceed $25.00.
4. Up to one "entry" may be submitted by each contest participant. Participants are permitted, even encouraged, to bring "interesting vintages of any category for the pleasure of the other attendees". If you bring it, we will guzzle it down, but if does not meet the requirements specified in 1 to 3 above, it is not eligible for the prize described in 12. below.
5. Wines must be presented in a brown paper bag bearing the name of the submitter. The bag need not be tightly sealed. The bottle foil should be removed with cork or screw-cap left in. The bottles will be enrobed by the judging staff, a selected group of sober friends or spouses of USC alums, in a second brown paper bag bearing an identifying number and completely obscuring the noble lineage of the entry (including Trader Joe price sticker).
6. Opening of the bottles will be done carefully when dinner is about to be served. Knocking the top off the bottle with Tommy Trojan’s sword is NOT considered an acceptable method of carefully opening the bottles.
7. All contest participants are members of the judging panel. Each member of the judging will be provided with one and only one ballot, no matter how many bottles of wine they have brought.
8. Judges may not threaten other judges or gather and use the ballots of non-voting attendees in an attempt to "swing the vote." Such action shall result in the disqualification of the offending judge's entry. Bribery is allowed, but must be conducted in the presence of the other judges so that they may voice their displeasure, or better your offer.
9. Each member of the judging panel should taste each wine in the taste-off and rank them from "best" (a score of "1") to "worst" (a score of "N," where N is the number of wines submitted for tasting.
10. Following the tasting, the ballots will be gathered and tallied by one of the aforementioned sober friend or spouse. The scores of each wine shall be totaled across all ballots, and divided by the number of ballots having a score for that wine to generate an average score. That wine having the lowest average score shall be deemed the winner. Should a tie among two or more wines result, the wine with the most low (closest to "1") scores among the ballots shall be deemed the winner.
11. Upon completion of the scoring, the entry bottles will be disrobed, so that the judges and other attendees can decide who the winner is and see what wonderful wines they have been making nasty cracks about. The judges are not responsible for any emotional damage produced by snide comments concerning the depth, color, and ancestry of such offerings which may be made by contest participants.
12. The winner of the contest will receive a full credit for their individual admission fee to the picnic. All contest disputes will be resolved through consensus of selected non-alumni spouses and friends.