Legendary Racing Family Is En Route to Legendary Status in Wine!

(PRWEB) - The Foyt family is known for their legendary status in motorsports. Now they are serving notice to the wine industry!

The Foyt Family Wines2010 No. 77 Mt. Veeder Cabernet Sauvignon won the Double Gold Medal in the prestigious 2014 San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition (SFCWC). It is the second straight year that the eponymous wine won a Double Gold in the “Cabernet Sauvignon $60.00 & Over” category in the world’s largest competition of American wines.

“We were truly honored to win back-to-back Double Golds with our 2009 and 2010 vintages of the No. 77 -- and just a bit surprised -- when the 2014 results were released,” said Larry Foyt, the son of legendary race driver A.J. Foyt. “We named the No. 77 after my dad’s landmark year when he became the first driver to win the Indianapolis 500 four times in 1977,” said Foyt.

“That career-defining moment garnered him unprecedented international exposure as he was lauded as the world’s best Indy car driver. For our wine to take Double Gold medals two years in a row makes us feel that we’re following the same path as my dad but in the world of ultra-premium cabernet sauvignon wines,” said Foyt, who started the wine company five years ago with A.J. Foyt IV, grandson of the motorsports icon.

With over 5,800 entries in this year’s world renowned SFCWC, winning the Double Gold medal is a feat in itself. To win it for the second consecutive year is remarkable for the relatively young wine company as many of its competitors have been making wine for decades.
“We know our wine is great, however being classified as a ‘celebrity wine’ resulted in certain oenophiles considering us to be dilettantes,” said Managing Partner Chris Perry, who co-founded Foyt Family Wines along with the Foyts.

“To put it bluntly, we received little love from the industry and some experts frowned upon our efforts,” Perry revealed. “But now we’ve won a Double Gold two years in a row in the largest competition of U.S. wines in the world! Enough said.”

The SFCWC is conducted through a blind tasting by a panel of wine experts, which removes any bias – positive or negative– towards the winery. For the past two years the panel was comprised of 60 experts from the media, trade, hospitality and education sectors of the wine industry. To win a Double Gold medal in its category, a wine must receive the Gold vote from the entire five-member judging panel, making the vote unanimous.

The back-to-back Double Gold awards are further evidence that Foyt Family Wines wine grower Tom Meadowcroft is a world class wine grower, and our winemaker Petar Kirilov is a star in managing the consistency of our wine through his disciplined and creative approach to the winemaking process.