Quality Wine Alliance Program

In a recent article in the New York Times entitled "What's Red and White And Made in New Jersey?", wine writer Kevin M. Atticks stated "These days, if you go into a wine shop and blindly grab a California wine, your chances of getting something mildly unpleasant are greater than if you pick up a wine from New Jersey."

This is because New Jersey, like Italy and France, instituted a quality wine alliance program in 1999. The program, called QWA for short, insures that all wines sold to consumers meet set quality standards.

New Jersey wines must pass a rigorous review process before they earn the coveted QWA designation. Wines submitted to the prestigious New Jersey Commercial Wine competition are reviewed by an independent review board consisting of certified wine judges, wine editors, wine distributors, liquor store owners, and experienced wine reviewers. Each wine is sampled to judge its quality. Wines that meet or exceed the rigorous review process are awarded the QWA designation.

To help consumers determine which New Jersey wines have met these high quality standards, a QWA label is now being added to the bottles of wines that have passed this review process.

Image Provided by Natali Vineyard