Couples planning for Valentine’s Day could have themselves quite a fancy evening dining solely on some local wine and cheese, which has been judged among the best in Pennsylvania.
Western Pennsylvania wine and cheesemakers once again came home with a good deal of accolades from the annual Pennsylvania Farm Show, held this month in Harrisburg.
“I brought eight wines, and they all ended up with medals,” said a happy Frank Mazzotta, owner of Mazzotta Winery in Richland.
Mazzotta’s boutique winery has made regular, multiple appearances on the farm show’s awards list the past few years.
“We do it the old-fashioned way, taking fruit, fermenting it and making it into wine,” he said. “There’s no additives, no flavor enhancers. It tastes like what it’s supposed to taste like — juice that’s alcoholic.”
Mazzotta’s 2024 peach wine earned not just a silver medal but a “best fruit wine” designation. He also brought home two silver and five bronze medals.
Just a few miles northeast of Mazzotta, La Vigneta Winery owner Francesca Howden is celebrating another good year at the farm show. Her wines came home with four silver medals and a bronze.
“We definitely take the competition very seriously,” she said. “My team works really hard to make sure our wines are produced to the highest standard.”
And if you’d care for some cheese to pair with those wines?
Look no further than Indiana Township’s Goat Rodeo Farm & Dairy, whose Wild Rosemary took the silver medal in the best of show category. It also earned a first-place finish in the mixed milk category, and the farm’s Cowboy Coffee cheese took third place in the same category. Finally, Goat Rodeo’s chevre cheese took first place in the goat’s milk category.
Mazzotta and Howden said they use feedback from the show in a variety of ways.
“We use those results to determine how much of these wines we want to produce,” Mazzotta said. “We use the awards to know which ones people will like when we go to an off-premise sale. It’s kind of guidance for a winemaker in terms of how much to make.”
Howden said La Vigneta also makes some of its plans for the coming year based on feedback from the farm show.
“For example, when we won the Governor’s Cup in 2023 for our blush, that let us know we needed to produce more of that particular wine,” she said. “But we also get feedback throughout the year on what customers like and what’s popular. That really helps us tweak and refine our wines. The farm show just validates a lot of that and shows whether you’ve produced wine that the public likes and the judges can recognize.”
Howden said she also uses the results to do some research.
“I want to see and taste the wine that won this year’s Governor’s Cup,” she said. “We look at the awards other wineries win, taste each other’s wines and that’s helpful as well, to see what struck the judges’ interest this year.”
Brewers
Western Pennsylvania beer breweries had some stiff competition from their counterparts out east, but Vandergrift-based Allusion Brewing Company, which also has a taproom in Hampton, brought home three third-place finishes.
“We brought back ribbons for our Baker Street Brown Ale, a London-style brown, our Abby Normal, a Munich-style dunkel, and our Christmas ale called Jolly Old Elf,” said co-owner and head brewer John Bieranoski. “We’ve been competing since 2022, and we’ve medaled at least once every year.”
With the farm show taking place in January, Bieranoski said he treats the judges’ feedback as a way to help refine his products for future competitions.
Judges at the farm show have come through the Beer Judge Certification Program, a nonprofit that offers education and certification for competition judges. Those same judges tally the scores at most of the major competitions Allusion enters.
“We do several each year,” he said. “Last year, we brought home a first- and third-place from the farm show, for our traditional Polish ale. And after that, we brought home two national competition wins with it. We used feedback from the judges to bring our product to the next level.”
In addition to Allusion, Mars brewery Stick City earned a third-place finish in the Pale Bitter European Lager category for its Arctos 12 beer. And farther north, the Clarion River Brewing Co. finished first in the same category with its Golden Eagle; second among Strong Belgian Ales (Cacao Cupidon) and British Beer (Premature Burial); and third in the Amber European Lager category (Autumn Leaf Fiest).
Grains
In the grains division, Westmoreland County farmers brought home hardware of their own.
As a matter of fact, New Alexandria farmer Fred Slezak is Pennsylvania’s Grand Champion of Grains for 2026. He took first place for his barley and fourth place for his wheat — not a bad showing for his first time competing at the show.
“It’s a real honor,” said Slezak, who beat out Crabtree’s Vince Mangini in the barley category. Mangini took second place.
Both men grow grains for Allegheny Mountain Malt, which has partnered with local brewers to supply locally grown grains in an effort to shorten the supply chain. In addition, Hempfield farmer Alquin Heinnickel took third place in the oats category.
“We didn’t have things as bad, weatherwise, as the rest of the state,” Mangini said. “We got the right amount of rain at the right time.”
Slezak said growing barley specifically bred for malting probably helped him with the judges.
“It’s got a larger kernel than most other barleys,” Slezak said. “I credit Vince for encouraging me to enter, and my partner Brandon Yeo prepared the barley and did a lot of the planting. Without him, I probably wouldn’t have gotten it entered.”
Mangini said the grains division is also somewhat of a beauty contest.
“Fred did a really good job cleaning his grain, using some special screens to process his barley,” he said. “I told him it’s on now — I’m coming after him now that he beat me.”
