The Cincinnati International Wine Festival was founded in 1991 by industry legend and wine enthusiast Russ Wiles, President of Heidelberg Distributing. It was his vision to create an event to bring thousands of people together through the wondrous world of wine with the proceeds benefiting local charities. With the help from founding partner and first beneficiary WGUC, the Cincinnati International Wine Festival was created. Today, the mission of the wine festival is to raise funds and distribute grants to arts, education and health and human services charities in Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky, while promoting the wine industry.
In 1991, the first wine festival was held at the Omni Netherland Plaza featuring two grand tastings and pouring about two hundred wines for 800 attendees. Now the wine festival has expanded to a wine competition, honorary chair dinner, trade tasting, grand and special tastings, education sessions, winery dinners, golf outing, check presentation, and more than fifty charities supported.
Any 501(c)(3) charitable organization can apply to be a beneficiary. Over the past 30 years, more than $7 million has been granted to Greater Cincinnati organizations.
The charities supported in 2024 include Crayons to Computers, Dress for Success Cincinnati, the Freestore Food Bank, Special Olympics, ALS Association, Alzheimer’s Association, Cincinnati Ballet, Cincinnati Public Radio, Cincinnati Works and more.
A portion of the wines are judged during the festival, so for 2025, CWF partnered with Osborne Mint, America’s Oldest Private Mint est. 1835, to create custom medals with Cincinnati Wine Festival's logo and slogan for 1st, 2nd and 3rd place. The 1st place medals are golden brass, 2nd place are silver plated brass and the 3rd place ones are antique bronze. These medals are 3” in diameter and weigh almost ½ pound each. To imprint the festival’s logo into the medal, the planchet’s were struck with 100 TONS of force in one of Osborne’s hydraulic presses. Each medal was then individually inspected to ensure the highest quality.
Shown below are the blank planchets and golden brass medals after striking.
For more information about the Cincinnati Wine Festival, click here - https://winefestival.com/
For more information about Osborne Mint or it’s parent company, Osborne Coinage, click here - https://osbornecoin.com/osborne-family-of-companies
Information provided by the Cincinnati International Wine Festival.
Established in 1835, Osborne Mint is America’s oldest continuously operating private mint. Osborne Mint is part of HM Precious Metals and the Osborne Coinage family, which includes Osborne Coinage, TokensDirect and Van Brook of Lexington. The mint, a 60,000 square foot facility in Cincinnati, Ohio, houses the development, engraving and manufacturing of numismatic quality collectible rounds, bars and coins.
Every Osborne Mint product is manufactured to strict standards for metal purity, weight and dimensions. Osborne Mint strikes thousands of collectible rounds annually and circulates them to the public through certified distributors. Gold, fine silver, copper and brass collections from Osborne Mint are truly pieces of art and are 100% “Minted in America.”
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