For the second year in a row, the National Cannabis Championship invited the best home growers from across DC and Virginia to enter their best buds for the chance to take home the NCC Winner’s Belt. After multiple rounds of rigorous judging, we’re excited to share more information on the process and - of course - the names of the 2023 NCC title-holders. Keep reading for details!

New Lab Analysis Titles: Highest Cannabinoids and Terpenes

This year, to enhance the competition, we introduced two new belts dedicated to the lab analysis. The new categories are awarded to the entries with the most Cannabinoids and the most Terpenes. 

Lab Analysis Champion Strain, Monkey Berries

These two categories were all about the numbers, no judging is involved. When the cannabinoid and terpene results came in, we saw that the competition was tight. For the Cannabinoid Champion title belt, the difference between first and second place came down to just 0.36mg/g. 

And the Winner is….

Sweeping both lab testing categories of the competition with the Monkey Berries strain. We’d like to congratulate Neil from Washington, D.C.! 

Neil’s Monkey Berries edged out other entries with an impressive overall Cannabinoid concentration of 29.3% and Terpene concentration of 4.58%.  Leaving only one question on the minds of all the canna-seurs — what do Monkey Berries taste like??

Grand Champion Divine Pine in the Grow Tent

State Titles

The DC and Virginia competitions for the 2023 National Cannabis Championship State Title were also highly competitive. For the state round of the competition, entries were analyzed by a panel of Community Judges. 

Judges analyzed the samples for physical attributes and aroma. Next, they tasted each sample, then judged cannabinoid and terpenoid profiles, and finally they considered the name and genetics of each sample. Each stage was completely blind with specific criteria for the judging process.

In D.C. although the competition was close, there was little surprise that Neil’s Monkey Berries, having won the lab-testing rounds, came out on top again.  

For the Virginia contest, the State title was awarded to Marco and his strain, Divine Pine. 

Once the state judging was complete, the top five finishers from DC and Virginia went through one more round of judging to compete for the Grand Champion title belt. 

Neil collecting the belts for both Lab Analysis titles and a State Champion title!

Grand Champion Title Round

The finals judges had the daunting task of sampling the top 10 finishers in the week leading up to NCF. The consistency in scores between the State and Finals judging spoke to the high quality of the winning strains.

When all of the scores were tallied, the NCC’s second and third place awards went to strains Monkey Berries and Psylocke, both grown by Neil from D.C.  Congrats Neil, everyone can agree you got that garden dialed in!

Drum Roll Please!

And the 2023 National Cannabis Championship, Grand Champion goes to… Divine Pine grown by Marco from Virginia, congratulations to Marco!  You can find Marco on Instagram at @cannabis_naturally and/or check out his live podcast on Youtube, “The Bryan & Marco Show”.

Thank you :)

We want to send a BIG thank you to all of our competitors and judges and also a special thank you to the NCC sponsors, Cannaline, Capitol City Organics, HLG, Athena, Green Analytics, and Advanced Nutrients, for supporting the competition and DMV growers.  Keep reading for the full list of the top ten competitors: