Royal Easter Show Wine Awards – 2012

· Wine News
Mar 19th, 2012 | By | Category: Wine News

Royal Easter Show Wine Awards – 2012

NZ wine awards

Royal Easter show wine awards 2012

The latest Royal Easter Show Wine Award trophy winners have been announced. With 9, out of a total of 15, trophies given to extremely large production wineries, has the show lost its appeal to the smaller wineries?

Where are all of the boutique, organic, biodynamic, backbone wineries? Are the costs of entering to prohibitive for most wineries, and are the returns from wine shows, other than the Air New Zealand Wine Show, so small that it’s not worth entering?

 

 

 

Below are the trophy winners.

Champion Wine of the Show – O-I New Zealand Trophy:
Brightwater Vineyards Lord Rutherford Barrique Chardonnay 2009

 

Champion Chardonnay – New World Trophy:
Brightwater Vineyards Lord Rutherford Barrique Chardonnay 2009

 

Champion Gewürztraminer – The Village Press Trophy:
Distant Land Gewurztraminer 2011

 

Champion Sauvignon Blanc – Guala Closures Trophy:
Villa Maria Single Vineyard Southern Clays Sauvignon Blanc 2011

 

Champion Riesling – Red Badge Security Trophy:
Clark Estate Single Vineyard Riesling 2011

 

Champion Pinot Gris – Datacom Trophy:
Sileni Estate Selection ”The Priestess” Hawke’s Bay Pinot Gris 2010

 

Champion Viognier – DrinksBiz Trophy:
Coopers Creek Gisborne Viognier 2010

 

Champion Wine of Other Varieties – United Cleaning Services Trophy:
Coopers Creek SV Hawkes Bay Malbec ”Saint John” 2010

 

Champion Sweet Wine – Riedel Trophy:
Brancott Estate Brancott “B” Late Harvest Sauvignon Blanc 2011

 

Champion Cabernet Sauvignon & Merlot – Auckland A & P Association Trophy:
Church Road Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon Merlot 2009

 

Champion Merlot – Show Light & Power Ltd Trophy:
Villa Maria Reserve Gimblett Gravels Hawkes Bay Merlot 2010

 

Champion Syrah – Sky City Trophy:
Matua Valley Reserve Hawke’s Bay Syrah 2010

 

Champion Pinot Noir – New Zealand WineGrower Magazine Trophy:
Two Degrees Pinot Noir 2009

 

Champion Rosé – Novotel Auckland Ellerslie Trophy:
Stoneleigh Pinot Noir Rosé 2011

 

Champion Sparkling – Rapid Labels Trophy:
Lindauer Classic Brut NV

 

Champion Export Wine – Champion Riesling – Auckland A. P. & I. Shows Board Trophy:
Waimea Gewurztraminer 2011

 

Wine Makers of the Year – Royal Agricultural Society Gold Medal:
Tony Southgate, Brightwater Vineyards, Nelson

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Written by Jayson Bryant

Jayson Bryant

Jayson’s roots in wine began when his father literally dragged him round France and injected his passion into him. From the age of 8 his family took month long holidays in France travelling through all regions and sampling their wine.
UnScrewed has reinvented the concept of wine tasting in New Zealand and along the way found a new and willing audience. In addition to encouraging straightforward wine tasting, Jayson educates viewers about the effects of regional factors (soil, sun, wind) on wine flavours, and how to buy wine.

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  • Rydall2000

    as someone whom is tied into the wine show i disagree with you on many of your comments,
    i feel a lot of what you say is sour because you don’t produce many cases of  wine or variety and cannot enter the show because of that.
    As you can see above there was not a home run hit by ALL big supplyers ..ie:Two Degrees and Sileni Estate & Clark Estate ect…  won this year as well.
    the show is not made for boutique winery’s , its made for production wineries only that sell volume nationally.

    i do agree they need to modernize there entry aspect and this is been looked at (so they tell me)
    These are only my comments and not felt by the royal show group.

  • http://twitter.com/MishasVineyard Misha Wilkinson

    Jayson, certainly the entry forms for this show are outdated -even if the show isn’t. I received about 15 pages of printed A4 info for the show – and it’s a show we’ve never entered, so I guess all 700 wineries received a wad of printed applications forms and info from the organisers. When I did email someone to suggest they might like to do online entries, a response came from a someone saying she was only in admin but they’d pass the info on. I never got a response!

    Regarding the entering of shows, I think a winery decides whether they’re going to embark on a ‘show strategy’ or not. If they decide shows are for them, the best way is to enter as many wines as you can in each show and enter enter as many shows as makes sense in terms of your distribution and focus areas. It’s no longer good enough to just win a gold, you need to be able to say you’ve won 4 Trophy’s, or 8 golds etc. So to play the ‘show game’ to win, you need to have a large range of wines and deep pockets for all the entry fees (and additional costs that are required when your wines win). So, it’s more the domain of the larger commercial players.

    As a small producer, we make wines predominantly for on-premise. The last thing we would do is put a gold sticker on a bottle, or tell a sommelier we’d won an award – sommeliers make their own decisions as to the wines they like and think fit on their wine lists. It’s different if you have a retail strategy as a gold sticker on a bottle in a supermarket or retail shelf can make a positive impact in sales.

    Having written a couple of articles recently where I’ve asked some key wineries about their show strategy, I often heard back comments along the lines of ‘by the time our wines are reaching their peak, they’re all sold out anyway’.