The results of the Old Mutual Trophy Wine Show 2007 which I helped to judge last month are now available at www.winemag.co.za
Winner of the Fairbairn Capital Trophy for the competition's Most Successful Producer at the 2007 Show, by the slimmest of margins apparently, was Cape Point Vineyards. At yesterday's awards presentation at the Vineyard Hotel in Cape Town Cape Point's Duncan Savage also collected trophies for the Best Semillon, Best Museum Class Semillon and the Best Sauvignon Blanc. This relatively small producer also won two silver medals and one bronze.
Vergelegen, which has won the Most Successful Producer Trophy four times in the past six years, finished second overall and J P Bredell Wines came third, thanks to its outstanding performance in the port-style wines classes. In comparison with most previous years, where one winery tended to dominate the trophy haul, this year the 19 trophies were far more evenly allocated. (My fellow overseas judges were Steven Spurrier and Neil Beckett.)
The Vergelegen White 2006 won the Trophy for the Best White Blend and Bredell's Cape Vintage secured the Old Mutual Trophy for the Best Port. Two additional sponsored trophies were introduced this year: the Miele Trophy for the Best Chardonnay (the one that washes whiter perhaps?) was awarded to Backsberg, Babylons Toren Chardonnay 2003. This screwcapped wine also won the Trophy for the Best White Wine with a score of 96. The Grande Roche Trophy for the Best Merlot was awarded to Hillcrest Merlot 2005.
Môreson, Magia 2003 won the Riedel Glass Trophy for the Best Red Blend (Bordeaux Style) and with a score of 97 went on to win the BoE Trophy for the Best Red Wine. The British Airways Comair Trophy for the Best Shiraz was awarded for the second time to Carl van der Merwe – this year for the Quoin Rock, Simonsberg Syrah 2005. The American Express Trophy for Best Cabernet Sauvignon was presented to Clinton le Sueur for the Longridge Cabernet Sauvignon 2004.
The Old Mutual Trophy for Discovery of the Show (Best Value) is awarded to the trophy-winning wine achieving the best score/price ratio. This year's trophy for the Discovery of the Show was presented to Hartenberg Pinotage 2004.
There were 971 entries for this year's competition, of which 968 were judged (after disqualifications and late withdrawals). This is a slight increase on the final numbers for 2006. While the number of gold medals awarded was the same as last year (24), silver and bronze medals dropped significantly in number – from 46 to 38 and 227 to 175 respectively. I felt strongly, as I said at the press debriefing immediately afterwards, that we really were judging these wines according to international standards.
See the full results at www.winemag.co.za and see my views on How South Africa could sell more wine to be published tomorrow.
