Champion Young Wines of 2023 sought by the oldest wine show

Wednesday, 31 May, 2023

SA Young Wine Show

Entries are now being awaited for the 2023 SA Young Wine Show, for which winemakers can enter in all the SA wine regions until 22 June and directly at the show office up to 7 July.

The competition’s organisers – open to young wines made in the current calendar year – the SA National Wine Show Association (SANWSA), have announced that judging is to take place in the Johann Graue Hall at Nederburg in Paarl on 24 - 28 July.

The SA Young Wine Show is the oldest of its kind in the world, having been presented for 191 years. This has given winemakers the opportunity to enter their various young wines from all the wine growing areas since 1833, including experimental styles and new cultivars to compete in all the show’s classes.

The 2023 young wines are being anticipated with great expectations. The winemakers agree that it has been a particularly challenging year, but that a variety of fine quality wines have been made and that wine lovers can look forward to wines of excellent quality.

Conrad Schutte, consultation manager of the wine industry body Vinpro says, “Given this season’s combination of cold and wet conditions, the 2023 season has produced one of the smallest crops in more than a decade in terms of volume. Smaller berries, driven by the dry conditions during the earlier part of the growing season benefitted grape quality and excellent flavour and colour profiles were observed. By the end of February, above-average rainfall occurred, and this trend persisted until the end of March. The cool conditions together with ample rain made it challenging for viticulturists and winemakers to take well-considered harvesting decisions”.

The Young Wine Show awards SA Champion Trophies in 17 classes, which presents an ideal opportunity for all producers to compete for them with their choice wines. Moreover, two especially coveted trophies are at stake, namely the General Smuts and Pietman Hugo Trophies, respectively as the competition’s top accolades – since 1952 for the overall champion wine and from 1996 as recognition for the highest total points achieved for five wines entered.

As has been customary over the years, specialist judges are appointed to all the panels to ensure the very best judging expertise is utilised to identify the winners.

The SA Young Wines Show annually offers a unique opportunity to the wine industry to present its young wines for judging and use the results as a yardstick of quality.The Show is widely used by winemakers to present their new styles and new cultivars for evaluation, while the well-known cultivars show their mettle as young wines.

Thanks to the value of the 19 showpiece trophies involved – awarded in the various categories since the glory days of the Cape Town Company Gardens and later the Goodwood Showgrounds in collaboration with Agri-Expo –the SA Young Wine Show has been going from strength to strength as a yardstick of the country’s young wines in every vintage year.

The Cape of Good Hope Agricultural Society – which in 1996 established the marketing name Agri-Expo – has over the years been actively involved with the SA Young Wine Show as owner of this remarkable wine competition and also maintains its commitment as patron until today. In the process, Agri-Expo has entrusted to the SANWSA the particularly impressive collection of gold and silver trophies which are annually handed to the winners.

Meanwhile, in the past five years, the Young Wine Show boasts a huge incentive for the two main trophy winners: a partnership between the organisers and Porex SA – a prominent Paarl-based supplier of machinery and winemaking equipment to the industry – was formed by which the two respective winners of the General Smuts and Pietman Hugo Trophies are sponsored for a six-day trip to Germany.

The organisers have also announced that a further five financial partners had joined the SA Young Wine Show to support its impressive endeavours. They are well-known wine industry suppliers Anchor Oenology, Enartis, Laffort, Nexus and Standard Bank.

Said Christo Pienaar, chairperson of the SANWSA, “We are excited to welcome our new partners to help building out the SA Young Wine Show to benefit the industry through this positive development. Thereby, they are ensuring a bright future for the Show and also the wine industry.”

The prestigious awards function for the National Trophy winners, as well as the winners of the Pietman Hugo Trophy and famous General Smuts Trophy for the overall winning wine in 2023, will this year be hosted by the Paarl Region on 25 August.