Winemakers and marketers gathered on Friday 7th Dec to celebrate their region's wine awards. The competition has been running for many years and grown consistently since 2010 from 25 entries, to 96 wines entered this year, from 22 wineries.
Wines can be submitted into 8 different categories, with a maximum of 5 and a minimum of 3 wines per winery.
The competition is convened by Nicolaas Rust, Group Cellar Master from uniWines Vineyards and the astute judges this year were Tom Blok (CWM), Anton Swarts (CWM), Welma Smith (Sommelier trained in France), Kobie Viljoen (winemaker, Villion Wines) and Johan Delport (winemaker, Waverley Hills). Anton and Welma are also proud members of Team South Africa - who traveled to France in October to participate in the World Blind Wine-tasting Championships, and helped to get TeamSA to 10th position in the world., so have really been testing their palates of late!
Top Award - Best Winery - who achieved the highest consistent score across all the categories
- Alvi's Drift Private Cellar
Thanks to sponsor Brenno-Kem for their R25 000 cash prize
Top White Wine
-
Bergsig Estate Icarus 2016 – wooded white blend of Chardonnay/Chenin Blanc/Weisser Riesling
Thanks to sponsor Wine Machinery Group - for a sea cruise out of Table Bay Harbour, stay over in the One-and-Only Hotel, V&A Waterfront, beauty treatment for her at the One-and-Only Hotel and dinner for two
Top Red Wine - Spier Wine Award
Swarte Piet Award
- Ivy du Toit - Jason's Hill - for her outstanding performance in general - her three 4-star Platter Wines, several gold medals and she is also busy with her Cape Wine Masters
Top 5 Wineries (in no particular order)
- Conradie Penhill Wines
- Stofberg Family Vineyards
- Merwida Cellar
- Slanghoek Cellar
- Alvi’s Drift Private Cellar
The Swarte Piet award is a very odd one - it has been going for over 40 years - and initially awarded to someone in the area who really had messed up big time or some significant happening took place where they were involved - like losing an entire tank's wine or some such, but over the years it has become an award to be given to someone who really is doing well and is making a name for themselves.
Judging took place on the 23rd Nov and this year the Unwooded Chenin and Shiraz drew the most entries. The best wines were in the wooded Chenin category - very elegant. The Sauvignon Blancs showed promise on the nose but did not follow through. The least impressive was the Chardonnay category - but for the reds the blends were the most impressive to the judges. 'Traditional blends are working' was the consensus, but stay away from experimental blends
Brenn-O-Kem has been the main sponsor for the last 4 years, and they remain committed to this competition. A generous R25 000 was handed over to Dr Alvi vd Merwe from Alvi's Drift as Top Winery - and there was much mirth as he is getting married this Saturday and he quipped 'I am getting married for a 2nd time next week, and when you get married the first time, your dad pays the bill, but now I have to foot the bill so this is very welcome! May just pay the booze bill!'
The winemakers from the area are a great bunch and it was a wonderful ''gesellige'' lunch with them, enjoying the celebrations.
See more pics from the day HERE