Gold rush for TOKARA wines in UK awards season

Tuesday, 14 May, 2019
TOKARA Wines | Olive Oil
TOKARA wines have triumphed with a total of three gold medals at two highly contested UK wine competitions, the 2019 International Wine Challenge (IWC) and the Sommelier Wine Awards (SWA).

Bringing home London gold from the IWC, is the TOKARA Reserve Collection Chardonnay 2017, whilst the Reserve Collection Elgin Sauvignon Blanc 2018 and the flagship Director’s Reserve White 2016 impressed sommeliers in the SWA gold medal stakes.The Elgin Sauvignon Blanc which earned winemaker Stuart Botha a FNB Sauvignon Blanc Top 10 ranking on home turf last year, also received the SWA Food Match award.

The SWA is Britain’s only on-trade wine competition, focusing on wines served in hotels, bars, and restaurants across the world.

Described as ‘a classic South African style of Sauvignon Blanc’, and ‘a good partner for springtime dishes with herbs’ by the judging panel, the Reserve Collection Elgin Sauvignon Blanc 2018 stems from TOKARA’s Highlands farm in Elgin. This cool climate region produces some of the best renditions of this variety, with fresh acidity and purity of fruit in perfect balance.

“There is an amazing freshness as the wine enters the palate, with clean citrus flavours leading to a creamy mid-palate and a lingering crisp finish. This Sauvignon Blanc shows remarkable ageability and will evolve with correct cellaring over the next few years,” says winemaker Stuart Botha.

The TOKARA Director’s Reserve White 2016 is described by The Fat Duck’s Annamaria Juhaszas an ‘excellent wine’ that ‘needs some creamy seafood’. This classic Bordeaux-style Sauvignon Blanc (70%) and Semillon (30%) blend is made from grapes grown on the highest slopes of TOKARA’s Stellenbosch property.

“This is a wonderfully complex wine with rich layers of ripe quince, passion fruit and baked apples, rounded off by hints of lemon grass, toasted almonds and freshly baked brioche. It finishes with amazing clarity and depth with a slight grip just lingering,” adds Botha.

For more information visit www.tokara.com.

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TOKARA winemaker Stuart Botha
TOKARA winemaker Stuart Botha

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