Paul Cluver takes another bow

Two Paul Cluver wines performed well amongst the 231 wines submitted by South Africa, Australia and New Zealand wineries to the 2004 Tri-Nations Wine Challenge in Sydney.  While Australia and New Zealand wines pipped the South Africans, the 2003 Paul Cluver Sauvignon Blanc was the best performing SA Sauvignon, followed by Verlgelegen as the second best performing one. The 2003 Paul Cluver Weisser Riesling Noble Late Harvest also performed very well coming second of the South African Sweet Wines.  Signal Hill Crème du Tete was the best performing South African Sweet Wine.

Almost simultaneously, Paul Cluver won one of 15 Double Golds at the Michelangelo Awards in Johannesburg for the 2002 Paul Cluver Chardonnay, gold for the 2003 Noble Late Harvest and silver for the 2002 Pinot Noir.

In the Tri-Nations, South Africa's wine expert Michael Fridjhon joined fellow judges James Halliday and Bob Campbell in praising the standards of wines in the competition, an important one for the southern hemisphere.

Only 16 South African wines were in the list of overall category winners, with Australia dominating and tying with South Africa in one category.

Paul Cluver's track record in the Tri-Nations is good - last year the 2000 Paul Cluver Pinot Noir was the only South African Pinot Noir rated in the top 10  Pinot Noirs.

These awards are further testimony to the growing local and international recognition for the elegant range of wines from Elgin. The current Tri-Nations and Michelangelo accolades follow others for the winning 2003 Paul Cluver Noble Late Harvest which was also one of just 17 wines of 4 000 awarded five stars for the 2004 John Platter Wine Guide. It was also one of just eight wines from South Africa to win a gold medal at the International Wine and Spirits Show in London last month and earlier this year was acknowledged by expertwine.com, a leading British online wine publication, as "easily one of the finest in the 'New World'". The same wine had already been crowned King of Wines in South Africa at the 2003 Juliet Cullinan Wine Connoisseur's Awards.

Cluver believes that such awards bear out the fact that Elgin is a premium wine growing area, its climate and terroir enabling winemaker Andries Burger to produce elegant award-winning wines.