All Women Team Judges find wine gems in the 2017 South African Women’s Wine Awards

All Women Team Judges find wine gems in the 2017 South African Women’s Wine Awards
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The 2017 South African Women’s Wine Awards acknowledge some wine gems. The 2017 South African Women’s Wine Awards saw steady growth in several of the wine categories. On 29 June 2017, on a very crisp morning, the all-women team of judges converged on the Nietvoorbij campus in Stellenbosch.

The Cape Wine Academy handled the logistics to ensure smooth running of the exciting double-blind tasting.

The aim was to find gold medal winners and to commend the top-scoring producers.

The cream of producers rising to the top was:
· Flagstone Wines
· Mimosa Wines
· Domaine Brahms

The goodwill experienced from every sector in the industry, as in the previous year, made this event a pleasure to host. The aim of the annual competition is to find worthy wines judged by an all-female panel and to crown the best wines and wineries entered. The ratio of red wines versus white wines entered was 51% to 49%. An interesting phenomenon of this year’s entries is that if you compare awarded red wines to awarded white wines, the ratio shows 53% to 47%, therefore red wines were only slightly favoured.

There was an array of wines entered in the category: ‘single cultivar wines other’, showing that the industry is evolving and the Big Five are not the only competing cultivars around. Feedback from our panellists was very positive. One of the judges liked the “new”, more “user friendly” Chardonnays while another was impressed with the fruit character of the Chardonnay because there was less over-oaking.

One judge said the Bordeaux-styled wines showed the most promise and as a category was the most consistent, while another said it showed “substance, concentration and structure”. Judges thought non-Bordeaux-styled blends were the other outstanding red category. Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot were singled out as categories with excellent examples.

Details about the 2018 South African Women’s Wine Awards will be announced in the last week of January 2018.

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