Hunter wineries bring home the bling

The wine show season is in full swing and Hunter Valley wineries have been blitzing the field for many of the top trophy awards. Living so close to these amazing wineries that produce such incredible quality wines, it’s even more reason to visit and stock up on local drops. Here’s but a few of the major wins for our local winemakers.

This Sydney Royal Wine Show sees an impressive line-up of judges, who assess some 2,200 wines from 350 wineries Australia wide. Hunter wins included the trophy for Best Current Vintage White of Show for the 2023 De lulls Wines Single Vineyard Semillon.

The NSW Small Winemakers Wine Show provides a stage for the small winemakers to compete against their peers across the state. Hunter Valley wineries dominated the best-in-class trophy awards, including trophies for Best Old Semillon (Thomas Wines 2017 Cellar Reserve Braemore Semillon) and for Best 2022 Shiraz (Hungerford Hill 2022 Epic Shiraz).

Hungerford Hill recently added another two trophies for their 2023 Hilltop Fiano and 2022 Hilltops Tempranillo at the Canberra and Region Wine Show.

With 2,500 entries from over 300 wineries, the Royal Adelaide Wine Show is one of Australia’s most prestigious national wine shows. Congratulations to Brokenwood for being awarded three trophies, including for Best Semillon in Show (2017 Brokenwood ILR Reserve Semillon) and the prize for Winemaker of the National Wine of Provenance for Stuart Hordern. The provenance trophy is held in particularly high esteem as it is judged over a 10-year period and only awarded to a single set of white or red wines.

For the 51st Hunter Valley Wine Show, Sam Connew, Winemaker/Director at Stargazer Wines, led a team of 18 local and visiting judges, to evaluate 542 local entries from 66 exhibitors. According to Sam, “there is no other region in Australia or worldwide that does Semillon to the standard of the Hunter Valley. The 2023 Semillons showed really solid results and the older Semillon classes are always such a privilege to judge. The Wines of Provenance class showed some extraordinary. The thing that people don’t talk about enough is the quality of the red wines from the Hunter Valley, they stand out as glorious medium bodied wines.”

The Hunter’s winning streak continued at the 2023 NSW Wine Awards with First Creek Wines 2022 Single Vineyard Wills Hill Road Chardonnay taking out the NSW Governor’s Trophy for 2023 NSW Wine of the Year.

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Story by Cath Gadd.