New Initiative Announced by Wine Awards

New Initiative Announced by Organisers of Wine Awards

“The whole point of wine shows and something that fits perfectly with the history of the A&P Show is that it’s all about improving the breed” announced Rod McDonald, Chairman of Judges to a full contingent of sponsors gathered at the barrel hall at Vidals Winery and Restaurant last week.

They were there to officially get the ball rolling for the 10th Annual Hawke’s Bay A&P Mercedes-Benz Wine Awards. In 2009 Mercedes-Benz New Zealand Ltd took over as Principal Sponsor and they’re joined by a loyal and highly supportive group of category sponsors from an array of leading businesses from Hawke’s Bay and beyond.

“The increase in New Zealand wine sold overseas during the last 30 or so years has been quite incredible and that’s been achieved on the back of quality. Quality is achieved through the pursuit of excellence, learning from your mistakes and comparing your efforts to those of your peers” added Rod. “It’s important that local winemakers to look at their wines with blinkers off against people in the same region doing the same thing. So this year we’re running an exhibitor tasting the day after the show where we’ll invite all the exhibitors to taste every wine entered and the judges will be there to either defend or explain their choices in terms of the wines that achieved medal standard. We see that as a really important part of the development of this idea of improving the breed”.

According to Rod, Hawke’s Bay needs to work together to build a category for itself overseas. “There’s got to be a point to this show apart from celebrating our great wines while sitting down to flash dinner and a great night out” he adds, “the whole idea is to gather the tools we need to do a better job tomorrow than we are today”.

The awards night this year features a four-course dinner held in a spectacular silk lined marquee in the beautiful and historic Waikoko Gardens on the Tuesday 19th October, and tickets will go on sale shortly. Entries will be accepted from July 20th and two teams of the finest palates in the business will assemble at the sensory laboratory of Napier’s Eastern Institute of Technology in September to taste what’s expected to be a record number of wines for New Zealand’s only regional wine competition.

ENDS

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