Santam awards: Warwick's the winner

The 2010 Santam Classic Wine Trophy Awards, announced late last week at an event at the recently opened Taj Hotel in Cape Town, named Warwick Estate as the overall winner. A panel of international judges praised the Warwick Trilogy, the estate's cabernet-driven flagship blend, for its handsomeness, elegance and qualitative consistency with each successive vintage. This follows its ‘Top 100' Wine Spectator listing in 2009 and 4½ Stars in Platter's South Africa Wines.

Organiser, Christophe Durand (left) and Santam's Yegs Ramiah (right) present Warwick's James Dare with the Santam Trophy for Overall Winner in honour of the consistent excellence of their flagship red blend, Trilogy.

Trophies for Best White Wine and Best Red Wine went to the Hoopenberg 'Integer' Chardonnay 2006 and Vriesenhof Pinot Noir 2007 respectively, while Klein Constantia again won the Best Sweet Wine Trophy for their 'Vin de Constance' 2005.

The evening was a joyful event, with several impromptu speeches and the charismatic French judges expressing their affection for South African wines before an audience of wine media, trade and estate representatives. Editor of French wine publication, La Revue du Vin de France, Olivier Poels, spoke of how “the best South African wines are on par with the best from France and the world.”

The Santam Classic Wine Trophy is widely renowned for its credibility and legitimacy as it only awards a set number of medals and trophies each year. Wines are blind-tasted over four days, cross-tasted, and re-tasted blind after which the short-listed wines are tasted again by all the judges in the ‘grand finale'.