KWV wins seven awards at Paarl Young Wine Show Awards, repeats triumph at SAWI

Paarl Young Wine Show

At the Young Wine Show it won 7 trophies, 5 gold, 17 silver and 17 bronze awards, scoring the highest among producers at the show. This is the third time in four years that KWV has won this prestigious accolade.

"Our wines performed very well, reinforcing 2012 as a particularly good year," said KWV chief winemaker Richard Rowe. "We performed very well across varieties, and we're particularly pleased to have won the best Paarl Producer Trophy again."

A highlight for the team was the achievements of its 2012 Pineau de Laborie - a ruby-styled wine that won the Regional Champion Trophy for the Best Non-Muscat Fortified, a title it also won last year.

"The success with our fortified wines is especially encouraging in the light of our decision in 2011 to bring fortified winemaking in-house," said Rowe.

Alongside the regional trophy for its fortified wine, it won Champion Trophies for Best Dry White Table Wine, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc and Pinotage, awards it received in the previous year as well.

The Paarl Young Wine Show forms part of the SA National Young Wine, which consists of eight participating regions, with Paarl being one of them.

SAWi awards

The highly regarded SAWi award system improves on many wine competitions in that it does not judge a wine or cultivar according to a single harvest result. Rather, performance evaluation is based on the combined results of participating cellars and their wines achieved over time, at 44 different, multi-national wine competitions, thus measuring its overall quality as attained over a predetermined period.

Hailed for its "impressive" victory by the organisers, it collected premier awards for its wines, brandies and fortifieds. Achieving the highest accolade, KWV Mentors Shiraz and KWV Jerepigo received Platinum, while KWV Mentors Sauvignon Blanc Semillon and KWV Orchestra each received Grand Gold. For its brandies, it won Platinum for its KWV 15-year-old, as did Laborie Alambic and KWV 20-year-old received Grand Gold.

"The SAWi system provides a snapshot of success achieved by wines over a period of 12 to 18 months on widely esteemed platforms," continued Rowe. "Our performance is therefore particularly gratifying in that it demonstrates the hard work that has been done in the cellar over an extended time."

He said the spread of awards across all categories was indicative of the breadth of skill and experience at the company.

The aim of the system is ultimately to help consumers identify some of the most consistently high-scoring and top quality wines, as judged by arguably the largest complement of expert judges.

Commenting on the participating wines in this year's competition, he said the line-up was first-rate. "In terms of quality, one is accustomed to seeing a mixed bag at many competitions, but the wines on show here, are strong international contenders - a credible range of world class wines from South African producers," concluded Rowe.

For more information, go to www.youngwineshow.co.za or www.wine.co.za/News/News.aspx?NEWSID=21116&Source=HomePage