Saturday, September 17, 2011

2011 Canberra Regional Wine Show

I had a look at the entries to the 2011 Canberra Regional Wine Show last night. This wine show is a 'feeder show' now for the National Wine Show later in the year, and is a well-run affair rather than a tidal wave of samples and judging panels. Judges this year included Ben Edwards, Jim Chatto and Mike Bennie (doing his ninth show this year, Mr Bennie told me).

A bit of added drama this year: both from the chemical fire and explosions that had cut off parts of North Canberra, as well as a mercy dash attached to the judges lunch on Friday. Out at lunch, another diner managed a nasty compound fracture and judges Chatto and Bennie went in to help. The subsequent exhibitors and sponsors tasting seemed quite sedate in comparison.

Bryan Martin's Ravensworth took home a bunch of gongs for his excellent 2009 shiraz viognier. Mount Majura took the prize for best exhibitor of show, in part due to the trophy-winning show their 2010 TSG blend of tempranillo, shiraz, graciano. Riesling, shiraz, chardonnay and the 'other whites' brackets stood out - not just for the Canberra fruit, but also for Tumbarumba chardonnay and wines from Hilltops and Gundagai. The latter region's showing being an eye-opener for me.

For full show results, see www.rncas.org.au

In my next post, I'll home in on how wines from Italian varieties fared in the show this year.

In the interests of transparency, no Quarry Hill wines were entered in the show this year.

No comments:

Post a Comment