Entries for the sixth annual Gisborne Regional Wine awards open today and organisers are expecting another top crop of wines.
“The 2015 vintage was an outstanding one,” says event director Prue Younger, “but not without its challenges. Yet there is no doubt there will be more great fruit flavours from these wines."
The awards kick off with the Riedel Great Chardonnay Challenge at Peppers Beachfront Bar and Café on Wednesday, May 25.
Tickets are limited to just 100 for this six-course degustation dinner where winemakers will present 12 wines to compliment the food, designed and presented by chefs Dan and Bridget French.
That is followed by a day of judging on Thursday, Mary 26, and the GisVin Gisborne Regional Wine Awards Dinner on Friday, May 27. The black tie event usually sells out quickly, and this year will feature a matched wine and food menu by celebrity master chef Brett McGregor.
Master of Ceremony – comedian and TV celebrity – Paul Ego will keep the evening bubbling along at the Quality Hotel Emerald.
Younger says the new Tourism Eastland sponsored Top Cellar Door Award will generate plenty of healthy competition between wineries.
Celebrated winemaker Simon Nunns will again head up the judging panel, ably supported by fellow winemakers Jane De Witt, Simon Fell and James Rowan, author John Saker and Master of Wine Emma Jenkins.
Nunns has a strong connection with Gisborne, crediting the region – along with Hawke’s Bay – with inspiring him to make the step into the wine industry. He joined Coopers Creek in 1998 and has been there ever since.
Nunns has been a senior judge at all the major New Zealand wine shows, as well as others across the Tasman.
He is a panel chair at the Bragato Wine Awards, The Spiegelau International Wine Show, The New World Wine Awards, and the Marlborough Wine Show, and is a judging panellist for magazines including Cuisine and Winestate.
De Witt admits to being fascinated with wine from a young age. With 20 years experience in the industry, she is now Lion’s operations winemaker for the North Island, with a particular focus on sparkling wine.
Thornbury winemaker Fell has worked in wineries in Bordeaux, Napa Valley, Chile and Australia before settling at his current vineyard, while Rowan has been with West Brook Winery since 2004. He has previously worked in some of the nation’s top vineyards and winemaking teams, and been a senior judge for many New Zealand Winegrowers events.
Saker is a former basketballer who became a journalist in 1984, went freelance in 1990 and started writing about wine in 1998. An author of three wine books, he is also Cuisine magazine’s New Zealand wine writer and senior judge, and is a columnist for a number of Fairfax papers.
Jenkins is a wine columnist and writer for a number of magazines. She abandoned her university training in anatomy and structural biology for her career in wine, and since has worked in fine wine retail, studies winemaking and viticulture and in 2011 became New Zealand’s ninth Master of Wine.
For more information on the awards, head to
http://www.gisbornewine.co.nz/regionalwineawards/home/ or contact competition director Prue Younger on 021 276 5484.
More information on entry to the competition can be viewed on: www.gisbornewine.co.nz/regionalwineawards/
