Chief Winemaker Nikolai St George added to the Matua awards cabinet at the 2015 New Zealand Royal Easter Show Wine Awards, taking home the Royal Easter Show Trophy for Champion Wine of the Show in addition to the Pullman Hotels Trophy for Champion Syrah for the 2013 Matua Single Vineyard Matheson Syrah. With an additional two gold medals, ten silver medals and two bronze medals, St George then took to the stage again to claim the Royal Agricultural Society Gold Medal for Wine Maker of the Year, an award which he also won in 2013.
St George was elated to see his favourite wine again take the critics by storm. “This is only the second time we’ve made a single vineyard Syrah at Matua, and each time it’s been a trophy winner. We only make it in small quantities – all of our single vineyard wines are made from small hand-selected fruit parcels from our best vineyards – and it really is cool climate Syrah at its absolute best,” he said.
“It pipped a well-known Aussie Shiraz in the New Zealand Winegrowers Great Trans-Tasman Wine Challenge – it’s great to see a New Zealand Syrah do so well considering it is a varietal traditionally dominated by Australian wineries. I’m also rapt to have been awarded gold for our 2014 Matua Regional Sauvignon Blanc, which is impressive for a wine that you can buy for around $15,” St George said.
The Royal Easter Show Wine Awards is New Zealand’s longest running national wine competition, held every year at the Auckland Showgrounds. In 2015 there were over 1200 entries. It presents a forum for the country’s leading winemakers, as judges, to experience first-hand the best efforts of their peers and gain knowledge to improve their own winemaking.
