The Rees Hotel Queenstown has yet again scooped up two major international wine awards for its True South Wine List Dining Room. True South, one of New Zealand’s exclusive top tier restaurants, has been awarded a 2017 Wine Spectator Award by respected US wine and hospitality magazine, Wine Spectator, for its wine programme for a sixth consecutive year.
Additionally, True South Dining Room’s wine list has achieved a two-star award in the World of Fine Wine World’s Best Wine Lists for 2017.
The internationally-acclaimed Wine Spectator’s annual Excellence Awards recognise a wine list of 100 or more quality wine selections that thematically match a restaurant’s cuisine. The World of Fine Wine World’s Best Wine Lists are designed to highlight excellent and interesting wine lists on a global scale. The judging criteria focuses on the breadth, depth, quality, interest, and more, rather than simply length, to determine the winning lists, which then receive an esteemed one, two, or three-star award.
True South Dining Room has an exclusive library of Bordeaux and Burgundy wines with vintages selected from many of the great houses. Wines from world-renowned chateaux such as Romanee Conti, Chateau d’Yquem, Latour, Margaux, Mouton Rothschild and Lynch Bages nestle with some of the great wines of Central Otago, New Zealand, Australia and Italy in the professionally-managed, temperature-controlled wine cellar servicing the hotel and restaurant’s Bordeau Wine Lounge.
Mark Rose, The Rees Hotel Queenstown’s General Manager, says it’s the restaurant’s ability to match exquisite wine with fresh local dishes in addition to an holistic wine programme – which includes tastings, wine pairing and the True South Culinary Series events – that distinguishes the restaurant internationally for these awards. True South Dining celebrates their ongoing support of local vineyards through their Culinary Series dinners held throughout the year.
Mark Rose says both these awards are important ongoing recognition of the effort put into building and maintaining a world-class cellar while confirming True South Dining Room as one of New Zealand’s elite dining experiences. “To be recognised yet again by two of the most prominent and respected international reviewers for our cellar choices, is an outstanding achievement and a great outcome for The Rees in 2017,” he says.
