Press Release:

New Zealand Wine Best Pinot Noir at Sydney International Wine Competition 2012

Bald Hills Pedigree Unmistakable – Bannockburn NZ 27 February 2012

Amidst fierce competition Bald Hills Vineyard of Bannockburn Central Otago, has won the “Best Pinot Noir Wine of Competition” Trophy for 2012 announced on Saturday at the SIWC Awards Presentation Banquet at the Shangri-La Hotel for its Central Otago Single Vineyard Pinot Noir 2009.

Owners, Blair and Estelle Hunt are former Sydney residents whose love of wine led them to Central Otago where cool nights, warm days and low rainfall combines with light free-draining soils to provide near perfect growing conditions for the pinot noir grape. Planted in 1997, the boutique vineyard comprises some 7 hectares of vines, 5 of which are in various clones of pinot noir and the remainder in pinot gris and riesling.

“It is a huge honour to have been awarded the Trophy” said Dr Hunt. “Pinot Noir is now New Zealand’s second most planted variety and it is planted widely in Australia too. The competition for high awards is stiff. Awards like this open doors in this highly competitive economic environment in which we find ourselves.”

‘We know we sit on an excellent piece of land” he continued “and we see a vintage-by-vintage improvement in the wines as the vines gain some age”.
“This Trophy will sit proudly beside the six Trophies won by our celebrated 2005 Pinot Noir at the Decanter World Wine Awards and the International Wine Challenge in London in 2007,” he said.

Bald Hills began entering the prestigious Sydney competition in 2007 and has since amassed five Blue Gold awards and three Top 100 awards, most of them for its Pinot Noir.

The SIWC’s unique approach to determining the ranking of wines which have progressed through initial elimination is to taste those wines with food, a method proven to be a reliable indicator of quality for merchants and the wine-drinking public alike.