Trophy and Heritage Rose Bowl for Villa Maria at 2015 Royal Easter Show Wine Awards
Villa Maria Estate has hit the ground running for 2015 winning the Pinot Noir Trophy at this year’s Royal Easter Show Wine awards. A great moment of the evening was being awarded the Heritage Rose Bowl for the 2003, 2008 & 2013 Cabernet Merlot. The Heritage category was introduced to identify and reward wines that have evidenced a capacity to develop grace and complexity over time and offer a guide to consumers and wine lovers about cellaring potential of such wines.
Picking up the award on behalf of the Villa Maria team was Helen Morrison, Marlborough Winemaker who comments: “It was a great pleasure to receive the Champion Pinot Noir trophy for our 2012 Villa Maria Seddon Single Vineyard Pinot Noir on behalf of the Marlborough team. 2012 was an unusually cool, long growing season, so it’s great to see such a well-balanced intense Pinot Noir rewarding the patience of the Seddon Viticultural team. The vineyard site on the southern banks of the Awatere River is sheltered from cool southerly winds with deep papa soils therefore consistently produces wines with lifted fragrant aromatics and ethereal textures and concentrated red fruits.”
Alastair Maling MW – General Manager of Winemaking who collected the Heritage Rose Bowl, the trophy that recognises three vintages of the same wine over a 10 year period made reference to the fact that we often drink our wines to young. “If we can have the patience to hold wine or the confidence to purchase an older vintage at a restaurant, as consumers, we will have a much more pleasurable experience. Wine shows typically reward the most recent vintages. Therefore, without a category that specifically reflects on consistency of a single wine over a 10 year period, the story about ageability is lost. Many of New Zealand’s wines will and can age, at Villa Maria, we will release a top level wine then hold it back and re-release once it has some bottle age, something we feel benefits the growing food and wine culture within our restaurants”.
These award wins follow what has been an incredible start to 2015, with Villa Maria being named the fourth Most Admired Wine Brand in the world, by drinks international magazine.
Villa Maria Trophy
Villa Maria Cabernet Merlot 2002, 2008 & 2013 awarded the Heritage Rose Bowl
Villa Maria Single Vineyard Seddon Pinot Noir 2012
Villa Maria Gold medals
Villa Maria Cellar Selection Hawkes Bay Chardonnay 2014
Villa Maria Reserve Marlborough Chardonnay 2013
Villa Maria Single Vineyard Keltern Chardonnay 2013
Villa Maria Single Vineyard Seddon Pinot Noir 2012
Villa Maria Single Vineyard Taylors Pass Pinot Noir 2012
This is the 62nd Royal Easter Show with 1,222 wines entered into this year’s competition.
Please Contact:
Jennifer Watts PR Manager
Tel: +64 (9) 2551754 JenniferW@villamaria.co.nz
Alastair Maling MW General Manager, Winemaking
Tel: +64 (9) 2550676 AlastairM@villamaria.co.nz