Amid a grand farewell to its long-standing Chairman, Len Evans, the Royal Sydney Wine Show picked out some OnWine favourites for special attention. Last year’s OnWine Wine of the Year, Rosemount Estate’s Mountain Blue, was awarded the Tucker Seabrook Trophy for the Best Wine Exhibited in Major Shows for the past 12 months. It’s virtually impossible to find now, so I hope you bought it when we first brought the wine to your attention last year. The 1996 Rosemount Mountain Blue Shiraz Cabernet Sauvignon, one of the greatest wines ever to emerge from NSW’s Mudgee region, has now collected twenty gold medals and nine trophies. In the last twelve months Rosemount has been named ‘Winery of the Year’ by the San Francisco International Wine Competition, its winemaker, Philip Shaw was awarded the Qantas/Wine Magazine Winemaker of the Year and, at the International Challenge Du Vin at Bordeaux, its 1997 Orange Vineyard Chardonnay was awarded the ‘Prix d’Excellence’. Furthermore, last issue’s Wine of the Edition, the Penfolds Eden Valley Reserve Riesling 1999 was named as the Best White Wine of the Sydney Show, having also collected the trophy for Best Riesling. At OnWine we try hard to be a step ahead! If you want to drink the Langhorne Creek reds which collected a trio of trophies at Sydney you’ll have to become a member of Cellarmasters, for this Mildara Blass-owned company has done very well against other wineries whose wines are distributed in the general market. Cellarmasters’ 1997 Langhorne Creek Area Red Blend was awarded the Best Medium Bodied Red in the Show and the Best Dry Red in Premium Classes. Sold exclusively through Cellarmasters, Bleasdale’s 1998 Meritage (a blend of cabernet sauvignon, petit verdot and malbec) collected the Best Previous Vintage Red Table Wine in the Show, in a hotly contended class of 1998 red wines. The wines are the result of a collaborative effort between the Simon Adams and his team at Dorrien Estate and Bleasdale’s winemakers. To date the 1997 Langhorne Creek Area Red has won two trophies, six gold medals and seven silver medals. It is due for release in 2001. Best Pinot Noir of the Sydney Show was The Nobbies Pinot Noir 1998, grown from a single vineyard near Leongatha in Gippsland, Victoria, and made by the Diamond Valley team of David and James Lance.
