Damned if I mention it, damned if I don’t, but the award of least relevance to Australian winemaking, but perhaps of greatest import to Australian wine marketing has landed in the Hunter Valley, even if the wine responsible was grown in Coonawarra. Chris Cameron, Pepper Tree’s winemaker, looked in remarkably fine shape when presented with his medal at Jimmy Watson’s Wine Bar, Carlton, the afternoon after being awarded the coveted, if incongruous, Jimmy Watson Trophy the night before. Yes, it’s for the best one year-old red at the Royal Melbourne Wine Show; yes, it’s for an unfinished wine; yes, it’s little more than a lottery; and yes, it’s part of show tradition. As a credible award however, it doesn’t even make the starting grid. The wine, by the way, was a selection of what might ultimately appear as Pepper Tree’s 2000 Reserve Coonawarra Cabernet Sauvignon. But because it isn’t in bottle yet, one can never be entirely sure.
