A wine competition that re-judges gold medal-winning wines together in two price categories with the top wine awarded a Platinum medal for ‘Best in Category’ has given the nod to a New Zealand winery from Hawke’s Bay.
Sileni Estates has triumphed with its 2014 Estate Selection Peak Syrah at the prestigious Decanter World Wine Awards in London, and chief executive Nigel Avery says the win is down to climate, soil types, company management and the winemaking skills of staff. “Syrah is a relatively new varietal for us and to achieve an award of this level bodes very well for the future,” he says. The Decanter World Wine Awards is one of the world’s largest and most influential international wine competitions judged by the top wine experts, Masters of Wine and Master Sommeliers from around the world.
The Peak Syrah was judged best in the ‘Best Value New Zealand Red Rhône Varietals Category’, and with only 134 gold medals awarded from 17,200 entries, the Peak Syrah is one of the top one percent, Avery says. The grapes for the 2014 Peak Syrah were grown in the Bridge Pa Triangle, a sub-region of Hawke’s Bay with river gravel soils that are perfectly suited to growing red grape varieties and which have been the source of many of New Zealand’s best Syrah wines.
Sileni Estates has around 75ha of vineyard in this sub-region, more than half of which is planted in the red varieties of Merlot, Syrah and Cabernet Franc. “We have huge confidence in the ability of Hawke’s Bay Bridge Pa Triangle to produce world class red wines, and this result absolutely confirms our view,” says Sileni’s red winemaker Cairn Coghill. “We’re looking forward to new clones coming on stream and stepping up the quality even further.
