AWARDS AND TROPHIES PRESENTATION BANQUET 2011

From 10.00 am until Banquet sit-down at 12 noon, all the TOP 1OO Wines from the 2011 judging will be available for tasting, note taking, decision making. We have never sought to tell you “what” to drink with this or that dish: only to offer you some objective, highly qualified choices. (This first two hours of the proceedings is optional. Our Banquet guests may arrive at any time they choose during the tasting period, prior to Banquet sit-down at 12 noon.).

The winning wines will be arranged in their thirteen individual, user-friendly “Style Categories”, like “Fuller Bodied Dry White Table Wines’, ‘Medium Bodied Dry Red Table Wines’. Thus, for ease of comparison, you will be tasting exceptional, award winning wines of similar palate weight, side by side.

Objectively, without reference to variety, vintage or region, our Judges themselves do this sorting of the wines into these Style Categories. This makes it so much easier for you to choose wines for the dining table which will neither overpower the flavours of your dish, nor be over-whelmed by them. Also, it is this sorting into Style Categories that makes it possible for us to judge the finalists alongside appropriate food dishes that wines of that particular palate weight should complement. All the Award/Trophy winners pass through this rigorous assessment.

The Banquet itself offers seven outstanding examples of these wine/food synergies. This year, from the Competition’s thirteen Style Categories, seven small dégustation food courses will be presented during the afternoon’s Trophy presentations. This year, the food dishes have been created to complement these Style Categories. [1] Dry White Sparkling Wines. [2] Lighter Bodied Dry White Table Wines. [3] Fuller Bodied Dry White Table Wines. [4] Pinot Noir Still Red Table Wines. [5] Lighter Bodied Dry Red Table Wines, [6] Medium Bodied Dry Red Table Wines. [7] Fortified Wines.

All in all, nineteen TOP 1OO wines will be presented at table, during the course of the Banquet. A Grüner Veltliner varietal makes a first appearance in the trio of Lighter Bodied Dry Whites. A glorious Rutherglen Topaque (the new name for Australian Tokay) will be served with the Seventh Plate.