The Clear Image Hunter Valley Wine Show, one of Australia’s leading regional wine shows, was held on August 19 and showcased a variety of high calibre winemakers and their products.
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Among these high quality winemakers was Dimbulla Estate, a young vineyard committed to pursuing the early European settlers experience and tradition of wine making.
Dimbulla Estate was awarded the Doug Seabrook Memorial Trophy for the best red wine of the show and the Best Other Red trophy category.
The winning wine, the 2014 Tempranillo Shiraz, is a refreshing blend of the Spanish grape, Tempranillo, and Hunter Valley Shiraz. The wine is medium to full bodied showing red fruit and blackberry with savoury bitter cherry and peppery notes. It has a juicy palate with a mix of black cherry, plum and tilled earth finishing with mouth filling slippery tannins. Dimbulla Estate owner and previous Chairman of the Australian Rugby Union, Dilip Kumar, says that the estate first began growing the Tempranillo 15 years ago after realising that it was a hugely successful trend overseas.
“The Tempranillo has become hugely popular around the world and people are beginning to move away from the traditional heavy red wine, so the blend is doing well in the Hunter Valley,” Dilip says. “We have been very lucky to have the heavy rain earlier on, which means we were able to produce quality grapes.”
However, while the rugby and red wine enthusiast says the Dimbulla team always hopes to do well at these events, he admits they were absolutely blown away to be chosen for the awards. In fact, this is the first time a blend has ever won gold in the red wine category, with the previous winners being more traditional reds.
Medals awarded in the Clear Image Hunter Valley Wine Show are highly regarded throughout the media and wine industry, and Dimbulla Estate hopes to continue to gain recognition for their high quality wines.
Show President David Flynn said it was a fantastic result for the Hunter. “Once again we’ve seen the longevity and quality of our Semillons demonstrated with a 2009 vintage taking out the Best White of Show trophy.”
He also declared the online judging system, a pilot program developed in partnership with the Australian Wine Research Institute, a real success. “We sought a solution for front end entries through to the database and also online judging through to producing the results. We wanted a system that was integrated and efficient.
“Not only did we produce a wine show that was rigorous and meticulous, but having the judges’ scores coming through live to the heads of the panels added another dynamic level to the judging.”
