‘Baby winery’ takes out top wine prize
Margaret River’s two-year-old “baby” winery, Flametree, beat hundreds of entries to win the best dry table red wine in a David and Goliath-style battle at the IGA Perth Royal Show awards.
Established in 2006, part owners Daniela and Jeremy Gordon said they were amazed their 2007 vintage cab merlot won such a reputable award in their label’s debut appearance at the show.
“It’s pretty awesome to get recognition for our wines so early on in our career,” Mr Gordon said.
“When you start a winery and you are just head down, bum up and working so hard, it’s really nice to have this thing happen.
“We are such a young label in a well respected and established WA wine industry, so this win is fantastic.”
As judges sipped, swirled, sniffed and spat their way through wine from more than 2500 different Australian wineries, winemaking consultant and chairman judge Tony Jordan’s job was to make sure there were no squabbles over blue ribbons.
He said unlike past years, there were no disputes over the winning labels and insisted wine tasting was a refined job for gentlemen.
Mr Jordan said while it might be seen as unfashionable, partly due to television characters and foxy morons Kath and Kim who knock back the odd “car-donnay”, WA had this year produced some brilliant chardonnay.
Singaporean Alan Wong was invited to Perth by the Royal Agricultural Society as the first ever international wine judge from Asia.
Mr Wong said while there were some good wines from Japan, India, Thailand and Bali, because of the lack of space for vineyards they were more of a hobby industry.
“Australian wines stand out in a good way, they are easy drinking, the labels are simple, attractive and easy to understand and of course they taste very sophisticated,” he said.
“Unfortunately I only have carry-on luggage so I’m not allowed to take any home.”
The South West again produced several winners including Margaret River pioneering vineyard Evans and Tate, which won the best exhibitor at the show.
They also won the best merlot, with their 2007 vintage and its 2005 reserve shiraz won the best WA dry red table wine.
Winemaker Matt Byrne said 2007 had proved to be a phenomenal year for red wines and it was enormously satisfying for Evans and Tate to consistently be seen as a benchmark Australian wine.