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Hawke's Bay Chardonnay wins first Bell Gully Champion Sustainable Wine Trophy
Cottage Block Hawke's Bay Chardonnay 2006 has won the Bell Gully Champion Sustainable Wine Trophy at this year's Air New Zealand Wine Awards.
The winners of the country's premier wine competition, organised by New Zealand Winegrowers, were announced in Christchurch on Saturday. It was the first time the sustainability trophy has been awarded and it replaces the Bell Gully Reserve Wine of the Show Trophy, reflecting the wine industry's commitment to sustainability.
The Corbans-owned Cottage Block Chardonnay was produced according to sustainability requirements, which includes water consumption and the use of specific types of refrigeration coolants.
Of the 1,540 wines entered in this year's competition, the Air New Zealand Champion Wine of the Show went to another Hawke's Bay entrant, the Trinity Hill Homage Syrah. Seven wines each from Hawke's Bay and Marlborough were awarded trophies, two Central Otago wines won awards and a top drop from Gisborne rounded out the year's best.
Air New Zealand Wine Awards chair of judges, Steve Smith, Master of Wine, says the two winning wines impressed the judging panel as exceptional. He says it is encouraging that New Zealand wineries are taking sustainability in winemaking seriously and that the New Zealand Winegrowers' recognition and encouragement of the movement is significant.
Bell Gully has been providing legal advice to New Zealand's wine industry for 30 years and has been a sponsor of the Air New Zealand Wine Awards for more than a decade. This year, Bell Gully worked with New Zealand Winegrowers and others to establish groundbreaking new guidance for local government to help the wine industry grow in a sustainable way.
