THE Nelson Wine Estate Sauvignon Blanc, competing against wines from across the globe, received an accolade at the Annual Fish and Shellfish Food Fair held in the Netherlands recently.
The Nelson’s Creek 2007 Sauvignon Blanc was adjudged the best white wine/oyster combination in the world.
Competing against highly acclaimed brands from around the world the Nelson’s Creek Sauvignon Blanc scored the highest points from a panel of 20 international judges sitting at Goes on the Dutch coast.
All wines were tasted and scored blind. The wines were first assessed individually and then paired with the very best oysters from the region in order to determine which the best wine in the world was to serve with oysters.
”We are very proud to have won this international challenge,” says Alan Nelson who attended the show to exhibit the family’s wines there.
“We have been exporting our wines to Holland for some years now and this award is another milestone in our quest to produce wines of the very finest quality. Above all it shows that South Africa, and especially Paarl and our mini-region have the ability to produce excellent world class white wines.”
This prestigious international award is a sequel to a number of other prestigious awards that the Nelson Wine Estate in Windmeul, Agter Paarl, has won recently which include being adjudged the best Shiraz producer (2006) and the best Chardonnay producer (2007) for the Paarl region at the South Africa Terroir Wine Awards.
With this latest award of producing the best white wine accompaniment with oysters, the Windmeul region in Agter Paarl, where the Nelson’s Wine Estate is located, is most certainly living up to its reputation.
This mini region (recently re-named “Pearl’s Gate”), although measuring only 6 by 10 kilometres in extent, also boasts the rare distinction of having produced the grapes that were used to produce Cabernet Sauvignon and Shiraz wines that were adjudged the best in the world by separate panels of international judges at the International Wine Challenge in 2001 and again in 2003.
“These brilliant achievements are unquestionably attributable to the unique terroir that our region enjoys,” says Nelson.
“We are located on the cool Atlantic seaward side of the Paarl Mountain with soils that are a unique mixture of decomposed granite and Malmesbury Shale.
“The fact that our region can now add Sauvignon Blanc to its list of wines that have received international acclaim, reaffirms that this mini region can rightfully claim to be one of the best in the world.”
