KWV wine wins challenge
2007-01-25
KWV’s 2004 Val du Chêne Chenin Blanc is the winner of the prestigious 2007 FNB Private Clients Wine Magazine Chenin Blanc Challenge, receiving a full five stars.
This is eloquent testimony to its outstanding quality, making it South Africa’s best Chenin Blanc for 2007 and pipping such benchmarks as the FMC Forrester Meinert 2004, that also received five stars.
The wine, produced by KWV maker of white wines, Tania Joubert, won this ultimate accolade for its finesse and complexity, a veritable masterpiece.
This is Tania’s second major success and follows her award- winning 2005 KWV Cathedral Cellar Chardonnay which was in the Top 10 South African Chardonnays at the Diner’s Club Winemaker Awards.
The same wine was the “Best in Class” and won a silver medal at the International Wine & Spirits Competition (IWSC) in London last year.
The 2004 Val du Chêne, of which 250 000 litres were produced, comes from grapes selected from the Malmesbury and Paarl areas.
Thirty per cent of the blend was fermented and aged in French oak for three months while 70% underwent normal tank fermentation.
The wine impressed the judges with its honey on the nose, medium-bodied style, elegant palate and fruit balanced by tangy acid. They recommend that it be drunk now, but it will age well for five years.
The competition was initiated in 1995 to help improve the variety’s Cinderella status in South Africa and to encourage winemakers to strive towards a new world-class benchmark from the Cape.
It is done with the producers’ Chenin Blanc Association whose members assist with the initial rounds of judging. Choosing a winner has become a matter of the jury’s preferred style among the country’s premium examples.
There were 125 entries in this year’s competition. A feature of the judging is that the top-rated wines, decided on by a process of discussion with a view to reaching consensus, are entered into a final blind tasting, after which the judges submit their order of preference in determining the overall winner.
Panel chairman Michael Fridjhon stated that “South African Chenin Blanc is now almost without parallel.”
Dr Willem Barnard, CEO of KWV Limited, is delighted with this top award: “It is well-known that KWV has the expertise and technology to produce top white wines. This high profile award proves our ability not only to produce them, but to set an unequalled standard.”
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