THE Hunter Valley's First Creek Wines has been selected as one of the 10 finalists in the Halliday Wine Companion 2024 Australian Winery of the Year.
The winner, decided by an expert panel of chief editor Campbell Mattinson and judges James Halliday, Mike Bennie, Shanteh Wale, Dave Brookes, Jane Faulkner, Jeni Port and Philip Rich, is due to be announced in Melbourne at the launch of the 2024 Wine Companion guide on August 2.
First Creek's genesis came in 1998 when Greg and Jenny Silkman bought Pokolbin land bordered by the First Creek watercourse and established a state-of-the-art winery to produce wines from bought-in grapes from premium winegrowers.
First Creek has had an incredible rise since, with Liz Silkman, a recent dux of the world-famous Len Evans Tutorial joining the family business as chief winemaker in 2008.
As First Creek chief operating officer, her husband the Silkmans' son Shaun, has presided over the development of the 35,000-dozen-capacity McDonalds Road, Pokolbin winery and the commissioning of a $1.6 million Italian bottling line that can turn out 1.5 million cases of wine.
As head of First Creek winemaking, Liz Silkman has been named Hunter Winemaker of the Year three times over the past 10 years, the first person to do so, and was a recent dux of the world-famous Len Evans Tutorial.
She and her First Creek team have had remarkable wine judging successes including the 2017 Winemakers Reserve Chardonnay winning the 2018 Halliday Chardonnay Challenge and the 2018 Winemakers Reserve Chardonnay being named best chardonnay in NSW in 2019 and judged by James Halliday among the top five Australian Chardonnays in the 2019 Chardonnay Challenge.
First Creek managing director Greg Silkman said he was thrilled at being a 2024 Australian Winery of the Year finalist.
"Being shortlisted among such great company is in itself an achievement and it's great news for the Hunter Valley too, proving that we as a brand and the Hunter Valley as a region are capable of great things," he said.
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