A South Australian bottle of chardonnay has won the 'Best of Show Australian white wine' at a prestigious international wine competition.
The $26 bottle — produced by Clare Valley's Taylors Wines — won the award at the Mundus Vini Grand International Wine Awards held in Germany in late February.
Taylors Wine also won the title of Best Producer from Australia.
Schubert Estate Wines in the Barossa Valley claimed the Best of Show Australian red trophy and a Gold Medal for its 2018 Schubert Estate Goose-Yard Block Shiraz.
Third-generation winemaker and Taylors Wines managing director Mitchell Taylor said he was over the moon to have the winery recognised internationally — despite challenges endured by the industry over the past few years.
"With some of the difficult conditions, particularly when it has come to drought, international markets like China [being] cut off in the past, it really highlighted all the hard work we've put in to create this wine and this blend," Mr Taylor said.
He said the family-owned winery prided itself on offering high-quality value-for-money wines.
"It's extremely important for us to have an affordable price point so that most of our customers are able to find [our wines] widely distributed throughout Australia and in our key export markets."
South Australian wineries collect gold
Taylors Wines were not the only winery acknowledged at the global event.
A total of 43 gold medals were collected by Australian wineries — all from South Australia.
Mr Taylor said it was a testament to the high quality and diversity across SA wine regions.
"We [SA] make about 60 to 70 per cent of all Australian wine. And it's really our cool climate regions that really have that great quality and distinctiveness," he said.
"We have the fruit-driven flavours that really are noticed on the world stage."
He added that the outlook for the 2023 vintage season looked very promising.
"We've had really good winter rains within our Clare Valley vineyard," Mr Taylor said.
"We've had nice runoff, so there's nice moisture in the subsoil, beautiful flowering conditions — we're getting some very high-quality fruit coming across our weighbridge."
Mr Taylor said export markets were starting to show some green shoots.
"We're seeing some good little opportunities in parts of Asia, and we're also getting quite a bit of interest on the quality side in North America, particularly Canada and the USA," he said.
The Mundus Vini Grand International Wine Award is one of Europe's biggest and most important wine competitions, with more than 7,500 wines from across the globe critically tasted and evaluated for six intensive days.
The competition is judged by a panel of highly recognised experts, including trained oenologists, leading sommeliers, expert wine retailers, wine journalists and scientists from across the globe.
