Hard on the heels of its impressive five-star rating in the 2007 edition of James Halliday’s Australian Wine Companion, Millbrook Winery is celebrating again, with its Estate Shiraz Viognier receiving a top 100 award at the 2007 Sydney International Wine Competition.
The accolade equates to blue-gold award winners and ranks the winning wines in the top 5 per cent of the 2007 competition’s entries.
Not a bad showing, considering there were 2,000 entries from 12 countries into the competition, which attracted entrants from 532 wineries.
Entrants from countries such as Italy, New Zealand, South Africa and the US contest the top 100 award, such is its status among the international wine community.
But a quality field of competitors didn’t stop relative wine novice India from fielding entrants.
Millbrook’s wine typifies its estate-grown vines, planted in 1996 on a shallow, lateritic soil ridge. The wine was bottled in January 2006 and only 810 dozen produced.
The wine, which also won a gold medal at the 2006 Swan Valley Wine Show and a silver at the 2006 Perth Hills Wine Show, will be released later this month.
• • •
Earlier this month, LedaSwan Organic Winery in Baskerville achieved organic certification from the certifying body, Australian Certified Organic (ACO), making it the first certified organic winery and vineyard in Perth’s Swan Valley.
This stringent criteria was the result of an 18-month survey; comparatively quick, according to owners Duncan and Deborah Harris, as certification can often take three years to complete.
Claiming the rise in popularity for organic produce represents a “social backlash”, the Mr and Ms Harris plan to extend LedaSwan’s marketing push following their certification to satisfy an increasingly high demand for organic food and wine products.
