THE First Creek wine company lived up to its name on Friday when it topped the 2021 CCL Hunter Valley Wine Show with six trophies, including the best white of the show.
Five of the six were won by the First Creek 2014 Single Vineyard Black Cluster Semillon, which is available at $55 a bottle at the First Creek winery, in McDonalds Rd, Pokolbin, and on firstcreekwines.com.au.
It took the Petrie-Drinan Trophy for best white wine of the show, the Maurice O'Shea Trophy for best semillon, the Len Evans Trophy for best named vineyard wine, the Maurice O'Shea Trophy for best semillon and the Tyrrell Family Trophy for best single vineyard white wine.
Its sixth trophy, for the best rosé went to the First Creek 2021 FCR Merlot.
Silkman Wines, the eight-year-old boutique venture of team of Shaun and Liz Silkman, won the Murray Tyrrell Trophy for best chardonnay and the Henry John Lindeman Trophy for best two-year-old and older chardonnay.
The winning wine, the Silkman 2017 SILK Chardonnay can be bought for $40 at the Hunter Valley Wine House, 426 McDonald's Rd, Pokolbin.
In their day jobs the husband-and-wife team are respectively chief of production and bottling and chief winemaker at the First Creek winery headed by Shaun's father Greg Silkman.
With six trophies the De Iuliis family wine company matched First Creek's performance with the De Iuliis 2019 Limited Release Shiraz claiming the Doug Seabrook Trophy for best red wine of the show, the Hector Tulloch Trophy for best shiraz and the Elliott Family Trophy for best two-year-old shiraz.
It won't be available for 12 months but the double-trophy De Iuliis 2019 LDR Vineyard Shiraz-Touriga Nacional is now selling for $40 at the 1616 Broke Rd, Pokolbin, cellar door and dewine.com.au.
The blend of shiraz and the Portuguese-origin touriga nacional grape variety won the the Best Other Red Varieties Trophy and the Drayton Family Trophy for best single vineyard red wine.
De Iuliis 2007 Limited Release Shiraz, which only exists in museum stocks, won the John Lewis Newcastle Herald Trophy for best museum red wine.
The wine show was judged this week at Singleton Army Base by a panel headed by winemaker PJ Charteris
The Marrowbone Rd, Pokolbin-based Mount Pleasant brand won two trophies in its first year under the ownership of the Medich group headed by chairman Roy Medich OAM and his son Anthony as CEO.
The Mount Pleasant Non-Vintage 25-Year-Old Fortified Verdelho won the Trevor Drayton Trophy for best fortified wine.
The Mount Pleasant 2009, 2014 and 2019 Lovedale Semillon whites won the Iain Riggs Wine of Provenance Trophy - an award introduced in 2012 to highlight a group of wines reflecting a consistency of style and quality over time.
The rules require entrants to submit three different vintages of the same labelled wine, covering a vintage spread of at least 10 years.
