Winners in New World wine awards now on supermarket shelves

With summer just around the corner there's good news for rose lovers - the quality on the shelves is better than ever, one of New Zealand's top wine judges says.

The improving quality in the varietal was noticed during judging for the New World wine awards, the winners of which were announced today.

The overall champion red and white wines were for the first time won by the same winery, Saint Clair Family Estate.

Saint Clair is based in Marlborough, and won an award for its premium pinot noir 2015 and premium chardonnay 2016.

A 16-strong panel of independent judges spent three days in August tasting and meticulously retasting more than 1200 wines from all over the globe for this year's awards.

More than 800 medals have now been doled out amongst the 1250 entries, with 82 taking home a gold.

Now in its 15th year, the awards use an internationally recognised 100 points scoring system to rank which under-$25 wines are worthy of gold, silver and bronze medals.

These make the top 50, and are champions of their varietal.

Any winery can enter as long as it has a minimum of 5000 bottles available for retail and winners are stocked on New World shelves.

This year's top 50 winning wines are on supermarket shelves from today.

Entries in the 2017 awards came from wineries in New Zealand, Australia, France, Spain, Italy, Chile, Argentina, Germany and the United States.

New Zealand wines won eight of the 10 champion award categories.

In total, the judging panel awarded 826 medals: 82 gold, 242 silver and 502 bronze, with sauvignon blanc winning the highest number of medals overall with 129, and significant increases in the number of medals won by lesser known wine varietals such as tempranillo.

By ranking each wine and awarding it on a point system out of 100, consumers could feel confident trying new varietals because they knew they were getting a good example of the type, judging chair Jim Harre said.

"It takes the guesswork out of choosing quality wine, and that's something wine lovers obviously value judging by how quickly medal-winning wines are snapped up each year."

Now in his tenth year as chair, Harre was more impressed than ever at this year's entries and said the rose was a stand-out performer.

The quality of the rose entries reflected a wider industry development in the variety, he said.

"Wineries are making great-quality rose in response to growing demand from wine lovers who really enjoy it.

"They are diversifying into using different grapes - not just pinot noir - and balancing the acidity and sweetness to create some really interesting, complex wines."

After last year's winners were announced nearly 400,000 bottles of the top 50 wines, with a retail value in excess of $5.3 million, sold within the first six weeks, according to New World's data.

Some of the champion and gold medal-winning wines sold out across New World stores in less than 10 days.

The full results of the New World Wine Awards can be viewed here.

The variety winners:

Champion Sauvignon Blanc: Russian Jack Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc 2017 (NZ)
Champion Pinot Gris: Dashwood Marlborough Pinot Gris 2017 (NZ)
Champion Chardonnay: Saint Clair Marlborough Premium Chardonnay 2016 (NZ)
Champion Riesling: The Doctors' Marlborough Riesling 2015 (NZ)
Champion Sparkling Wine: Morton Estate Premium Brut NV (NZ)
Champion Rose: Forrest Marlborough Rose 2017 (NZ)
Champion Pinot Noir: Saint Clair Marlborough Premium Pinot Noir 2015 (NZ)
Champion Red Blend: Coopers Creek SV Gravels and Metals Hawke's Bay Merlot/Malbec 2014 (NZ)
Champion Single Varietal Red: Real Compania de Vinos Tempranillo 2016 (Spain)
Champion Shiraz & Syrah: Taylors Clare Valley Shiraz 2016 (Australia)