Hawke's Bay producer Sileni Estates has been awarded Platinum at the 2017 Decanter World Wine Awards (DWWA) for its 2014 Estate Selection Peak Syrah.
The Decanter World Wine Awards is one of the world’s largest and most influential international wine competitions judged by the top wine experts, Masters of Wine and Master Sommeliers from around the world.
"This is another outstanding result for a New Zealand Syrah and a testament to both our Hawkes Bay climate and soil types, as well as the vineyard management and winemaking skills of our staff,” said CEO Nigel Avery. “Syrah is a relatively new varietal for us and to achieve an award of this level bodes very well for the future.”
The DWWA competition differs slightly to most international wine shows in that the Gold Medal winning wines are re-judged together in two price categories (above and below £15) with the top wine awarded a Platinum Medal for Best in Category. The Peak Syrah was judged best in the Best Value New Zealand Red Rhône Varietals Category, and with only 134 gold medals awarded from 17,200 entries, the Peak Syrah is one of the top 1% of the total.
The grapes for the 2014 Peak Syrah were grown in the Bridge Pa Triangle, a sub-region of Hawke's Bay with river gravel soils that are perfectly suited to growing red grape varieties and which have been the source of many of New Zealand’s best Syrah wines. Sileni Estates has around 75 hectares of vineyard in this sub-region, over half of which is planted in the red varieties of Merlot, Syrah and Cabernet Franc.
“We have huge confidence in the ability of Hawke's Bay Bridge Pa Triangle to produce world class red wines, and this result absolutely confirms our view”, said Sileni's Red Winemaker Cairn Coghill. “We’re looking forward to new clones coming on stream and stepping up the quality even further.”
