Urlar winemaker Jannine Rickards, and viticulturist Bevan Lambess with the winning wines. PHOTO/SUPPLIED
GIANINA SCHWANECKE
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Gladstone’s Urlar vineyard and winery has much to celebrate this harvest season after taking home two golds at the New Zealand Easter Show Wine Awards this month.
The certified organic producers won gold for their 2018 Urlar Pinot Noir and gold for the 2019 Urlar Late Harvest Riesling, which also went on to take out the Trophy for Champion Sweet Wine.
Winemaker Jannine Rickards said, “The wine is energetic and lively with a more elegant residual sugar of 104g/L left from the fermentation. It is very clean and versatile and is certified organic.
“I love it for its pink grapefruit skin, honey and spice characters, it is a complete sweet wine with nice drive and a lingering lively honeyed finish.”
The awards are the country’s oldest wine competition, having started in 1953.
Awards director Terry Dunleavy said the 22 judges were impressed by the overall quality of entries this year.
“Not only was there an increase in the number of gold medals awarded but the wines revealed greater diversity of styles,” he said.
“This year’s show demonstrated why there is such a demand throughout the world for our wines based on their clean and distinctive varietal characters that distinguish our wines from those of older, longer established wine regions that sell for prices much higher than ours.”
