Many Winemakers Contribute to Legacy Award

Many Winemakers Contribute to Legacy Award 

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Knowledge passed from one winemaking team to another over nearly a decade has come up trumps at the 2022 Marlborough Wine Show, sponsored by QuayConnect.

Despite previously being a category dominated by white wines, Wither Hills picked up the Marlborough Museum Legacy Award with their Wither Hills Taylor River Single Vineyard Pinot Noir 2019, 2015 and 2011.

The Legacy Award celebrates consistently performing wine across three vintages within a ten-year period. Wither Hills Head Winemaker Matt Large says the team was thrilled to pick up the award.

“It feels awesome, especially as this award has been won with quite a few winemaking hands involved over the three wines. All involved have had real passion for making great Pinot Noir, and have all taught each other a thing or two about the vineyard, and how to get the best wine from it,” he says.

“We feel that Pinot Noir is the perfect variety to showcase over numerous years and it’s great to have wines that age well and are received by our judging peers as great cellaring wines.”

 The Taylor River Single Vineyard has provided consistency for the Wither Hills winemaking teams over the years, which Matt credits to the success of the wine.

“Year on year we get top quality fruit from this vineyard, and this can be seen by the nine-year gap between the oldest and youngest of the wines we entered. It’s a vineyard that has quite a few different blocks of Pinot Noir planted, and they all have differing rootstocks, clones and soil types.

“We definitely have our favourite blocks within the vineyard, but overall it’s a great place to grow Pinot Noir.”

Creating quality Pinot Noir has been a focus for the Wither Hills team for many years, he adds.

“Right back in 1997, when we first made Pinot Noir, we thought that Marlborough and the Southern Valleys subregion was going to be a great place to grow and make Pinot Noir. We use some of the oldest winemaking technologies, a basket press, right through to our state-of-the-art optical berry sorting machine to maximise the quality of the fruit to make these wines. From day one, the team has always been focused on making high quality Pinot Noir that is enjoyable to drink,” Matt says.

Marlborough Museum director Steve Austin says sponsoring the Legacy Award is special to them, and is part of ensuring the museum remains relevant to the region as its key industry develops.

“We love this award … Our Wine Exhibition has been enjoyed by around 130,000 visitors and is still the best Wine Exhibition in Australasia,” he says.

“Our history of the wine industry is important, and it relates to our people, economy, environment, technology and social change.”

The Legacy Award, Steve says, is a platform for top judges to measure the development of Marlborough’s best wines as they have been maturing.

“We understand that we are giving the judges a tough job to judge different styles against each other, and especially with the added element of the way wines are developing over time, up to 10 years, that gives them a real challenge,” Steve says.

“It is really gratifying to know the award we developed has been so consistently keenly contested by entrants, and continues to be a genuinely interesting experience for the judges.”

Over the years, it has been interesting to watch as different wine styles take the trophy, Steve says.

“One of the fascinating aspects of the award is dominance of the aromatics, notably Riesling, in earlier years especially, and it is now certainly great to see Pinot Noir becoming increasingly recognised by this award,” he says.

“Congratulations to this year’s winning team, most well-deserved, especially as part of their entry has been 10 years in the making.”