Graham Beck flagship MCC Cuvée Clive 2009 has been named best South African sparkling wine at the 2016 Champagne and Sparkling Wine World Championships held in London earlier this week, at an event attended by a hundred top sparkling wine and champagne producers from around the world.
Championships convenor Tom Stevenson said about the South African sparkling wine category: ‘We were delighted to receive twice the number of South African sparklers this year and to award our first Silver medal to a pure Chenin Blanc Cap Classique. We were also happy to see a reduction in the number of oxidative wines, but the judges were concerned by various levels of VA-lift in the wines of a few producers. Only high levels should be defined as faulty and we did not find any South African sparkling wines to have dangerously high levels or the sort of bacterial infection that is responsible for high levels. However, just below and above subliminal level, VA can be effective in increasing the fruitiness of a wine. When VA is not perceived, only fruitiness is experienced and the result can be quite smart indeed, but when VA is perceived, its effect is all too obvious and the result not very smart at all‘.
He added: ‘If next year’s participating Cap Classique producers could show us all their styles, from naturally fresh and fruity to more yeast-complexed styles, and park their VA-lifted wines with the more oxidative styles they held back this year, South Africa should be easily capable of doubling its haul of medals‘.
Louis Roederer Cristal Brut 2002 in a Magnum was named Supreme World Champion. The Graham Beck Cuvée Clive 2009 was one of eleven international sparkling wines to be named as National Champions, out of a total of sixty Best in Class sparkling wines.
‘2016 was a ground breaking year for the Champagne & Sparkling Wine World Championships, with more entries than ever before. In particular we were really pleased to be able to award National Champions for the first time in Chile, China and Hungary. It’s our mission to discover and reward new and exciting wines from emerging regions across the world‘, said Stevenson, in providing an overview of the international sparkling wine industry.
Detailed results of the Champagne & Sparkling Wine Championships 2016 can be seen on www.champagnesparklinewwc.co.uk/results/2016-medal-results, and in Stevenson’s ‘Champagne & Sparkling Wine Guide 2017′, which will be published in October.
Source: Media Release received via Waterford Communications.
Chris von Ulmenstein, WhaleTales Blog:www.whalecottage.com/blog Tel +27 082 55 11 323 Twitter:@WhaleCottage Facebook: click here Instagram: @Chris_Ulmenstein
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