Welcome to the 2023 Awards
After more than two years of disruptions and virtual events, we were finally able to gather in person to celebrate the 2023 Halliday Wine Companion Awards at Melbourne’s Stokehouse restaurant on August 3.
OVERLOOKING St Kilda beach, the Australian wine industry’s night of nights was not only a celebration of this year’s awardwinning wines, wineries, winemakers and viticulturists, but of the work and effort of James Halliday and the Tasting Team on this year’s Wine Companion.
Over the past 12 months, James, Tyson Stelzer, Jeni Port, Jane Faulkner, Erin Larkin, Ned Goodwin MW and, for the first time, Dave Brookes and Philip Rich, collectively tasted and reviewed more than 8000 wines from all over the country.
To determine the winners, each of the eight tasters nominated one or two standout wines in each of 18 varietal and stylistic classes, which they then lined up and tasted back-to-back over three days of judging at Mitchelton Wines in Victoria’s Nagambie region back in March.
As Tyson Stelzer said at the time: “This is not only the ultimate taste-off for the best wines of the year, it’s also an invaluable benchmarking opportunity for each judge to compare the top wines of their regions with every other highlight across the country.”
This year, wines were judged blind for the first time. There’s an argument to be made for knowing a wine’s story, pedigree and details of vinification when reviewing. But there’s also an argument to be made for judging purely on what’s in the glass.
Many of the previous years’ heavy hitters – Henschke, Mount Mary, and so on – again ranked among the top wines of the year, but, interestingly, were joined by plenty of smaller wineries from lesserknown regions.
One of many good-news stories from this year’s Awards was boutique winery Battles winning Shiraz of the Year. Its Granitis Shiraz from the Perth Hills may have a cult following within Western Australia, but it was something of a surprise to the rest of the country. Another is Sparkling of the Year, won by Gilbert Family Wines with their Blanc de Blancs from the high-elevation region of Orange, New South Wales. And then of course Wine of the Year, which went to a white wine – a $35 riesling from Great Western, no less – for only the second time in Wine Companion history.
The March judging was also where the major award winners were decided. Each Tasting Team member put forward their nominees for Winemaker of the Year, Viticulturalist of the Year and so on, and the shortlist was discussed and voted upon by the panel.
As the results show, Australian wine has never been in a better or more exciting place.