By Annette Shailer
Paringa Estate has proved the top performer at this year’s Macquarie Group Sydney Royal Wine Show.
The Mornington Peninsula winery picked up five gold medals and five trophies, impressing the expert panel of judges, led by chairman of judges Iain Riggs.
“Paringa did a suburb job and was suitably rewarded with the Macquarie Group Perpetual Trophy for Best Wine in Show for their 2006 Paringa Estate Shiraz,” Riggs said.
Tyrrell’s 2005 Vat 1 Hunter Semillon took out the Albert Chan Memorial Trophy for the Best White Wine of Show, an award the Hunter Valley winery has bagged three times in the last five years.
The 2007 Starvedog Lane Shiraz Viognier received the Leslie Kemeny Memorial Perpetual Trophy, with the winery collecting its seventh capital city trophy for their Shiraz Viognier blend.
This year’s show saw 2355 wines from 357 exhibitors judged at the show, which drew close to a 20 per cent increase in entries compared to last year.
On a state basis South Australia dominated with 52 gold medals, followed by NSW with 43, WA with 16 gold and Victoria with 10 gold — half of these courtesy of Paringa Estate.