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 Although the Gold continues to elude India even at the 6th edition of the Cathay Pacific HKIWSC, 7 Silver and 11 Bronzes were awarded to Indian wines. Grover Zampa has had a miracle run at the competition by bagging 6 out of the 7 Silver medals and 9 Bronze medals, taking its Medal tally to 15-an all-time record for an Indian wine producer. Myra Shiraz 2014 has bagged Silver and York won a Bronze each for the Sauvignon Blanc 2014 and Chenin Blanc 2014.
Debra Meiburg Master of Wine, who is a Hong Kong resident and chairs the competition since it was conceived 6 editions ago, is not surprised. A regular taster of Indian wines and having made several visits to India in the past, she tells delWine, ‘there has been a steady improvement in the quality of Indian wines and the results indicate that India is coming up fast as a quality wine producer in Asia. Indian wines have been consistently doing better at the Competition. I hope there will be a couple of Gold Medals next year for India.’
Vijay Amritraj must be a happy man to bring out his label in conjunction with GroverZ recently as both his labels win a medal in the debut. VA Collection Reserve Red 2014 bagged Silver whereas the White managed a Bronze.
GroverZ monopolises Food Awards
The Food and Wine match Category which is a specialty at the HKIWSC has been monopolised by GroverZ with all three medals in this category cornered by them- The Art Series Sauvignon Blanc 2014 gets Silver while The La Reserve White 2014 and Chene 2013 win a Bronze each. This is a category of special interest where the quality of wine is not judged at all but only the matching of wine with food on the palate. Subhash Arora, who has been invited as a judge from the inception of the Cathay Pacific HKIWSC, has encouraged Indian producers to participate in this category because the wine entered need not be the best in class but can certainly win medals if it goes well with food for the judges-and after all, a medal is a medal! Very astute step on the part of GroverZ to have entered in this category too –which incidentally had chicken tikka introduced as the Indian dish a few years ago and hopefully, another Indian dish will be added next year.
Incidentally, Arora was one of the 4 panel presidents at the competition but did not taste these wines for judging. They were assigned to another panel which was presided by Simon Tam, co-director of HKIWSC and one of the best known tasters of Hong Kong, who also works with Christie's as the China expert. After tasting, I had asked him his opinion of the quality of the Indian wines tasted. He had seemed very pleased when he said, ‘I think they have done very well. I was very happy with the wine quality in general.’ Very Well Indeed! Bravo, GroverZ! Bravo, the other winners- York and Myra.
One of the benefits of participating in HKIWSC is that the Award winning wines are available for tasting at the Fair held a month after the competition. The winners will be present at the Show on November 6-8. Another unique feature is that the tasters are basically Asian- therefore if one is looking for the Asia market, one knows that Asian judges have tasted the wines. Debra is an American who has settled in Hong Kong for about 30 years. A VIP judge is invited from across the globe every year-this year it was Susana Balbo-the first woman oenologist of Argentina and President of the Wines of Argentina.
For details please visit http://www.hkiwsc.com
Subhash Arora
Tags: Grover Zampa, Cathay Pacific Hong Kong International Wine and Spirits Competition, York, Vijay Amritraj, HKIWSC, GroverZ, Myra |