23 Aug Inside The East Anglian Wine of the Year awards
The East Anglian Wine of the Year awards was held at Giffords Hall Vineyard near Bury St Edmunds on Friday 19th Aug. Rather like the results day for all those leaving school last weekend, Wine GB East members gathered on tenterhooks on Friday at Giffords Hall Vineyard to find out if they had won awards for their wines.
Head judge Tanja Wright MW ran an expert panel of judges and awarded some of the highest marks seen in the Regional WINEGB East competition. With over 50 wines entered 27 were medal winners with over 14 coveted gold medals awarded.
‘We are seeing higher and higher quality wines emerging from East Anglia’ remarked Tanja ‘ we need to really make some noise and celebrate the wines from this region’
The Spear Trophy for best Sparkling wine with the highest scores across the panel and subsequently winner of the Wine of the Year Trophy was awarded to Giffords Hall Vineyard for their Classic Cuvee 2018.
“We are truly delighted with this result’, said Linda Howard, owner of Giffords Hall. ‘We had a wonderful day with a very exclusive panel of judges including Andy Clark from BBCs Saturday Breakfast, a renown food and drink judge, also on the panel of the IEWA and the Great British Food awards, also Sarah Thake from Elizabethrose Wines and James Davis MW joined Tanja Wright MW to generously give up their time to preside over Fridays entries’.
Toppesfield Vineyard took the best rose award and the best red went to new vineyard, ARK Wines, while the best Bacchus was awarded to Coopers Croft Vineyard near Newmarket. The Guy Howard award for best retailer and promoter was presented to Matt Hodgson of Grape Brittania in Cambridge.
The competition was opened to the Public later in the day for a full tasting of all the wines opened during the day and was well attended and enjoyed by many local wine enthusiasts.
