The Old Mutual Trophy Wine Show identifies the best wines from a show submission of nearly 1000 entries: the judges are directed to separate the medal winners from the other contestants, and to divide these laureates across three medal classes.

Unsurprisingly, certain categories consistently out-perform others: over the five years of the show's existence, Cabernet and Cabernet-based blends have always garnered at least one gold medal while Chardonnay has had something of an erratic history. Sauvignon Blanc has battled to collect gold at some shows while Port, wood-aged white blends and Semillon have substantially out-performed their weight of entries.

In 2006 there was an encouraging Sauvignon Blanc group, a much improved Chardonnay class, some lovely oaked white blends, a marked improvement in the Shiraz class, several exciting red blends and some interesting small red varietal classes. What the judges didn't see was the usual array of spectacular (and often under-rated) dessert wines, a wealth of quality Cabernets, the depth of Chenin Blanc that the annual WINE magazine TOPS at SPAR Challenge has showcased, and a significant increase in the quality of the non-mainstream varieties.

Source: Winemag.co.za / Michale Fridjhon, Chairman of the Judges

The best Old Mutual Wine Trophy winners for 2006
The show's prize winning South African wines

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