Big wins for Vilaura, Mount Riley, Wairau River & Church Road at 2025 awards
Vilaura won Champion Wine of the Show at the 2025 National Wine Awards of Aotearoa New Zealand, with the Hawke's Bay Blanc de Blanc 2021.
The awards are simultaneously the newest and the oldest national wine competition in New Zealand, run by the team that organised New Zealand's longest running wine show, the Royal Easter Show Wine Awards.
Jane says wine judging requires discipline and focus, "to highlight and pull out the best wines in a lineup, and to be consistent with that".
It takes time and the right personality to become very good at it, she says. "And you have to love it, I think."
Keen to innovate, Jane introduced an organic trophy last year and this year has included an alternative styles category, aimed at lo-fi and natural wines.
"I would love to draw these wines into these awards and celebrate those styles as well," Jane says. "I am also trying to increase the diversity amongst the judges as we often see a majority of winemakers judging and I feel we need more people from other areas of wine - hospitality in particular. People who have come from the world of wine but not a winery environment. They just have a different lens which is so important, I think."
Entries for the 2024 awards open 12 August and close 6 September. Initial results will be released 11 October, with the Awards of Excellence Long Luncheon on 3 November.
