A Japanese wine has won a regional trophy at the Decanter Asia Wine Awards (DAWA) for the first time in all Decanter competitions, according to the newly-released results for this year's competition.
Judges were unanimous in the decision to award a gold medal and regional trophy to Grace winery’s 2012 Gris de Koshu, a 100% Koshu white wine from the Yamanashi area of Japan’s Chubu region.
Regional trophies are gold medal-winning wines that have been deemed best-in-class in their particular region or area.
‘It is exciting to see some great wines from Japan,’ said Jeannie Cho Lee MW, who co-chaired the DAWA 2013 alongside Steven Spurrier.
Cho Lee was one of 44 top wine experts from across Asia and around the world who descended on Hong Kong to judge more than 2,300 wines between 16 and 19 September, which led to 2,023 medals being awarded.
Vice-chairs were Gerard Basset MS MW OBE, Decanter columnist Andrew Jefford, Michael Hill-Smith MW from Australia, Shinya Tasaki from Japan and Ch’ng Poh Tiong from Singapore.
Cho Lee highlighted the growing presence of wines from within Asia at the awards, now in their second year. ‘This year’s DAWA had strong support from Asian producers and the number of wines from China and India has grown substantially since last year,’ she told decanter.com, following the results announcement today (23 October).
India failed to scoop a gold medal or regional trophy from its 16 entries, but did manage one silver, nine bronzes and four ‘commended’ wines. Wines from China also missed gold this year, and only half of its 36 entries secured a medal, but the country did still collect two silvers and five bronzes, as well as 11 commended.
Among the other contenders, Australia again stood out as it did at the recent Decanter World Wine Awards, with 18 golds and 11 regional trophies, albeit from 614 entries – a significantly higher figure than other countries.
In Europe, Italy’s Veneto area secured four regional trophies and four golds from a relatively small 84 entries.
Meanwhile, in France, a revitalised Languedoc-Roussillon scooped two regional trophies from 59 entries, versus just one regional trophy from 88 entries for Bordeaux.
‘In today’s wine world, particularly in Asia, nothing, not even historical reputations, can be taken for granted,’ noted Spurrier, writing on DAWA in his column for Decanter Magazine’s upcoming December issue.
The competition’s top awards, the prestigeous International Trophies, will be unveiled next month at ProWine in China on Wednesday 13th November.
Click to see the full results of the Decanter Asia Wine Awards 2013
Written by Chris Mercer
