Media release – Royal Hobart Wine Show, 18 July 2023
National entries roll in for Royal Hobart Wine Show
There has been a fast flow of entries from all over Australia for this year’s Snap Printing Royal Hobart Wine Show, which will be judged between September 18 and 21. This year marks half a century of the event in Hobart.
With entries due to close on July 30, more than 500 entries have so far been received, and the Show is on track to exceed last year’s entry levels.
Most entries received so far come from NSW and South Australia, but Tasmania is also tracking well with over 100 entries so far received.
After the disruptions caused by the Covid pandemic, the event is back to normal this year, with an international judge travelling from Canada, as well as the return of a full national judging panel. Two new dedicated classes of wine, Fiano and Grenache, will be judged this year.
When Covid closed down much of Australia, the Royal Agricultural Society of Tasmania kept the wine show going, but on a necessarily constrained basis, as a show of support to the hard hit wine producing sector.
Nearly 50 classes of wine will be judged at this year’s Show, ranging from vintage dry white wines, and vintage dry reds, to sparkling wines and low to no alcohol wines.
The Tasmanian Vineyard of the Year Award will also be re-introduced this year – not in the summer months where it was formerly run – but as part of the Wine Show in September.
This award sees vineyards judged on their viticultural excellence. “It takes a well managed vineyard to produce award winning wines,” explains Mitchell Spong, Operations Manager at the RAST.
“Entries are judged on criteria such as soil management, weed control, disease control, pruning, forming of the vine, trellising, and water management. Incorporating this Award – which includes a field day at the winning vineyard – into the annual wine show is a major step forward for the wine show in its 50th year.”
One of the Tasmanian wine industry’s most prestigious trophies, the Richard Langdon Trophy, will be presented to the winner of the Vineyard of the Year, at the at the field day. It’s a bronze sculpture by noted Tasmanian sculptor Stephen Walker.
