‘Saint-sational’ was the verdict for the Saint Deryckes’ Wood 2001 unwooded chardonnay at the recent Australian small wine makers show.

With the 2001 chardonnay already gracing a silver medal, owner/operator of Saint Deryckes’ Wood, John Rappall, wanted to see if the silver lining to his cold climate vintage would successfully travel the trans-Tasman.

The Australian Small Winemakers Show is considered an international wine affair with New Zealand winemakers competing for boutique honours along side the home-grown winemakers.

To qualify as a small wine maker, production could not exceed 500 tons, a requirement easily met by Saint Deryckes’ but still allowing for high-class competition.

“We didn’t really expect anything because we are a such a young winery in a relatively young region,” Mr Rappall said.

“We were looking to see if our chardonnay had some consistency in judging,” Mr Rappall explained.

“If you win a medal for a wine it is very exciting, it gives you incentive enough to keep going in what your doing.

“But if a wine is judged at more than one show by different judges, with different competitors and the verdict is the same than the medals start to mean something.”

The small wine makers show judged the Saint Deryckes’ Wood as a silver medallist, only to be outclassed by a cross-Tasman rival by half a point.

“It’s not so much the award that was pleasing it was the consistency that the chardonnay was judged with that was most encouraging.”

The 2001 chardonnay has now been bottled for seven months, making it even better than at the previous Murrumbatem cool climate wine show according to winemaker Alex Massing.

“The beauty of this chardonnay is that the high alcohol content means that it has a great future ahead of it,” Mr Massing said.

“I think that despite the recent success this wine can only improve in the next eight to 12 months.”

The success of the 2001 chardonnay illustrates the rise of the Highlands as a wine region.

“Our vines are now on the other side of adolesce so we can only expect bigger things as time goes on,” Mr Massing said.