IWSC hosts first mini-showcase in South Africa

Published: 23 July, 2008

On 14 November, the International Wine & Spirit Competition hosted its inaugural Mini-Showcase Tasting at Spier Conference Centre in Stellenbosch,
South Africa.

The tasting featured all of South Africa's IWSC Gold and Silver award winners, as well as a selection of international Trophy winners.

About 80 invited producers, winemakers and press were presented with a range of more than 260 wines and spirits to taste, arranged by style and variety. This provided the opportunity for producers to benchmark their wines with those of their local competitors. The trophy table proved of particular interest, where winemakers debated the merits of the international varieties which had won trophies that they themselves would have been eligible for.

The event culminated with Frances Horder, director of the International Wine & Spirit Competition, presenting the

award-winning producers with their gold medals. She said : The seed for these mini-showcase events was sown in January when I visited South Africa and the producers told me that they wanted local publicity for their awards. So I'm delighted to be here again hosting our very first Mini-Showcase. Plans are already in hand to take the concept to other countries in the future, including New Zealand, Canada and South America.'

Dave Hughes, an IWSC representative in South Africa, was also delighted with the response to this first showcase event and believes this gives the competition a real platform on which to build in South Africa.'A full list of results for the 2006 competition can be found on the competition website www.iwsc.net. Entry forms for the 2007 competition will be available from 1 January 2007.

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