In Canberra for my favourite wine show – the 2024 Winewise Championships

It’s a beautiful time of year, visually, to be in Australia’s capital city, with yellows and reds colouring the usual brown/green Canberra landscape. Late April is pretty, if also unpleasantly cold for warm-blooded Sydneysiders like me who run at dawn.

Conversely, it’s also the perfect time to judge in a wine show!

Hence, I’m writing this post (in a jumper) here in Canberra for my favourite wine show on the calendar, the Winewise Championships. A unique show in the kingdom of local wine competitions, where every wine entered needs to have won a gold medal at an Australian wine show (hence the championship part), with wines then ranked in small classes like traditional trophy judging.

That criterion means everything comes pre-qualified, and you’re left to assess wines that are typically good to great, turning the occasional drudgery of wine competitions into a hair-splitting indulgence.

I like it.

I also really enjoy this show because it’s a) intimate, with minimal egos, b) a great excuse to visit Canberran BYO restaurants and drink great wines, and c) a perfect opportunity to run up the hills and around the lakes of Canberra, even if I grumble about the cold.

Indeed, last night was the warmup Winewise Championships judges/stewards dinner at Little Steamer, with easy trad Chinese food and a smattering of delicious Pinot Noir & Chardonnay for drinking entertainment.

Quality was high, especially the wines I didn’t photograph – including the 2020 Tolpuddle Pinot Noir (great balance, lovely bright fruit, drinking wonderfully) and a 2020 Yarra Yering Pinot Noir (a pristine Yarra Pinot, only just outclassed by the extra detail of the Tolpuddle).

I thought the 2019 Tolpuddle Chardonnay was also in the drinking zone, albeit a little too linear, while the Coldstream looked a bit too ‘made’ and driven by reductive characters. The gutsy Remi Jeanniard Burgundy pictured below (also 2020) was a fair delight, too, and it has years to go.

Speaking of delights, I enjoyed three brackets of quality Aussie sparkling in the show today, too, with the fizz classes surprisingly outdoing the Riesling classes and some big-name Tassie bubbles looking exceptionally good. Top that off with a few impressive Pinot Noir brackets and a smattering of great Grenache, and it was a good day all around.

Now it’s time for another highlight of Canberra – a fresh pint of Bentspoke (at the brewpub, naturally).