Penfolds has won the trophy for Australia’s best export wine of 2007, ahead of over 18,000 other wines.
The 2004 Bin 707 Cabernet Sauvignon, the producer’s flagship Cabernet, was awarded the George Mackey Memorial Trophy by the Australian Wine and Brandy Corporation on Wednesday.
Each Australian wine destined for export must by law be submitted to the AWBC for quality assessment by a panel of inspectors – all noted winemakers – before being approved for shipment.
The best wines from the year-round assessments are entered in a final judging for the trophy.
Penfolds win this year makes it the first company to take the trophy in two successive years and the first to win the trophy twice. Last year the producer won with its 2003 RWT Shiraz.
Steve Lienert, the company’s senior winemaker at Penfolds winery in the Barossa Valley, made both wines.
‘We think the ’04 is the best 707 we’ve ever made,’ he said.
The grapes used included half the production from the company’s renowned Kalimna Block 42 in the Barossa Valley, a vineyard planted in the 1880s and believed by Penfolds to be one of the world’s oldest Cabernet Sauvignon vineyards.
The 707 and RWT each retail domestically for AUS$160-170 a bottle.
They are exported mainly to the UK, Europe, the US and Canada.
Written by Chris Snow
