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Two wineries in North East Victoria have taken out top honours in the fortified, and sweet wine categories at the industry revered 2027 Halliday Wine Companion Awards.
All Saints Wines, owned by Eliza, Nicholas and Angela Brown, achieved a perfect score for their museum muscadelle, which also won the 'Fortified of the Year' award, marking their fourth consecutive annual win in the category.
Dal Zotto Wines in Whitfield won the Sweet Wine of the Year for its 2015 Vin Pretto.
Fourth generation winemaker and co-owner of All Saints Wines, Nicholas Brown, was thrilled with the performance of their wines and spoke about the influences and prestige that goes into producing the muscadelle.
"Rutherglen has these long, beautiful ripening seasons during harvest and it's a unique region where grapes can hang onto the vine throughout autumn and continue to ripen," he said.
"The sugars develop over time and leave the berries themselves which increases the sugar again.
"It's a culmination of that happening over 100 years and when the wine is blended together it gives this beautiful, rich, concentrated flavour, from not only the fruit grown in the vineyard, but the architecture of the building helps as well."
Mr Brown explained that about 6 per cent of the wine in the barrels and casks is lost through evaporation (mostly water) due to the warm conditions in the building it is stored in over summer.
"This makes it more concentrated over time and if you multiply that by 120 years it becomes amazingly complex, rich and concentrated," he said.
Esteemed wine writer Jeni Port said the muscadelle is "instantly immersive, intense and, above all, extraordinary - this is a wine that will stay in your memory".
"With an average age of 100-plus years, it reaches into time to deliver a remarkable depth of complexity and flavours that remain quintessentially elegant and bright," she wrote.
"A wealth of dried fruits, Nanna's plum pudding, caramel slice, dark malt biscuit, dried dates and chocolate married to a deep rancio nuttiness greets you and then stays with you, lingering, unwavering, sweetly memorable.”
To win the best fortified, All Saints were up against other main contenders, including Morris, Stanton & Killeen, Campbells, and Buller, which are also wineries that have been in the game for a long time.
"Most of the wine industry really treats that Halliday book as a bible and it's nice to get a pat on the back from a well-known and established wine bible," he said.
All Saints Estate retained a perfect score of 100 points for its museum muscat, making it the only winery in Australia to attain two perfectly scored wines in the Halliday Wine Companion, for the second year running.
All Saints Wines and sister winery St Leonards Vineyard collectively had more than 20 wines scoring over 90.
Sweet Wine of the Year went to Dal Zotto Wines for its vin pretto which is crafted from trebbiano grapes that are hand-picked and laid on racks to air dry for 12 to 16 weeks.
The grapes are then basket-pressed, extracting a concentrated grape nectar that gives the wine its distinctive depth and character.
Dal Zotto chief winemaker Michael Dal Zotto said the win was unexpected and a huge surprise.
"We love this wine and it's why we persist in making it," he said.
"You pour everything into something and allow the fruit to express itself, and to have it recognised as being as great as we think it is, I'm literally lost for words.
"This wine is 11 years old, it's seen multiple winemakers over its journey, and that makes it even more special.”
