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In search of champion wines
The Veritas Awards
The Veritas Awards – celebrating wine excellence.
© South African National Wine Show Association
The Veritas Awards are run under the auspices of the South African National Wine Show Association, an umbrella body that represents the local wine industry. The competition presents an opportunity for South African wine makers to be judged by their peers as well as top local and international wine experts.
The Veritas wine awards have a strong consumer focus. The international judges all hail from countries where South African wines are consumed and enjoyed, and the medals are seen as a dependable guide to quality and value for wine lovers everywhere.
Among South African wine awards, the Veritas’ judging process is unique. Judges include winemakers, researchers, academics and wine merchants, and all must have at least a Masters qualification in wine appreciation. To this core of experts, workgroups comprising oenologists and viticulturists with specialist knowledge of a particular cultivar are added.
Panels consisting of 7 experts per category, judge 10 wines at a time, scoring the entries according to the OIV’s (Office International de la Vigne et du Vin) international guidelines. All wines are tasted blind and no discussion is permitted until all wines have been tasted. From beginning to end, a firm of professional auditors oversees the process.
The Veritas Awards also provide a snapshot of the industry, indicating how well various cultivars, old and new, are performing, which vintages of wines, red in particular, have been developing up to expectation, and which styles of wines are proving popular with consumers.