08 October 2004

Veritas Awards 2004

On Friday 8 October in Paarl the results of the 14th annual Veritas competition were announced. Veritas is South Africa's biggest competition for market ready wines and the wine industry’s most authoritative quality guideline.

This year's entries were evaluated over a period of four days by 13 panels of seven judges each. Local experts were joined by five international adjudicators – UK Master of Wine Lynne Sherriff, Peter May (United Kingdom), Ton Kolsteeg (The Netherlands), Janake Johansson (Sweden) and Dave Hughes (South Africa).

I was on the Pinotage panel chaired by Francois Naude (winemaker) with Gert Boerssen (manager/winemaker), Henry Kotze (winemaker), Heidi Kritzinger(winery marketing manager), Chris Roux (winemaker) and Fred Viljoen (owner/winemaker). We tasted 153 Pinotages, almost all of which were good drinking, but we were very selective and awarded only three Double Golds and five Golds, as follows.
  • DG Boland Pinotage 2002
  • DG Nitida Pinotage 2003
  • DG Wamakersvallei La Cave Pinotage 2003
  • G Hill & Dale Pinotage 2003
  • G L'Avenir Pinotage 2003
  • G Raka Pinotage 2003
  • G Stellenzicht Golden Triangle Pinotage 2002
  • G Tecoma Pinotage Unfiltered 2002


There were 41 silver and 71 Bronze awards. The full list of all Veritas awards can be seen at www.veritas.co.za

Koelenhof Pinotage Rosé 2004 won a Gold in the Rosé category

Note that the DG winning Boland wine is a special 'winemakers selection' available only at the winery at 60R, not the ordinary Boland Pinotage at 27R.

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