Multi-award winning wine producer McGuigan Wines has claimed the title of ‘world’s best winemaker’ for the third time in four years at the prestigious International Wine & Spirit Competition (IWSC) in London. Having already won the award in 2009 and 2011, McGuigan Wines was awarded the title of International Winemaker of the Year at the awards ceremony in central London on 14th November.

In the 43 year history of the competition no winery, whether from the Old World or New World, has ever been awarded International Winemaker of the Year three times. The IWSC is one of the world’s largest, and most prestigious, blind tasting competitions. Wines are tasted and assessed by a panel of industry experts with complete objectivity. That is, on the taste and quality of the wine only - the winery name, grape variety and country of origin is not known by the panel at the time of tasting.

The key to winning the latest International Winemaker of the Year trophy was McGuigan Wines performance across the competition, with an unrivalled and rarely achieved 100% success rate - 39 wines entered; 39 medals received. McGuigan Wines was awarded the International Semillon Trophy in addition to 9 Gold, 22 Silver and 8 bronze medals including eight ‘Best in Class’ awards.

The backbone of the success was the highly decorated McGuigan Bin 9000 Semillon, with the 2004 vintage taking home the title of International Semillon Trophy. In addition the 1997 and 2011 vintages won Gold ‘Best in Class’ whilst the 2003 and 2005 vintages of the Bin 9000 Semillon were awarded Gold. The 2009 vintage of McGuigan Farms Shiraz from the Barossa Valley also won Gold ‘Best in Class’ as did the 2007 McGuigan Shortlist Semillon.

On accepting the award, McGuigan Wines chief winemaker Neil McGuigan commented: “To have won International Winemaker of the Year for the third time in four years is an outstanding result for Australia and the McGuigan brand. We’ve come along way from our humble beginnings in the Hunter Valley. To be the only winery in the world to have won ‘world’s best winemaker’ three times is a testament to our commitment to quality. We can now proudly say that we are now one of the most awarded wineries in the world.”

“What is particularly pleasing with the latest award is that our 2012 results outshone our previous performance at the IWSC in 2011, which in turn improved on our results in 2009. A 100% success rate is as good as it gets, with 31 wines receiving a Silver medal or better. We’ve kept on improving and have continued to strive for excellence in everything we do.”McGuigan adds: “For us at McGuigan it is truly amazing and a credit to the hard work, dedication and commitment of our vineyard, winemaking and production teams in driving quality, consistency and innovation across our brand. This ongoing and sustained industry recognition has really vindicated our philosophy of making the wine the hero.”

Following the latest announcement and a host of recent international acclaim, McGuigan Wines can now be considered one of the world’s most highly awarded and decorated wine producers in recent history. In addition to three International Winemaker of the Year trophies, in the last four years McGuigan Wines has been named Australian Producer of the Year by the IWSC in 2009, 2011 and 2012, as well the ‘world’s best white winemaker’ by the International Wine Challenge (IWC) in London in 2009 and 2012.