Press Release: Godolphin declared The Great Australian Red

Press Release 

Godolphin declared The Great Australian Red

Ben Glaetzer's stunning shiraz-cabernet blend, Godolphin 2004, has emerged a clear winner from the first of The Great Australian Red wine competitions.

The young Barossa Valley star winemaker's Godolphin won the trophy for the overall competition winner, and also took the Openbook Australia Trophy for the best wine under $50.

The Great Australian Red 2006 contest, conducted in Brisbane during July, was created by wine writers, Tyson Stelzer and Matthew Jukes, to highlight the blend that they say defines Australia: cabernet sauvignon and shiraz.

Matthew Jukes described the Godolphin as "..sensational, the truly definitive Australian red that shows making clever wine is an awful lot harder than making BIG wine".

The Great Australian Red event, which attracted 116 entries from all Australian regions, differed from traditional wine shows in being limited to only shiraz-cabernet blends which were divided into five classes. Also, for the first time in an Australian show judging, two separate panels assessed the same wines on different tables.

Ben Glaetzer was among the winemaker/judges on these panels. As soon as it was apparent that Godolphin was a possible winner, his scores were discounted. But Godolphin was so far ahead that Glaetzer's scores had no effect on the result.

The judges were impressed with the standard of the wines overall, and chair of judges, Ian Riggs, said the competition "highlighted the fact that South Australia is the home of these blends" - believed to have been first created in the Coonawarra region in 1954.

Trophies from The Great Australian Red competition will be presented, along with a tasting of the winners, in Adelaide on Saturday, November 18.

All trophy winners will be presented with limited framed prints of Dr Cameron Stelzer's oil painting, The Great Australian Red. As overall winner, Ben Glaetzer will also receive a Transtherm Loft wine cabinet. "That's going straight into the pool room," Ben said.

For further information on the competition go to: www.thegreataustralianred.com

To download bottle shots, label images and photos of Ben Glaetzer please follow this link to the image library on our website: http://www.glaetzer.com/imagelibrary/

Glaetzer Heartland Sales & Marketing office: 08 8431 4322