VERITAS 2019

4 VERITAS AWARDS 2019

VERITAS AWARDS: 29 YEARS OF EXCELLENCE

Veritas, this year marking its 29th year, has earned the status as South Africa’s most trusted competition for market-ready wines and brandies. With close to 1 500 entries for the 2019 competition, producers have once again put their faith in the judging process of the oldest and most prominent wine contest of its kind in South Africa, dating back to 1991. Last year saw 255 contenders winning 50 Double Gold, 219 Gold and 671 Silver medals. The Vertex award for the overall champion wine of the competition was introduced in 2017 and we’ve enhanced the importance of this award by presenting a tasting of the Vertex winner and the Double Gold awards in London and Hong Kong last year. This was possible thanks to the very enthusiastic support of two of our international judges, Joe Wadsack (London) and Tersina Shieh (Hong Kong). The winning winemaker of the 2018 Vertex award, Elunda Basson from Pongrácz, attended the London tasting. With the success of these tastings, we are delighted to announce that a new partnership between Veritas and Vinventions, a global leader in complete wine closure solutions, has been concluded. This company has decided to sponsor an overseas visit by the winning winemaker of the Vertex Award in future – annually to London and then any wine country of choice afterwards. We are very grateful to them for this initiative. We also have pleasure to introduce a new tier in the awards line-up from this year. To be in line with most international competitions, our points scoring system has been adjusted to score Double Gold 93 - 100 points; Gold 90 - 92; Silver 80 - 89; and Bronze 75 - 79. However, we decided to split the Silver class into two: Silver 80 - 85 and Silver Outstanding 86 - 89. This year’s results will reflect the change and a Silver Outstanding bottle sticker will be available too. We believe that this new approach will add value for both the participant and the wine. Veritas strives to enhance the quality and professional execution of the judging process to continue the development and growth of this most reputable competition. To taste wines at the Veritas competition, a judging accreditation is essential. In addition, overseas judges must have recognised interna- tional experience. The local team of judges consists of a variety of winemakers, researchers, academics, Cape Wine Masters, wine buyers, sommeliers, wine writers and consultants. While the inclusion of younger tasters, sommeliers and specialists with a commercial background on the tasting panels will always receive