Here are our simple, to the point, view on "Wine Awards". 

Yes, we do follow them with interest.  BUT here at WineTastes DIRECT! you will only find the very top Trophy winning, Gold Medal, 5 Star and 93+ point rated wines are listed in our Awards & Accolades section - those are the outstanding wines. 

That is because we want you to know about those wines that are clearly a class above the rest.  These are often multi-award winning wines meaning they consistently achieve the highest ratings with different wine "experts" around the world - that is credibility you can really trust and quality that is hard to deny!

We highlight the top wines from New Zealand's leading wine shows such as the Air New Zealand Wine Awards and Royal Easter Wine Show alongside international competitions such as the International Wine Challenge.  To ensure a global perspective, you will find the accolades from leading wine and food publications such as New Zealand's Cuisine magazine, Australian WineState and Gourmet Traveller WINE magazines, the UK's Decanter magazine and the USA based Wine Spectator.

But the astute amongst us know that doesn't capture the full picture by any means.  Many of New Zealand's finest boutique winemakers do not enter any awards (Dry River Wines, Felton Road...).  Often recognition for these wines has been achieved over many vintages or they have such small production that the best wines rarely leave the shores of New Zealand for foreign "mass" markets.  For this reason the highly regarded ratings from Michael Cooper's Buyer's Guide to New Zealand Wines are presented with those from the world's most influential wine critic, Robert Parker that feature in his publication, The Wine Advocate.

Finally, we present this information to support our own expertise of these wines.  We really do "know our stuff" but you don't just have to take just our good word for it.  We stock all the best wines but even the top winemakers suffer from poor vintages, so every wine must be assessed on a vintage-by-vintage basis before it makes it into WineTastes Direct!