Welcome to the 2012 New World Wine Awards.

We’re celebrating the tenth year of our unique competition for commercially available wines from New Zealand and overseas retailing under $25 at New World supermarkets.  The New World Wine Awards is the premier consumer-focused wine competition in New Zealand, as all wines entered must retail for $25 or less and have at least 500 cases available for sale through New World stores nationwide.

This year, 1008 wines from 162 wineries were judged over two days. 13 international judges blind tasted and evaluated the wines. Judging alongside the professionals were eight Associate Judges, all Liquor Managers selected from New World stores who undertook special training for the event.

In the ‘back room’ 3,200 bottles of wines were allocated their correct positions and over 6,000 glasses of wine were poured by a team of 12 stewards. Each steward walked 15km a day and carefully washed up the 1500 Spiegelau tasting glasses (only breaking 18!).

Each wine is judged solely on its merits. Using a double blind identification system, a panel of 3 judges individually assessed and scored each wine using the same international 20-point system that is used at other wine competitions worldwide. The panel then convened to discuss their findings and re-taste the top Gold and Silver wines.

This means that a gold medal wine in the New World Wine Awards is of the same quality as any other gold medal wine.

This year 598 wines were awarded medals with 56 Gold, 130 Silver and 412 Bronze. These results show you just how many brilliant wines you can buy for under $25 at your local New World. At the end of the judging, the best wines in each category were re-tasted by the entire judging team to determine the Champion Red, Champion White and the Champion Bubbles.