The Crown Range Cellar Signature Selection Grant Taylor Central Otago Pinot Noir 2013 has been judged the best Pinot Noir in the world, and awarded Gold Outstanding and the most prestigious IWSC Pinot Noir Trophy by the UK-based International Wine and Spirit Competition (IWSC).
The result of a friendship between a veteran winemaker Grant Taylor and 29-year-old Crown Range Cellar CEO Jing Song, the same wine as also won the China Wine100 Challenge 2015 and two golds at the China Wine and Spirits Award.
Jing is the youngest wine producer in New Zealand history to achieve such an award and the only New Zealand Chinese to have done so. As managing director of Crown Range Cellar, she travelled to London to accept the trophy.
“We believed that it is the genius of the artist to take the materials that he or she is given and to make something of great beauty out of it… So this wine and the Pinot Noir Trophy are tributes to the artistry of winemaking, and to Otago in New Zealand where so many beautiful things come from… and it is a tribute to belief, and the desire by my small team of people at Crown Range Cellars to give something that is beautiful and amazing to the world.
“Being of Chinese ancestry, we have one of the oldest traditions of art and culture in the world. We’re very discerning when it comes to things of beauty, and quality, and great potential. It was like that when I first saw Otago in New Zealand… It truly is a stunning place where generations of family craftsmen have worked patiently to perfect wine and honey and other natural products that truly transcend the everyday. This Crown Range Cellar Signature Selection Pinot Noir is proof of that,” said Jing.