La Maison Awarded Prestigious Jimmy Watson Memorial Trophy at the Melbourne Royal Wine Awards
We are absolutely thrilled to announce that the Lowestoft 2022 La Maison Pinot Noir has won Australia's most prestigious wine award, the Jimmy Watson Memorial Trophy for Best Young Red.
The Jimmy Watson Memorial Trophy is presented in recognition of services rendered to the advancement of the Australian wine industry by the late Jimmy Watson. The award is for the best one- or two-year-old dry red wine. Show officials said: “The trophy winemakers around Australia want to win is the Jimmy Watson Memorial Trophy for Best Young Red. Celebrating the 60th awarding of the trophy this year, the Jimmy Watson Memorial Trophy was awarded to Tasmania’s Lowestoft Estate Wines for their Lowestoft La Maison Pinot Noir, 2022. This is the first time Lowestoft Estate has won the award and just the third time a Pinot Noir has claimed the prestigious trophy.”
The 2022 La Maison was also awarded the James Halliday Trophy for Best Pinot Noir. The La Maison wines have now won the James Halliday Trophy for three consecutive years, with the 2020 and 2021 vintages also taking out this award in the previous two years of the awards. A third Trophy for 'Consistency of Excellence' was awarded to highlight the incredible run of awards the La Maison wines have had during this time.
Following the release of the awards today, Lowestoft’s Chief Winemaker Liam McElhinney expressed how proud he was and said:
“It is a great honour for me and our winemaking and viticulture teams to be able to produce such amazing wines from the Lowestoft vineyard. This is a small 3-hectare site, densely planted in 1986 to 8,300 vines per hectare. The Jimmy Watson Memorial Trophy and the ‘three-peat’ James Halliday Trophy win shows the immense quality this vineyard produces year after year.
“We are immensely proud that the consistency of style we are capturing in the La Maison is setting a new benchmark for Australian Pinot Noir. Our success is Tasmania’s success, and we hope wine consumers will continue to appreciate how fantastic Tasmanian Pinot Noir is.”
These incredible results follow the Royal Adelaide Wine Show results last month, where the 2022 La Maison was awarded a Gold Medal and Trophy for Best Pinot Noir of Show, as well as a Gold Medal at the Australian Pinot Noir Challenge this year.
Since the La Maison wines were first released, they have won a combined total of seven trophies and nine gold medals for the three vintages, as well as being crowned Pinot Noir of the Year in the Halliday Wine Companion 2023.
These phenomenal results firmly establish the La Maison icon wines as the most premium of Tasmanian and Australian Pinot Noir.
2022 La Maison Pinot Noir (Pre-Release sold out)
- Trophy – Jimmy Watson Memorial Trophy for Most Outstanding Young Red – Melbourne Royal Wine Awards 2023
- Trophy – The James Halliday Trophy for Best Pinot Noir – Melbourne Royal Wine Awards 2023
- Trophy – Consistency of Excellence – Melbourne Royal Wine Awards 2023
- Trophy – Best Pinot Noir of Show – Royal Adelaide Wine Show 2023
- Gold Medal – Melbourne Royal Wine Awards 2023
- Gold Medal – Royal Adelaide Wine Show 2023
- Gold Medal – Australian Pinot Noir Challenge 2023
2021 La Maison Pinot Noir
- Trophy – The James Halliday Trophy for Best Pinot Noir – Melbourne Royal Wine Awards 2022
- Gold Medal – Melbourne Royal Wine Awards 2022
- Gold Medal – Sydney Royal Wine Show 2022
- Gold Medal – Australian Pinot Noir Challenge 2023
2020 La Maison Pinot Noir (sold out)
- Trophy – The James Halliday Trophy for Best Pinot Noir – Melbourne Royal Wine Awards 2021
- Trophy – Pinot Noir of Show – National Wine Show of Australia 2021
- Gold Medal – Melbourne Royal Wine Awards 2021
- Gold Medal – National Wine Show of Australia 2021
- Gold Medal – Australian Pinot Noir Challenge 2021
- Pinot Noir of the Year – 96 Points – Halliday Wine Companion 2023
The 2022 La Maison Pinot Noir has now sold out. Shop the 2021 La Maison Pinot Noir online here.