Top wine judge cries foul | Hawkes Bay News | Local News in Hawkes Bay

Top New Zealand wine judge Michael Cooper is calling for Gunn Estate to give back its award won at the Hawke's Bay Wine Awards last week.

His request follows allegations of a potential conflict of interest where the top prize went to the company owned by chief judge Tony Bish. Mr Bish is winemaker for Sacred Hill, which owns the Gunn Estate label that won the Champion Wine trophy with its 2006 Skeetfield Chardonnay.

Mr Bish said that he had not been involved in any way during the competition judging that may have influenced the final result.

As a judge he enforced the standards by which the wines were judged, and was available for making decisions when judges' opinions were split over any wine.

It is just a year since Brent Marris, the chief judge at the Air New Zealand Wine Awards, the country's top wine competition, was forced to resign after his Wither Hills competition wines were found to be different to those sold to the public.

Mr Cooper was the whistleblower in that case and he believed to preserve the integrity of the Hawke's Bay Awards, and all New Zealand wine awards, Gunn Estate must give back its award.

"In this case no one is really accusing anyone of cheating, it's just that we were all told there would be no links between judges and entries," he said.

The Hawke's Bay awards particularly had made a point of saying if you are a judge you cannot be an entrant.

"That's why I was taken aback to find that a wine produced by the company who has a chief winemaker as the chief judge came through with the top award. It does not look good."

Mr Bish said this week the possibility of a conflict of interest had been discussed before the competition and steps had been taken to avoid it. Before the awards Mr Bish had said the competition was eager to avoid controversy, especially after the Wither Hills affair.

However, he claimed that although the Gunn Estate wines brand was 100 per cent owned by Sacred Hill, it was not, technically, a Sacred Hill wine.

"We decided to pull out all our Sacred Hill wines, but Denis Gunn [of Gunn Estate] grows his own grapes and makes all the calls on his wine, so while we own them, it is really his wine," Mr Bish said.

But the winner of viticulturist of the year award is made automatically to the person responsible for growing the grapes that make the champion wine. This year the winner was Jo McGonigal, head viticulturist for Sacred Hill.

After having reviewed the event Mr Bish said he believed he had been in no way compromised, an opinion that the panel leader, Te Mata Estate winemaker Peter Cowley, agreed with. "It was a good wine, no doubt about it. And Tony had no input into the results at all," he said.

The other judges on the panel were Wellington's wine critic Geoff Kelly and Australian judge, Philip Rich, and they were in agreement on the standard of the Gunn Estate wine.

Mr Cowley was surprised to learn that the wine, which was tasted "blind" or unknown to the judges, was from the Sacred Hill portfolio. "It was pretty silly for them to put the wine in. Everybody has been talking about the need to be seen to be straight, and Sacred Hill made a point of saying they were not putting any wine in. I really don't know why they did [enter the Gunn Estate wine]," he said.

Hawke's Bay Today wine writer Yvonne Lorkin today defended Mr Bish, saying he was one of the most highly respected wine makers in the industry and winemakers were the only true choice for judges as they had the highly developed palates.