te Pā Seaside Sauvignon Blanc wins IWSC Trophy!
Our team is celebrating for the second time this week after winning a trophy for one of its most premium wines at the prestigious International Wine & Spirits Competition (IWSC)!
Our acclaimed te Pā 2024 Reserve Seaside Sauvignon Blanc was awarded the trophy alongside a 95-point score and a gold medal.
The judges said of the wine; “Boasts an elegant bouquet of smoky flint, guava jam and passion fruit, entwined with cool minerals. The palate delivers an intense herbaceous kick with zesty lime pith, culminating in a deliciously long, fresh finish.”
The trophy win comes just days after te Pā’s 2024 Chardonnay was announced as the winner of the Champion Chardonnay at the New World Wine Awards (New Zealand).
Founder and owner Haysley MacDonald says of the IWSC trophy win; “Our team is buzzing with the news of the IWSC trophy win for our te Pā Reserve Seaside Sauvignon Blanc. The wine is a special one for me, as it is grown on the estate-owned vineyard that started it all when I first planted grapes in 2003. The site is just 150-160 metres from the sea at the closest point, and so the grapes have a unique touch of salinity and a lush, tropical profile from the site having a reduced diurnal range in comparison to other Marlborough sites.”
Chief winemaker Sam Bennett says of the win; “We craft the te Pā Reserve wines to be a pure expression of site, and nowhere can that be seen more than the Seaside Sauvignon Blanc. The Reserve wines are made in small volumes, with higher viticultural attention such as leaf plucking, dropping fruit, and inter-row cover crop planting, then the grapes are hand-picked and made with minimal winemaking intervention to let the provenance and sense of place shine. They’re a pleasure to drink, and it’s exciting that they are now available in the UK, and we know this trophy win will help to attract new customers.”
About the IWSC
Nearly 4,000 wines from 39 countries were assessed for the IWSC 2026, making this one of the competition’s most globally representative editions to date. The tasting and judging takes place over two weeks, by more than 130 of the UK’s leading wine professionals.
The judging panel brought together senior buyers, importers, sommeliers, beverage directors and influential communicators, overseen by the IWSC Wine Judging Committee: Alex Hunt MW, Alistair Cooper MW, Dirceu Vianna Junior MW, Essi Avellan MW, John Hoskins MW, Mick O’Connell MW, Sarah Abbott MW and Victoria Mason MW.
The competition’s rigorous standards were reflected in the medal distribution: only 3% of wines received gold medals, while 28% earned silver and 54% bronze.
Get in touch for stockist info
As always we welcome customer queries about where to find this trophy-winning wine. We have stockists across Aotearoa-New Zealand, as well as several international markets the wine can be found in. Get in touch via mikela@tepawines.com for more detail.
