KNOWLEDGEABLE wine drinkers will be aware of the Jimmy Watson Trophy for red wine, as it is widely acknowledged as one of the most prestigious wine trophies in Australia. It is also the most contentious because until 2016 it was the trophy for the “Best one-year-old red wine” at the Royal Melbourne Wine Awards which is judged in mid-October each year. Many winemakers argued that some of the entries were not in bottle yet and therefore it could not be guaranteed that the final wine released to the public was exactly the same as the wine which had won the trophy. In fact, in the early 1980s there was a scandal when one winner allegedly did a second bottling and tried to pass it off as the trophy winning wine.
Along the way only one winemaker has won the trophy three times in a row, Wolf Blass, who was always a great proponent of the trophy. He won it in 1974, 1975 and 1976 with his Wolf Blass
