Ningxia Helan Mountain Renyiyuan Winery came out on top at this year’s Wynn Signature Chinese Wine Awards, with its Renyiyuan Tao Cabernet Sauvignon 2020 scooping the Best Wine of China prize – along with Best Red Wine and other accolades. Winemaker Kai Kang, also from Ningxia Helan Mountain Renyiyuan, won Wynn’s inaugural Best Young Winemaker award, while the Helan Mountain Special Reserve Chardonnay 2021 was deemed Best White Wine.
An “intense week of rigorous judging” preceded Friday’s awards ceremony, according to a press release from Wynn, which organised the event with support from the Macao Government Tourism Office. The judging panel was made up of 27 wine professionals, who conducted blind tastings of almost 900 varieties from close to 200 Chinese wineries. Appraisals adhered to the internationally recognised 100-point system, with gold medalists scoring 95 points or higher.
Wynn’s wine awards aim to provide “a strategic platform for the long-term promotion of high-quality Chinese wines” and enable the industry’s international expansion, the release stated. More than 200 guests including wine experts, winemakers, media and industry leaders from around the world were in attendance on Friday.
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The winning wines will be included in menus at Chef Tam’s Seasons, Lakeview Palace, SW Steakhouse, Mizumi, Wing Lei Bar and Palace Reserve Club at Wynn Palace, as well as Wing Lei, Drunken Fish, Cinnebar and Bar Cristal at Wynn Macau. They will also be offered at Wynn Palace’s Gourmet Pavilion, an upscale food hall set to open at the end of this month.
This year’s awards featured Sommelier’s Choice prizes from six Wynn wine experts. The Drunken Fish Sommelier’s Choice award went to Xiaoling White 2022 (Yunnan Province), Wing Lei’s went to Lansai Yingchuan Red Pinot Noir 2022 (Ningxia province), Chef Tam’s Seasons’ went to Zaxee Oak Reserve Chardonnay 2023 (Yunnan Province), Lakeview Palace’s went to Domaine Franco-Chinois Réserve 2019 (Hebei Province), SW Steakhouse’s went to Renyiyuan Tao Cabernet Sauvignon 2019 (Ningxia Province) and Mizumi’s went to Fei Tswei Petit Manseng Sweet White Wine 2021 (Ningxia Province).
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At Friday’s prizegiving, Wynn Macau’s president, vice chairman and executive director Linda Chen described Macao as “the perfect international platform to … promote Chinese wines on the global stage” and said she was honoured that the awards were part of the government’s Culture City of East Asia 2025 programme.
She added that Wynn was “excited to share captivating Chinese cultural stories with the world and showcase the excellence of Chinese brands.”
The full list of 2025 wine winners can be viewed here. Last year’s Wynn Signature Chinese Wine Awards saw Ningxia Province’s Fei Tswei Marselan Reserve 2021 being crowned Best Wine of China.