Connoisseurs toast Heritage Estate chardonnay | Food and Entertaining

Jim Campbell | 27th November 2008

GRANITE Belt winemaker John Handy can now boast he produced the best wine of the year.

His wine from Heritage Estate at Cottonvale, north of Stanthorpe, beat more than 10,000 other Australian and New Zealand wines to win Winestate magazine's Wine of the Year award with its $40 a bottle 2007 Reserve Granite Belt Chardonnay.

Mr Handy received the honour at the award ceremony in Adelaide last night.

His mother Paddy Kassulke was overwhelmed after hearing the news.

“John's got a passion for it. He doesn't want to make just wine, he wants to make really beautiful wine,” she said.

Winestate publisher Peter Simic said it was the first time in 13 years that a white wine had won the top award.

“It succeeded because it is a genuinely complex top-end wine,” he said.

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