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Giddyup d'Arenberg! - 17/07/2009

There were yeehaaa's all round when d'Arenberg won the award for Top All Round Winery at the sixth annual International Wine Competition in Houston, Texas for the second year in a row.

The competition is a part of the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo and is one of the most competitive on the American wine show circuit. Admittedly it's not one that we normally follow here at Bibendum, but we love it when a wine show prize is so strange that even Chester has to raise an eyebrow!

There's no silver plate or crystal trophy for this award, instead they received a unique Texas style trophy - a hand tooled silver decorated trophy saddle. d'Arenberg's sweet wines led the charge and won some more Texan style trophies. The Noble Chardonnay Semillon 2006 won Double Gold, was the Top Sweet Wine and Class Champion, which was awarded with a set of chaps. This was followed closely by The Noble Riesling 2006 which won a gold medal and was also a class champion which earned Chester a new hand-made sterling silver belt buckle.

These wines are all available here in the UK, though Chester has been at it with those funky names again. To help people differentiate the stickies a bit more easily, the Noble Chardonnay Semillon is now the Noble Prankster. In the case of the Noble Riesling, the appearance of the grape key to the new name - the Noble Wrinkled Riesling. "Botrytis makes the grape skin porous and dehydrates the berries, this leaves them in a wrinkled state," Chester explains.