CRPA member Pooley Wines has taken the award for Best in Show at the 2026 Sydney Royal Wine Show, recognised as the oldest and most prestigious wine awards in the country.
The 2024 Pooley Syrah was judged Best in Show by panel of 31 judges which assessed more than 1,500 wines across 55 classes from around Australia to decide the winner.
Chair of judges, Mike De Iuliis, said cool climate wines like the Pooley Syrah, were the highlight of this year’s show.
The Coal River winery also won the Best Red and Best Shiraz trophies, becoming the first Tasmanian shiraz to do so.
The recognition in Sydney follows success at the 2025 Royal Hobart Wine Show, where the 2024 Pooley Syrah received the Best Shiraz Trophy, further building its reputation as an outstanding Australian cool-climate Syrah.
Pooley Wines Managing Director John Pooley said the award was the culmination of a vision decades in the making.
“The 2024 vintage delivered exceptional fruit quality, allowing our winemaking team to craft a Syrah that captures the elegance, purity and regional character we strive for in every bottle.
“Receiving Best Wine of Show for our Pooley Syrah is both humbling and immensely rewarding. It validates more than forty years of my family’s ambition to establish one of Australia’s leading cool-climate wine businesses and demonstrates that Tasmania is capable of producing Syrah that stands alongside the very best in Australia and the world.
“This award is not only a proud moment for the Pooley family but also for the Coal River Valley and the Tasmanian wine industry as a whole.”
Established in 1985 in Tasmania’s Coal River Valley, Pooley Wines is a three-generation family-owned winery recognised for its cool-climate wines and estate vineyards.