A fino-style sherry that Bidgeebong’s Director of Winemaking, Andrew Birks, has been nurturing in the basement of his Wagga home for more than 12 years has won the prestigious JCM Fornachon Trophy at the 2010 Royal Sydney Wine Show.

The wine, which will be released shortly in 500ml bottles as ‘Birks Chip Dry Fino’, has been made from palomino grapes and blended over many years using the flor yeast and solera system made famous over many centuries in Spain.

It is the second time that Andrew has won the perpetual trophy, which is named after pioneering Australian wine researcher John Charles Macleod Fornachon and awarded annually to the show’s top dry fino-style sherry. The first was in the late 1970s, when he was chief fortified-wine maker for Lindemans.