Cape Town ROCKED on Thursday, 29 November when over 100 guests attended the third annual Spit or Swallow Box Wine Awards at Mercury Live in Cape Town.

Freddie Mercury look-a-likes, glam rock outfits and big wigs set the theme for a revolutionary evening for South African wine as we know it.

This year Robertson Winery Shiraz was awarded the best Red Box Wine and Du Toitskloof Chenin Blanc walked away with the title for best White Wine.

33 Wines were entered into this year’s competition. Over 100 judges tasted through this year’s line-up with only one aim at hand, to find the best red and best white box wine.

Everyone who attended the event had the opportunity to judge the wines. The judging panel was a nice mix between esteemed wine critics and experts, everyday wine drinkers and members of the media.

What makes this competition different from any wine competition in the world was the scoring system. The popular social media website, Twitter, was used to record and calculate all the scores submitted on the evening.

All 33 box wines were scored blindly out of 10. Everyone’s twitter handles were registered on iPads sponsored by Cybercellar and participants had to tweet their scores @boxwineawards. This live method of scoring provided people from across South Africa and the world with the opportunity to follow the event online.

The best box wines for 2012 according to ratings

1.	Box 4	Du Toitskloof – Chenin Blanc 2012
2.	Box 27	Robertson – Shiraz
3.	Box 28	Drostdy Hof – Cabernet Sauvignon
4.	Box 6	Stellenbosch Hills – Polkadraai Merlot/Shiraz
5.	Box 24	Uniwines – Palesa Chenin
6.	Box 29	Woolworths – Light White
7.	Box 33	Drostdy Hof – Merlot 2012
8.	Box 8	Du Toitskloof – Sauvignon Blanc 2012
9.	Box 3	Woolworths – Crisp White
10.	Box 20	Du Toitskloof – Cabernet Sauvignon/Shiraz 2012
11.	Box 12	Robertson – Merlot
12.	Box 13	Du Toitskloof – Pinotage/Merlot/Ruby Cabernet 2011
13.	Box 19	Woolworths – Longmarket Merlot
14.	Box 18	Orange Rivier – Dry Red
15.	Box 17	Robertson – Chardonnay 3L
16.	Box 30	Overmeer – Crisp Dry Premier Grand Cru
17.	Box 21	Robertson – Cabernet Sauvignon
18.	Box 22	Robertson – Sauvignon Blanc
19.	Box 15	Stellenbosch Hills – Polkadraai Sauvignon Blanc
20.	Box 11	Cronier – Roads into Africa Red Wine 2011
21.	Box 5	Woolworths – Dry Red
22.	Box 9	Orange Rivier – Dry White
23.	Box 34	Woolworths – Longmarket Cabernet Merlot
24.	Box 14	Darling – Black Granite Shiraz
25.	Box 1	Robertson – Extra Light Sauvignon Blanc
26.	Box 7	Uniwines – Palesa Shiraz
27.	Box 16	Windmeul – Dry White
28.	Box 10	Versus – Versus Crisp and Fruity
29.	Box 31	Robertson – Chenin Blanc 2L
30.	Box 2	Drostdy Hof – Sauvignon Blanc 2012
31.	Box 35	Robertson – Ruby Cabernet
32.	Box 32	Tassenberg – Dry Red
33.	Box 25	Overmeer – Full Bodied Smooth Red

South Africa’s leading wine news website, winetimes.co.za, was the main sponsor of the event and their aim was to promote responsible drinking. The Monarch Tuksi Company showed their support and offered guests a save ride.

The guys form Social Plus One did a fanatic job and captured all the rockstar moments throughout the evening.

Vital Health ensured the safety of everyone’s livers by sponsoring Vital Liver Rescue tablets and no one went hungry thanks to the tasty 70’s inspired snacks.

Mercury Live provided the perfect setting for a rocking occasion. Kevin Winder and his team did an amazing job to insure that everything went according to plan throughout the evening.

Tickets to this year’s event were available online through http://www.micket.me/.

The organisers would like to congratulate all the winners and thanks all the producers who participated in the 2012 Box Wine Awards. It was once again a huge success and the quality of the wines showed definite improvement.

[listgallery id=”58469″]