Daylesford Cider wins Best in Show 2025
1 Nov 2025
Cider Australia announced the winners of the 2025 Australian Cider Awards at a gala dinner in Sydney on 30th October.
After a wonderful evening of celebration at Rydges World Square, Sydney, the winners of this year’s Australian Cider Awards have been named and have gone home with smiles on their faces and shiny new trophies for their cellar door shelves!
The 2025 Australian Cider Awards is Australia’s largest and most prestigious cider competition, and we are proud to honour the best ciders in Australia.
A big thank you also to Gabe Cook (UK), our gracious and entertaining host. It’s been an absolute pleasure having him be a part of our awards events this year. We hope you come back to visit again soon!
And we also bid farewell to our new friends from Batlic Cider. It has been an educational and eye-opening couple of weeks sampling your cider and learning about your cider-making practices and industry. We look forward to continuing to work with you over the coming years.
Victorian producer Daylesford Cider was awarded Best in Show with Wild Oak traditional cider.
A field of over 230 local and international entries was judged by a highly skilled, diverse panel of nine judges, led by chair Briony Liebich of consultancy Flavour Logic. Briony comments, “One of the highlights this year was the strength across multiple classes, showing that quality is improving in every category. It made the job of assigning medals more challenging, but also more exciting. A real testament to the hard work and innovation happening in cider production.“
2025 Trophy winners:
BEST IN SHOW – WILD OAK 2024
DAYLESFORD CIDER, VIC, AUSTRALIA 93PTS
BEST NEW WORLD CIDER – RED MOON ROSÉ CIDER
THE APPLE THIEF, NSW, AUSTRALIA 93.5PTS
BEST TRADITIONAL CIDER – WILD OAK 2024
DAYLESFORD CIDER, VIC, AUSTRALIA 93PTS
BEST PERRY – WILLIAM PEAR CIDER
THE APPLE THIEF, NSW, AUSTRALIA 92.5PTS
BEST SPECIALTY CIDER OR PERRY – APPLE + BLUEBERRY
PLENTY CIDER, TAS, AUSTRALIA 93PTS5
BEST INTENSIFIED / DISTILLED CIDER OR PERRY – APPLE BRANDY
WILLIE SMITH’S, TAS, AUSTRALIA 93PTS
BEST AUSTRALIAN CIDER OR PERRY – WILD OAK 2024
DAYLESFORD CIDER, VIC, AUSTRALIA 93PTS
BEST INTERNATIONAL CIDER OR PERRY* – BITTER HARRY 2021
PECKHAM’S CIDERY & ORCHARD , NEW ZEALAND 93PTS
MOST SUCCESSFUL SMALL PRODUCER
DAYLESFORD CIDER, VIC, AUSTRALIA
MOST SUCCESSFUL LARGER PRODUCER
WILLIE SMITH’S, TAS, AUSTRALIA
BEST SINGLE VARIETAL CIDER – David Pickering Memorial Trophy
BILPIN BLUSH PINK LADY CIDER
BILPIN CIDER CO, NSW, AUSTRALIA 91PTS
* Note that international ‘guest’ entries are only eligible for the Best International Cider or Perry Trophy.
For a complete list of award and medal winners, download the 2025 Australian Cider Awards Results Booklet.
Media enquiries
Contact Cider Australia executive officer Rosie Zollinger on
0427 566 607 or office@cideraustralia.org.au or visit www.cideraustralia.org.au.
About Cider Australia
Cider Australia is an independent, not-for-profit organisation established in 2012 and funded by cider businesses and sponsors. It aims to build a sustainable cider category by undertaking activities that improve the quality of ciders produced and marketed in Australia. The organisation represents the interests of the cider industry to policymakers, calling for regulations and policies that support a diverse and evolving cider industry, and runs the national cider conference, AusCider, and the Australian Cider Awards.
About the Awards
The 14th annual Australian Cider Awards were held in October 2025. The Awards are the largest cider competition in Australia and are leading the standardisation and improvement of cider judging across Australia. Judging of the Awards is held at the William Angliss Institute in Melbourne. The panel comprises judges with vast expertise from across the alcoholic beverage industry.
The judging panel included expertise from across the alcoholic beverage industry:
JUDGES
Briony Liebich (Chair) (Flavour Logic)
|
Max Allen (Panel Chair) (journalist) |
Ian Kingham (Panel Chair) (independent) David Darlow (Mount Avoca) Rob Hall (Cider in Context) |
ASSOCIATE JUDGES
Ren Delgarno (Winequip), Katrina Vasquez (Dan Murphy’s), Patrick Gardner (Kilchurn)
Rotating panel: Jo-Anne Fahey, Jess Locarnini, Warren Proft, Marianne Smith, Rosemary Zollinger
Chair of Judges – Briony Liebich
Briony is a sensory analyst, Certified Cicerone, beer educator, writer and judge. She was Chair at the 2023 and 2024 Australian Cider Awards and a judge in 2016, 2018 and 2019.
Briony has worked in the beer, wine, cider and food industries for 19 years and has extensive experience sampling, judging and consulting to large and small businesses.
Briony runs sensory consultancy Flavour Logic (www.flavourlogic.com) based in South Australia, working with the food and beverage industry and general consumers to improve tasting skills.
International guest judge – Gabe Cook
Award-winning global cider expert, Gabe Cook – aka The Ciderologist – has spent 20 years making and advocating cider in his native UK, as well as 3 years in New Zealand, and has worked in far-flung and random places such as Japan, Norway, the USA and Zimbabwe!
The world’s only fully dedicated, independent global cider advocate, Gabe is on a mission to spread the gospel on cider.
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