Grass Parrot was the outstanding Bathurst region performer, winning medals for three of its wines while its 2018 Cabernet Franc was also named the champion local wine of the show.

The judges called the Cabernet Franc a fantastic wine, praising it is as "youthful and highly varietal with beautiful leafy herbal aromatics".

Grass Parrot vigneron Andrew Macarthur and partner Sarah Bishop have been making wine on their small two-hectare property south of Bathurst for more than 15 years.

Mr Macarthur said the cabernet franc grapes, while not a common variety, were perfectly suited to the region.

"It's a true cool climate variety," he said.

"We're at 800 metres here and with the temperature we can even battle to get the shiraz ripe.

"[The 2018 Cabernet Franc] stands on its own and ages well - it actually improves with age as it takes a few years in the bottle before the flavours and textures start to develop.

"It's good for blending and also for making rosé."

Mr Macarthur said they were committed to sustainable farming practices on the vineyard.

"We have no ground water, it's all surface water and whatever falls out of the sky we can harvest a percentage of that," he said.

"We don't over-crop and we're careful that we don't stress the vines. We also don't get a lot of disease and don't use herbicides, we only spray with copper and sulphur.

"We try to be as sustainable as we can."

Apart from the success of the Cabernet Franc, Grass Parrot also picked up a silver medal for its 2018 Shiraz at the wine show and a bronze for its 2018 Shiraz Cabernet Franc.

The top award for Central Ranges wines went to Brangayne of Orange for their 2018 Tristan Cabernet Sauvignon, Shiraz and Merlot blend while other Central Ranges wines to receive gold medals were Printhie Wines' Swift 2013 Vintage Sparkling and Swift 2011 Blanc de Blancs Sparkling, and Brangayne of Orange's 2018 Shiraz.

It was a successful return for the National Cool Climate Wine Show after a two-year hiatus due to drought, bushfires and COVID-19, and organiser Lee Moras said close to 500 entries were received mainly from Tasmania, Victoria, South Australia and NSW.

There was no public tasting this year due to COVID restrictions but Ms Moras was hopeful it would return for next year's show.

Chief judge this year was Russell Cody from McWilliams/Calabria Wines, who was impressed with the high quality of the wines presented, especially the white varieties.

"Our judging panels were very thorough and there were some strong arguments when it came to selecting gold medals across many of the classes," Mr Cody said.

The complete judging panel was Annabel Holland (First Creek Wines), Andrew Higgins (Tamburlaine Wines), Chris Carpenter (Lark Hill Wines) Brendan Kaczorowski (Keith Tulloch Wine), Monica Gray (See Saw Wines), Stephanie Lucas (Casella Wines) and associate judges Jaden Hall (Mount Pleasant Wines) and Thomas Dunstan (Bunnamagoo Wines).

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