The business has been awarded the best small cellar door in the Riverina as part of Gourmet Traveller Wine magazine’s best cellar door awards.

It also achieved top results at this year’s Winewise Championships in Canberra.

Lillypilly winemaker and director Robert Fiumara said the cellar door award came as a surprise.

“We’re not too sure how it was judged because we weren’t aware of it,” Mr Fiumara said.

“It was a bit of a shock, but it’s something we are very proud of.

“The Riverina is one of the biggest wine-growing regions in Australia, so to receive an honour like that is really great.

“We are a boutique winery, so when people to our cellar door they usually get the full experience.

“They are coming to the place where we grow our wine, where it’s fermented and bottled.

“We pride ourselves on that.”

It was another success story for the winery at this year’s Winewise Championships that were held at the end of February.

The competition is an exclusive, invite-only event for those that have won trophies in that year at other shows in Australia.

Lillypilly was invited to submit its 2011 Noble Blend and and 2012 Noble Harvest to be put to the test against Australia’s best white wines.

The wines are ranked and then a blind-tasting is conducted by judges to determine the overall champion.

Both of Lillypilly’s wines were ranked first in their respective groups and during the blind tasting the 2011 Noble Blend came out on top with the 2012 Noble Harvest second.

“It was another nice surprise for us,” Mr Fiumara said.

“I think it’s an honour to be taking part, so to win against the best wines in the country is just great. We’re just a small operation.

“The judges don’t know what wines they are tasting, so to have Lillypilly wines as number one and two is really something special.”

The Australian Mint is making a special medallion for the winners from the championships.