The South African Wine Index (SAWi) has released its ranking of the top wine producers in South Africa, and the leading brand in each wine category.

The SAWi compares and condenses results from 84 multinational competitions, reviews and listings, and acknowledges the nature of the competition and additional accolades bestowed on a wine, expressing all the data as a single number out of 100.

“Through SAWi’s Mathematical algorithm patterns are recognized making it easy to distinguish wines which are consistently accepted as exceptional. Most importantly, it allows a comparison of like with like,” the group said.

The overall SAWi Index sat at 87.4 in the 2015 listing, down from 88.1 in 2014.

Using a score of 93 as the benchmark, wines scoring above that are considered part of the “Grand Collection’. All winners are in this category.

Of the 585 wineries considered, the SAWi ‘Grand­ Wines Collection’ currently includes only 197 wines, representing 89 wineries.

For the second time in five years Saronsberg Cellar took the top honours at the awards. In 2010 the cellar first received the trophy for winery of the year before having won the trophy for best red wine producer in 2013.

These are South Africa’s 10 best wine producers (average scores for top three white & red wines):