Northern Midlands producers Allan and Carol Phillips, of Glen Stuart, at Deddington won the Ermenegildo Zegna Wool Trophy for 2020, with Simon and Anne Louise Cameron, of Kingston, at Conara in second.

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The awards have been described as the Oscars for the wool industry, offered by Italian menswear brand Ermenegildo Zegna for the past 57 years to celebrate the importance of wool and encourage growers to produce the best fibres in the world.

The Phillips run about 3000 sheep on their superfine wool growing operation at Glen Stuart farm, which focuses solely on wool.

The wool has consistently made finalist rounds for the awards and Mr Phillips said winning the award provided a big boost to morale.

"It is a reinforcement that you are going along the right growing track," he said.

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"We are competing against the ultimate superfine wool growers in Tasmania, and there are some very good wool growers out there... we are just very pleased to have won the award, and we will continue to grow wool just like it if we can."

Mr Phillips said it has been an excellent season for growing wool. "The conditions were fairly even over the whole 12 months, so it was quite an evenly grown line of wool," she said.

"We try and produce the highest quality that we can each year. It is a combination of good breeding, using the right genetics to get the right sort of sheep, and the right sort of land.

"We are fortunate that the country out here is well suited to growing good, superfine wool, and obviously if the season looks after you, and you look after the sheep, the good wool will follow."

The Phillips' would usually sell their wool at an Australian auction house to be bought by various international buyers, but their last seasons' wool was purchased by Zegna.

"The Italian markets look for traditional types of wool with higher tensile strengths, which means it doesn't break when they process the wool," Mr Phillips said.

"Our wool had 14.6 microns, a 56 tensile strength, which is quite good."

Mr Phillips could not say how COVID-19 would affect his industry.

"It was going quite well but unfortunately we are in for a tougher period ... superfine wool is a discretionary item, a luxury fibre and in difficult times people don't buy as much."

Ermenegildo Zegna began in 1910 "with the dream to create the most beautiful fabrics in the world" and has more than 500 fashion shops worldwide.

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