White Blends
Category Overview by Judge Michael Godel
(Jump straight to the medal winners.)
As far as the National Wine Awards of Canada categories are concerned, none are as broadly defined as that of “White Blends.” Many different grapes are used and in seemingly endless combinations. These are wines that consistently receive more medals, year after year.
Defining “White Blend” is complicated because in Canadian wine regions there are few hard fast or must adhere to rules, save for Nova Scotia’s Tidal Bay, an appellative wine conceived back in 2010. They are in their own class and of the nine such entries at this year’s competition, seven were awarded medals. NWAC 2023 saw a record 57 medals awarded for the White Blends category, which tells us that the judges and by extension consumers are fans of the concept.
What exactly is a white blend? Mixing sauvignon blanc and sémillon as per the Bordeaux model seems the most obvious example to emulate, closely followed by northern and southern Rhône examples in which marsanne, roussanne and viognier are the most used grape varieties. Alsace fits in prominently, as do places like Rueda (Spain) and the Loire Valley. Chardonnay is often used as an anchor and is blended with both aromatic and non-aromatic varieties. In all Canadian provinces the use of non-vinifera and hybrid grape varieties can create lovely blends – especially from the aforementioned Nova Scotia but also from Québec and B.C.
The NWAC 2023 medals count 11 Gold, 19 Silver and 27 Bronze, with British Columbia taking home 44 (or 80 percent). Only 10 are awarded to Ontario wines, two of them Gold and yet three are simply labeled VQA Ontario, meaning their fruit sources do not qualify for a specified appellation or perhaps the parent company prefers the marketing ubiquity in order to sell their wines Canada-wide. Three winning examples (two Silver and one Bronze) are wines labeled “Canada,” they being from Cannon Estate Winery in Abbotsford, in the Fraser Valley. Three Québec blends are by Vignoble Rivière du Chêne (two Silver and one Bronze) and so these “outliers” represent eight of 57, or 14 percent of the hardware. This points to Canada’s ability to craft quality wines from newer grape-growing frontiers.
For the most part the high quality of the Gold winners are certainly trained towards more traditional blends. Ontario’s Beamsville Bench, Niagara Lakeshore and BC’s Okanagan Valley do Bordeaux iterations really well. The Okanagan Valley also works well for the Rhône Valley theme. The Okanagan takes on Austria and Alsace while the sub-appellation of the Naramata Bench pays homage to Rueda.
The awarding of Silver and Bronze medals continues to celebrate the classic Old World white blends but increasingly those best qualified as miscellaneous, variegated, bohemian, non-conformist, idiosyncratic and even eccentric. Wines that find the wherewithal to become the sum of their constituent parts must be lauded and encouraged because emerging wine regions find their way and place through these kinds of experimentation, trial and error. This must include cold-climate hardy hybrids and also PIWI-developed varieties. (PIWI is the German-coined abbreviation that stands for fungus resistant grape varieties.) In future times of climate crisis these grapes will help fill our glasses, often in the face of drought, fire and deluge. Here’s to all the misfits and motley crews in appellative or those suspected of being appellative white blends. The future is for the consumer and white blends will be their saviour.
Sparkling Wine
Category Overview by Judge Janet Dorozynski, Ph.D., DipWSET
(Jump straight to the medal winners.)
I remember being asked by a foreign journalist more than ten years ago what I thought was the most exciting and least-known style of Canadian wine. Without any hesitation I said sparkling wine. I continue to believe strongly it is a style we do well from coast to coast.
New and established Canadian wineries are making higher quality sparkling wine every year. The climate and shorter growing season in Quebec and Nova Scotia are two qualities particularly benefiting sparkling wine production but there is also very fine fizz coming from British Columbia and Ontario.
Great Canadian sparkling wines are made with vitis vinifera with a number are from hybrid varieties that make energetic and refined sparkling wine. Production is largely traditional bottle fermented and charmat/tank method, along with increasing amounts of frizzante (carbonation injection), no doubt made in the hopes of chasing that well-known Italian P wine.
The number of entries in the sparkling category increased from 147 in 2022 to 165 this year. The majority of entries were from B.C. and Ontario with a smattering from Quebec and Nova Scotia, the latter of which is making a name for itself internationally with Nova Scotia sparkling wines found on many a restaurant wine list in the U.K.
The judges awarded 30 gold and 34 silver, and one Platinum Medal to Megalomaniac, a strong showing for the category. I would also add that many of the medal winners are well priced — between $30 and $40 a bottle, with quality and excitement that beats many grand marque Champagne any day.
Cheers to seeing even more Canadian sparkling wine over the coming years and congratulations to all of this year’s winners.