There were 260 wineries entered, but there are over 700 in Canada… what’s important is that for consumers, almost all the important wineries in terms of their commercial reach are there. "It’s getting better and better - I’d just like to see more wineries entered. Lawrason is optimistic about the direction in which Canadian wine is headed. Among the other top performers available in Manitoba were Trius, Peller Estates Niagara, Quails’ Gate, Mission Hill Family Estate, 13th Street Winery and Painted Rock Estate Winery, all of which have products in Manitoba at Liquor Marts, private wine stores or both. and Ontario, which roughly mirrors the number of entries from each region (1,212 from B.C. (Some Malivoire wines are available at Winnipeg private wine stores.) The top 10 wineries of the year were split 60-40 between B.C. This year’s 20th edition of the WineAlign awards saw a record number of entries and a record number of medals awarded.Īs for winery of the year, Ontario’s Malivoire earned three platinums, one gold, eight silvers and five bronzes. The competition also saw products being entered from Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Saskatchewan, Alberta and, yes, Manitoba - local producers Shrugging Doctor Beverage Company nabbed a bronze for their apple cinnamon mead. "Quebec is really onto something - I don’t know that the rest of Canada knows about it yet," says Lawrason. Quebec wines seeemed to punch above their weight at the 2021 competition. "Vancouver Island wines are really starting to show well - some vast improvements," Lawrason notes. In addition to platinum winners from B.C.’s Okanagan Valley and Ontario’s Niagara Peninsula, top honours also went to wines from Quebec, B.C.’s Vancouver Island and Thompson Valley. Bubbly accounted for 150 entries - fourth after red blends (222 entries), Chardonnay (185) and Pinot Noir (184).
Of those 30 platinums, six were sparkling wines, a category clearly done well by Canadian producers. Of the 2,000-plus entries, only 30 wines won platinum medals, around 1.4 per cent of wines. They’ve ripened better, the viticulture’s better - you can really see the quality improving right across the country." The wines are balanced for the most part. "But we’re not getting very many of those wines anymore. "In the first half a dozen years, there were a few wines that would make the judges squirm," he recalls. Lawrason recalls less consistency in quality in earlier competitions. "Some are going to say that’s too high, but my counterargument would be that most wine should be at least bronze-level quality." "There were 1,409 medal winners - 68 per cent of wines won either a bronze, silver, gold or platinum medal," Lawrason notes. We thought they were all pretty excellent I’m really keen on regenerating, on keeping that going."Ī record number of entries produced a record number of medals awarded as well. "We had 26 judges in all this year, 14 men and 12 women… we had seven or eight people who hadn’t judged with us before. The record number of entries meant more judges than ever were needed, including the next generation of sommeliers and industry types from across the country. Wines are poured for judges to taste at the WineAlign 2021 National Wine Awards of Canada. WineAlign’s David Lawrason is optimistic about the direction in which Canadian wine is headed.