Sparkling – Medal Winners from the 2017 Nationals
Announcing the Results from the 2017 National Wine Awards of Canada
Due to the large number of top quality Canadian wines entered this year, we have decided to break the announcement of the results into more manageable pieces. Between July 17th and 28th we will be announcing a few categories at a time, wrapping up on July 28th with the Canadian Winery of the Year.
We’ve asked a few of our judges to summarize their impressions of each category. Today Treve Ring talks about all kinds of sparkling.
Sparkling
by Treve Ring
It’s true that Champagne is the gold standard of sparkling wines, but it’s not necessary to fill your flute with gold, and pay that price, to enjoy a spectacular sparkling wine. There are many situations when a fresh, bright and easy frizzante wine will win out over a serious, traditional-method sparkling. Fortunately, in Canada we can, and do, produce excellent wines of all styles, from all grapes and for all purposes.
Rooted in cool, Canada has emerged an indie darling of sparkling wine (we do share the 49th parallel with Champagne, after all). Within Canada, sparkling wine sales outpace total wine sales at +7.1% vs +4.7%. That said, Canadian-made sparkling wines account for 3-4% share of all Canadian wine, a clear sign (to me at least) that the potential future for sparkling wine is sparkling.
There are nearly 100 producers from Vancouver Island to Nova Scotia making sparkling wine, across all styles. Our top three sparkling wines at NWAC17 come from three very distinct geographical regions, from Nova Scotia, to Ontario, to BC. Worthy to note – those same top three wines are all blanc de blancs, combining structure, acidity and pure fruit to craft three very different, unique, and highly drinkable wines.
For more information on Canadian sparkling wines, read David Lawrason’s recently published Canadian Wine Report.
We are also pleased to announce the winners in the five remaining categories:
Fruit Wine
Icewine, Late Harvest & Fortified
Malbec
Mead and other non-fruit wine
Red Single Varietals
