Results from the 2025 Nationals – Sparkling Wines

Announcing the Results from the 2025 National Wine Awards of Canada

The 2025 Nationals took place in Penticton from June 21st to 25th. Today, we are pleased to announce the winners in the Sparkling category. Category results will be rolling out throughout the rest of July, with the final Platinum, Best Performing Small Winery, and Winery of the Year announcements at the end of the month. We hope that you will stay tuned to follow the results!

Sparkling Wines

Category Overview by Judge Michael Godel

Go straight to the winners.

Life is Mostly Froth and Bubble

Call it sparkling wine, fizz, bubbles, bubbly, champers or champansky. Produce it as Champagne (Classic Method), Ancestral Method, Pétillant Naturel; Charmat, Cuve Close or Italian Method. Finish it Brut, Extra Brut or Brut Nature (Pas Dosé) They do it as Brachetto, Cap Classique, Cava, Crémant, Espumante, Franciacorta, Moscato d’Asti, Mousseux, Oltrepò Pavese Metodo Classico, Prosecco, Sekt and Spumante. Grapes can be chardonnay, pinot noir, pinot meunier; macabeu, parellada, xarel-lo; arbois, auxerrois, cabernet franc, chenin blanc, gamay, glera, pinot blanc, pinot gris, riesling and sauvignon blanc.

All an amazing confluence of pressed juice, yeast, sugar and carbon dioxide. Nothing in the world screams festivities like an effervescente bottle of fermented grapes. They are the most technical and versatile food wines in the world. So why does such a large part of the wine-indulging population ignore it, save for weddings, milestone anniversaries and December holiday fêtes?

Think of it this way. The grapes that are harvested for sparkling wine are generally the first to be picked. By nature that means the winemaker had those very grapes in mind for sparkling production. Bubbles are not an afterthought, they are not wines made from the discarded, the non-regarded or the neglected. You have to believe, and want, to make honest sparkling wine.

Be immersed in the emerging industry that is Canadian sparkling wine and you will find yourself amazed. Canadian wine regions from coast to coast hold the promise for producing sparkling wine better than anywhere in the world…with the exception of Champagne.

At the 2025 WineAlign National Wine Awards of Canada there are 100 medals awarded to sparkling wines. 100! 100 is an insane number of Gold, Silver and Bronze medallions allotted to any category and yet sparkling is in fact so deserving of the hardware. Of those 100 medals, 23 were Gold, 34 Silver and 43 Bronze. The provincial breakdown at the Gold level is 12 from Ontario, 10 out of British Columbia and one for Nova Scotia. The two most expensive wines entered both receive Gold recognition and in fact the average price of those top winning wines is $56.10, which surely says something about two dozen WineAlign judges’ ability to identify the highest Canadian sparkling wines.

Cheers, cin cin, gesondheid, prost, salud, santé, saúde, yamas and good to go!

godello

And the winners are…

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