Results from the 2025 Nationals – Platinum Winners

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 Platinum Medal winners. Category results will be rolling out throughout the rest of July, concluding with the Winery of the Year announcement on August 1st. We hope that you will stay tuned to follow the results!

The Platinum Winners – More Than Ever, Better Than Ever

Category Overview by Co-Chair David Lawrason

Go straight to the winners.

Two things jumped off the page when I first looked at the list of Platinum Awards at the 2025 WineAlign National Wine Awards of Canada. First is the number of Platinums awarded – 31, almost double the number from last year. Second, and less surprisingly, how well and evenly the results mirror Canada’s strengths in terms of the grapes being grown and the styles now coming to the fore. With one good bump up for cabernet franc.

A Platinum medal is the highest award possible; this year, it was achieved by just under 2% of the 1700 wines and ciders entered. A Platinum winner is looked at (blind, of course) by a minimum of eight judges, three or four in the first round, and five or six in the second round. It must have achieved an aggregate score of 93 points by five of those judges. In my world, and many others, 93 points or better is considered entering the realm of “outstanding.”

You might also be interested to know that 227 gold medals were awarded, just a notch below Platinum, with an aggregate score between 91 and 93. Even many of the 369 Silvers scored 90 or better, so if you want to take 90 points as a historic threshold of ‘excellence,’ it was achieved by almost one-third of the wines this year.

Over the past 25 years, we have consistently tracked the advancement of Canadian wine quality in our awards. Still, we all know people who, here in 2025, “don’t drink Canadian wine.” If they don’t like the style, with our lower alcohol and higher acid, fine, but that’s where the wine world is heading. However, these results demonstrate that we can achieve excellent quality, and we are doing just that. And I am not saying this out of an elbows-up, uppity attitude. The message is to freely and joyously drink up, which mechanically requires the raising of elbows in the process.

The second observation is the range of wines, in terms of style, origin, and price, that rose to the top – very much in line with expectation. Canada’s core ‘cooler climate’ varieties took the majority of Platinums, with relatively equal distribution. However, if you lump the Bordeaux red varieties as one style, there were six cabernet francs and six red blends – about 40% of the Platinums. And this is without a single varietal merlot or cabernet sauvignon in the mix. To me, this speaks to the growing importance of cabernet franc in Canada – both as a solo varietal and in blends, across the east and west. And the world wants cab franc these days.

In terms of Burgundy varieties, there were five pinot noirs and four chardonnays, followed by five rieslings (including two Icewines) and two syrahs. There were no pinot gris Platinums, nor sauvignon blancs, rosé or other aromatic whites. It may be the result of having very few of these grapes available in B.C.’s damaged 2024 vintage. The one category I am most surprised not to see represented in the Platinums is sparkling, which Canada is doing exceptionally well coast to coast. But there are plenty of Golds.

Regionally, Niagara and the Okanagan dominated, which is, of course, because they produce about 90% of Canada’s wines. B.C. took 19 Platinums, with 12 for Ontario. I hoped to see Nova Scotia and Quebec break through the platinum ceiling, as well as cooler regions in B.C, like Vancouver Island and Prince Edward County in Ontario. However, they do start to appear in the Golds.

The list certainly contains some highly regarded and expensive wines. The average price of entries, by the way, was $37.17. However, some lower-priced “thus value” wines made the grade, most notably the new Palatine Hills Schmoozer Cabernet Merlot at $16! Sandhill Terroir Series Syrah ($30) and Fielding Cabernet Franc ($26) have been very popular in their respective B.C. and Ontario markets for years, obviously having found a balanced style that purely expresses their variety. And purity, balance and varietal definition are exactly what panel judges are looking for.

I have been watching this process for 25 years, having served as a front-of-house panel judge for about 15 years, and now as a back-of-house chief judge, overseeing quality control of the judging process. What does that mean? Much of my time I’m repouring wines questioned by the panel judges. If there is a concern about a flaw, we have a policy that requires us to give the wine the benefit of the doubt and repour it. This happens a lot, with three major flaws accounting for the returns – volatile (acetic) acidity being the primary one, followed by oxidation and cork taint (less so with screwcaps now being more prominent).

Our judges are particularly adept at identifying these issues – indeed, blind tasting promotes this acuity. There is little tolerance for wines lacking purity or those that are out of balance, and once a flaw is detected, it is hard to ‘taste past it, or around it’ to consider the rest of the wine’s attributes. So, wineries submitting edgy, marginally flawed, unbalanced wines – intentionally or not – run a risk.

This very quest for balance, purity and intensity by our panelists is precisely what consumers want too. We are doing this for consumers. And professional judges are also consumers, albeit more advanced and objective, thanks to the sheer number of wines they taste and their ability to analyze what’s going on. But they are still individuals and humans, and their analysis can lead to disagreement. Another one of my roles is to occasionally mediate and reach a consensus among panels to establish a scoring range.

In the end, panels are a community, and therefore, in my view, more likely to be in synch with the community of consumers. I can offer my professional opinion, as do other critics, winemakers, sommeliers, and enthusiasts. And we all will wonder why some wines are in, and others are out. However, none of their individual opinions is more valuable than that of a community of professionals who have undergone this rigorous blind tasting process, designed to be fair to the wine.

So here is the list. I hope you can acquire and enjoy some of these gems of Canadian winemaking.

And the winners are…