Results from the 2024 Nationals – White Blends
Announcing the Results from the 2024 National Wine Awards of Canada
The 2024 Nationals took place in Niagara Falls from June 21st to 25th. Today, we are pleased to announce the winners in the White Blends 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!
We’ve asked a few of our judges to summarize their impressions of each category. Today we are pleased to present the White Blends winners.
White Blends
Category Overview by Judge Michael Godel
New Trends for White Blends
The continued success of mixed Canadian appellative categories lets us know that winemakers are always fiddling, mixing, matching and playing around with what sometimes feels like an infinite number of varietal possibilities. This is the thing about making wines in parts of the world where words like endemic, indigenous and autochthonous do not generally apply. The National Wine Awards of Canada category called “White Blends” allows for and encompasses many permutations, inclusive of those wines made with vinifera and also hybrid grapes. No matter how you slice, dice or blend them, appellative white wines are an increasing concern and most definitely a mainstay in the lexicon of Canadian wine.
First come the confluences, followed by an often random and sometimes more precise set of percentages that in the end collectively come to define these styles of wines. There are no steadfast rules save for those set out by VQA which says that all the grapes in a labeled bottle must come from the province (Ontario or British Columbia), an appellation (i.e. Niagara Peninsula or Okanagan Valley), but also sub-appellation (i.e. Beamsville Bench or Naramata Bench). Otherwise, the choices are boundless and white blends can run from the traditional to the eclectic. Knowable concepts include the Bordeaux joint of sauvignon blanc and sémillon, the northern and southern Rhône get togethers that involve marsanne, roussanne and viognier, but also grenache blanc, clairette blanche, bourboulenc, picpoul and ugni blanc. Maybe a producer looks to Alsace or Loire Valley, or in a more modern vein, to Australia.
At the 2024 National Wine Awards of Canada, British Columbia continues to set the trends for blending and styles, but also finds the most success, taking home 27 of the 41 total medals awarded for the blended white wine category. In fact, B.C. outpaced Ontario by a two and a half to one margin with just one medal awarded to Blomidon Winery Tidal Bay from Nova Scotia and two from Québec’s Vignoble du PicBois. The breakdown for 2024 is three Gold, 13 Silver and 25 Bronze. Terravista Vineyards took two of the three top spots with their Fandango and Figaro blends, while Lake Breeze‘s joint between roussanne and viognier was the third Gold Medal winner. Four Ontario wineries figured prominently in the Silver medals, including two vintages of the Two Sisters Stone Eagle-Eagle Eye, the Hidden Bench Nuit Blanche Rosomel Vineyard, the sauvignon-sémillon from Creekside Estate called Iconoclast and Lailey Winery’s Field Blend.
The misfits, bohemians, non-conformists, idiosyncratic and even eccentric white blends continue to test Canadian waters and consumers must be charged with giving these non-conformist wines their due. As it has already been said, “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 experimentation, trial and error.” Extreme climate events and crises make these grapes essential to fulfilling our future generations’ white drinking needs.
NWAC 2024 Sponsors:
