Results from the 2025 Nationals – Gewürztraminer

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 Other Single Red Varieties, Other Single White Varieties, Gewürztraminer, Viognier, and Malbec categories. 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!

Gewürztraminer

Category Overview by Judge Janet Dorozynski, Ph.D, DipWSET

Go straight to the winners.

Gewürztraminer in Canada seems to be a victim of changing consumer preference and climatic challenge. And we see this in the number of entries and results of this year’s awards. The variety remains a minor category, with just sixteen entries and seven awards for silver and bronze medals.

Though impossible to get national statistics on grape acreage in Canada, we do know that British Columbia had 660 acres of gewürztraminer planted in 2023, which is comparable to plantings of riesling. The sunny, arid conditions of the Okanagan in summer are suited to the variety and produce ripe, aromatic profiles with lifted florals and lychee-spice character. However, given gewürztraminer’s tendency toward natural low acidity and high alcohol, balance is critical. Pick too late with too little acid and/or residual sugar mismanagement and you get flabby, cloying wines. Picking too early can lead to greenness and dilute wines.

In Ontario, gewürztraminer has been decreasing in terms of harvest tonnage from 1424 tonnes in 2020 to 998 in 2024. According to the 2025 annual report of the Ontario Wine Appellation Authority, gewürztraminer as a single varietal wine accounted for less than 2% of total VQA wine production. Frigid winter temperatures leading to vine death, along with the overall decline in interest of the variety globally, have been the main reasons.

While limited in scale, gewürztraminer still provokes discussion among the judges around stylistic intent and technical execution. They emphasized the importance of clarity in winemaking, whether aiming for classic oily opulence or a leaner, fresher style. In either case, the best examples showed varietal typicity without excess.

Although commercial interest for gewürztraminer remains muted, if you are bucking the trend these silver medal winners from Corcellettes and Meyer Family Vineyard in British Columbia, along with Malivoire in Ontario, warrant exploration.

And the winners are…