All Canadian Wine Championship

I write this blog post during a break from judging the All Canadian Wine Championship in Windsor. This is a really great competition for wines from right across the country. There are wines from Nova Scotia to BC here and it gives me a feel for what is happening across the country.

On the first day of judging I had the opportunity to taste 50 gewürztraminers. The flight was quite impressive as most of the wines were quite good. There were 1-2 that were impressive and I look forward to getting the results later this week to see who made them. Following the flight of Gewürztraminers I tasted a flight of 18 merlots all priced under $20 a bottle. I was impressed at this bunch of wines as they showed ripe fruit (usually in a flight of value merlots there is green flavors of unripe fruit more often than not). There definitely are some values here.

To end off the morning of day one I tasted 12 red Icewines. There was quite a cross sample of wines here including a red sparkling ice wine. All the wines in this flight were quite good, but not surprising considering Canada in known for making good Icewines.

After lunch I tasted a flight of 38 Pinot Noir’s priced at over $20. I must say that on mass I was very disappointed with the pinots. Of the 38 only two actually tasted like a pinot should. I was really surprised at this as Canada can usually produce a decent pinot noir. I assume that most of the wines were from the 2006 vintage which was not a stellar year for red wines.

I ended up the afternoon with a flight of 18 fortified fruit wines. There were 4-5 wines that were in the style of a tawny port and a really good blueberry wine.

Tomorrow is another day of tasting and I will keep you up to date with what I taste. I will also post the local winning wines as well as all the Trophy wines later in the week.