Niagara College Teaching Winery wins Best Sparkling plus medals at national wine championship

The corks were flying after a multi-medal day for the Niagara College Teaching Winery at the All Canadian Wine Championships (ACWC), which culminated in a huge win, collecting the Best Sparkling Wine of the Year.

This was on top of the healthy handful of medals the college’s wine-teaching course collected over the course of the competition.

Balance Brut bubbled to the top of the list with a prestigious Best Sparkling Wine of the Year title and trophy along with a double gold medal in the Sparkling Wine Traditional Method category.

For head winemaker and instructor Gavin Robertson, the wine is one of his favourites currently on the shelf and he was happy to see that his palate aligned with the judges.

“Traditional method Sparkling wine is a really technical and involved style of wine to produce,” said Robertson. “Because it takes so long to arrive at a final product, several cohorts of our students get to participate in the production of a single wine.”

The fact is that this particular sparkling wine was years in the making, using a blend of 2014 and 2015 fruit, handpicked and pressed by students who began the program in September of those years.

“Student learning shines at the college’s Teaching Winery when our products achieve outstanding national success,” said Steve Gill, general manager of the College’s Learning Enterprises.

“This is not only a big win for our winemakers, faculty, staff and students at the Teaching Winery, but for the future of wine industry as we continue to raise the bar for high-quality wine education.”

The students’ 2020 Balance Dry Riesling also captured the top of its class, winning the double gold ‘best of category’ (Riesling Dry).

Their 2019 Dean’s List Botrytis Affected Chardonnay was another newcomer to the winner’s circle, with a bronze (Late Harvests category), made from Chardonnay grapes that were exposed to the botrytis fungus, known as “noble rot” in the fall.

Adding another bronze to the Teaching Winery’s wins – and another first timer – was the 2019 Deans List Savant Cabernet Sauvignon Icewine (Red Icewines category). The wine comes from the 2019 Icewine harvest, picked by the College’s wine students at a College-operated vineyard on Concession 5 in Niagara-on-the-Lake, then pressed in a student winemaking lab.

Gavin Robertson raises a glass to the NC Teaching Winery’s 2022 All Canadian Wine Championships wins while holding a bottle of the competition’s Best Sparkling Wine of the Year: Balance Brut (NV). More medal-winning wines are displayed on a barrel near the campus vineyard, including 2020 Balance Dry Riesling (Double Gold Best of Category), 2019 Deans List Botrytis Affected Chardonnay (bronze) and 2019 Deans List Savant Cabernet Sauvignon Icewine (bronze).