MINING FOR THE BEST WINES

InterVin judges sample 1,200 submissions before awarding gold, silver honours

Sharing the results of the annual InterVin International Wine awards is always a thrill. Months of preparation and four intensive days of tasting culminates with the unveiling of an essential buyer’s guide to the best wines available to Canadians right now.

As head judge, my job is to set the judging criteria and assemble top Canadian experts to effectively mine for gold-medal wines among the hundreds of submitted samples. The wines are grouped by grape variety or style to ensure each is fairly evaluated alongside its international peers.

The idea behind InterVin is to conduct a different kind of wine competition that brings together panels of communicators, sommeliers and winemakers to grade submissions. Each judge brings the perspective of his or her occupation and expertise to the process, which helps maintain objectivity in the search for excellence. They evaluate the samples individually before coming together to deliver a consensus score. The panels were able to award gold, silver and honours medals in each category.

InterVin’s collaborative and collective approach means only the most outstanding wines are singled out.

Faced with more than 1,200 wines at this year’s competition, judges saved their highest praise for 65 entries that received gold medals and 235 that received silvers. That’s a record number of golds and silvers. Our standards weren’t lowered. This year’s submissions were that much better.

Ontario producers took three of the four best in class awards. The top-scoring wines of the competition were a rich and honeyed Riesling and a complex and savoury Cabernet Franc from relatively new Niagara wineries. Redstone Limestone Ridge South Block Riesling 2013 and Two Sisters Vineyards Cabernet Franc 2013 ranked first in the white and red wine categories, respectively.

Tantalus Vineyards Blanc de Noir 2014, from the Okanagan Valley, was top-scoring in the sparkling category, while the Lakeview Cellars Cabernet Franc Icewine 2013, from Niagara-onthe-Lake, garnered the highest marks in the dessert wine class.

For more information, visit intervin.ca.