Competing for sweet success
Panel of judges met in Elmira this week to decide the recipient of syrup festival’s “producer of the year” award
IT WILL BE A SAPPY ending for one sugarbush farmer, that’s for sure.
Because inside mysterious Bottle Number 4 resides an amber liquid so perfectly clear and sweet that it has won the Elmira
Maple Syrup Festival’s “producer of year” award.
The winner? Well, that’s a secret: it won’t be revealed until the ceremonial first tap on February 23.
Three expert judges, including the president of the North American Maple Syrup Council, spent almost two hours Monday choosing between 11 shortlisted bottles of the high-valued sweet stuff.
“It’s all about bragging rights,” explained Drew McGovern, a festival committee member for the past 25 years, who was part of the audience watching this painstaking evaluation process.
“Whoever wins gets to say they’re tAheDbeSsPt aOnTd, -ofNON course, it will mean they get to sell a lot more of their product as word gets out.”
McGovern, whose daughter Jenny McGovern teaches first graders at Riverside Public School in Elmira, also joked that he’d probably be a better judge of the whiskies of his native Scotland.
Fortunately, the festival organizers had a very distinguished panel of judges, including Todd Leuty, a retired agroforestry specialist for the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, who had also been an official wine taster before moving on to devote 15 years of his career examining the end product of boiling sap.
“I enjoy testing maple syrup more, actually,” he revealed. “There’s just so much tradition with it, going back to First Nation peoples in Canada.”
He was joined by Brian Bainborough, who produces his own syrup on Manitoulin Island as well as helming the trade association.
The third judge was Sophie Krolikowski, a current maple syrup expert with Leuty’s old employer, OMAFRA.
Gathered in the Woolwich council chamber, they awarded marks out of 100 in four different categories: up to 10 for clarity, 20 for colour, 30 for density and 40 for flavour.
“Flavour is the most important of these criteria,” explained Leuty. “It needs to have that good maple flavour. It’s no good just being sweet.”
He noted that early season syrups tend to have more “mapliness” because they contain more sucrose.
But over time, this sugar type breaks down into glucose, “giving more of a candy flavour,” he explained.
“Maple is maple,” added Bainborough. “It doesn’t really matter where it comes from: it’s not like wine, there is no such thing as terroir.”
Leuty, interjecting to expand further, said:
“With maple syrup, it’s really all about technique, with filtering and clean equipment being very important.”
To that end they literally poured over every detail: holding bottles up to the light to examine the clarity and using special electronic meters to measure the density and sugar content.
Before the tasting had even begun, the judges were forced to disqualify one of the amber-grade syrups for not being sufficiently clear as well as being above the permitted density.
Once tasting had begun the judges, Krolikowski especially, argued about whether one bottle was perhaps “too sweet” as well as other aspects of the flavour profile.
The judges also smelled each of the sticky liquids to determine if the aroma was more baked apple, brioche, molasses, vanilla and a host of other things that were listed on a chart.
Then, using white
plastic spoons, they tasted each of the bottles more than once, carefully sipping the sweet goodness before drinking water to cleanse their palates.
They whittled the choices down to four before agreeing that Bottle No. 4 was the winner with a score of 98 out of 100.
The entry that came last received 88 points, and Bainborough assured the gathered members of the festival committee, including chair Matt Jessop, that they were all exceptionally good syrups.
The identities of the winner and runner up, Bottle Number 11, will be announced during a tree-tapping ceremony at Snyder Acres Farm in Breslau, which won last year’s prize and will be given pride of place to sell their top-rated product at this year’s festival on April 6.
The winner of this year’s prize will get the same opportunity next year.
Organizers use this system to give producers enough time to bottle around 300 litres for the much-cherished annual event, which is celebrating its 60th festival in 2024.