Canada’s Top Wineries

2015 WineAlign National Wine Awards of Canada (The Nationals)

The 2015 WineAlign National Wine Awards results were released last week and you can find all the medal results HERE. Today we wanted to share with you a much broader look at the results in terms of the performance of the top 25 wineries, Ontario’s top ten, British Columbia’s top ten, the coveted Winery of the Year and this year, new to the mix, the Best Performing Small Winery (10,000 cases and under) and the top ten Best Performing Small Wineries.

With a record 205 wineries involved in the awards and 1408 wines anyone getting into the top 25 list should take a well-deserved bow. Our performance evaluation touches on any winery entering five or more wines in the competition, in essence automatically entering that producer into the race for the 2015 WineAlign Winery of the Year.

After that, we tally the top five scores entered. Each performance score begins with the wine’s raw base score as awarded by the judges out of 100 points. Then, employing a series of calculations the wine receives additional points depending upon whether or not it was awarded a bronze, silver, gold or platinum medal. The value of any medal takes into account the total number of medals awarded in each class and the total number of medals issued overall to produce a unique performance score.

That total, added together with a winery’s other four top scoring wines, is used to assess its performance against all others entered in the competition, resulting in the list of top performing wineries. What it all comes down to is one of the most useful wine lists in the country, and a true guide to which wines and wineries are performing at the very top of the Canadian wine industry.

The 2015 Winery of the Year is Mission Hill Family Estate, located in West Kelowna, Okanagan Valley, British Columbia. The win is the fourth for owner Anthony Von Mandl and winemaker John Simes, spanning the fifteen year history of the awards.

The inaugural 2015 Best Performing Small Winery (10,000 cases and under) goes to Thirty Bench Wine Makers from the Niagara Peninsula, Ontario.

Winery of the Year

Mission Hill Family Estate Winery
Okanagan, British Columbia

1 Platinum, 4 Gold, 6 Silver, 10 Bronze

Mission Hill 2014 Reserve Vidal Icewine (Platinum)
Mission Hill 2013 Reserve Riesling (Gold)
Mission Hill 2012 Compendium (Gold)
Mission Hill 2012 Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon (Gold)
Mission Hill 2011 Quatrain (Gold)

Read More: Mission Hill Captures its 4th Canadian Winery of the Year Award

Best Performing Small Winery
(10,000 cases and under)

Thirty Bench Wine Makers
Niagara, Ontario

1 Platinum, 2 Gold, 6 Silver, 3 Bronze

Thirty Bench 2013 Riesling Small Lot Triangle Vineyard (Platinum)
Thirty Bench 2013 Small Lot Wild Cask Riesling (Gold)
Thirty Bench 2013 Small Lot Gewurztraminer (Gold)
Thirty Bench 2012 Benchmark Red (Silver)
Thirty Bench 2014 Riesling (Silver)

Read More: Thirty Bench Wine Makers wins inaugural Best Performing Small Winery