WineAlign - Awards - 2022 NWAC White Blends

Results of the 2022 WineAlign National Wine Awards of Canada (The Nationals)

White Blends including Tidal Bay

Category Overview by Michael Godel

As I pen this special feature about White Blends (including Tidal Bay) for the 2022 WineAlign National Wine Awards of Canada, the irony of writing and filing from Wolfville, Nova Scotia is not lost on the exercise. Tidal Bay is arguably the most creative, well-conceived, essential and successful appellative white blend category in Canada. Emulating the concept is something no other province or wine region has truly tried. Sure, it is apparent that obstacles like parochial politics, federal and provincial tax structures and a hierarchy of wine establishments stand in the emulative way but for other Canadian wine regions the time has surely come to make it so. Look at the NWAC medal results for this year’s white blends to know there is little doubt the category is already great and could be so much more.

(Jump straight to the medal winners.)

White blends can mean many things. Let’s first look at the aforementioned Tidal Bay, an appellative wine created by the Wineries of Nova Scotia a dozen years ago that can be made from three categories of permitted grapes. The first are neutral or “less aromatic,” as in l’acadie blanc, vidal, seyval and geisenheim 318. If it’s made as a varietal wine that grape must come from this first category. Tidal Bay blends must contain a majority from the first list plus the second category of permissible grapes considered “aromatic.” These cannot make up more than 49 per cent of the wine and they are riesling, chardonnay, pinot blanc, pinot gris, chasselas, auxerrois, ortega, siegerebbe, geisenheim 319, 322, 6495-3, minnesota muscat, frontenac gris, frontenac blanc, cayuga, petit milo, siegfried and kentville white varieties. Finally, the third and truly optional category are “very” aromatic and cannot make up more than 15 per cent of the blend; they are gewürztraminer, perle of csaba, traminette, valvin, new york muscat and vinifera muscat varieties.

Got it? Imagine doing something like this in Ontario or B.C. What would the mix, make-up or blend need to be? Non-vinifera and hybrid grape varieties would have a severely lessened importance but in Ontario, as an example, why not try something akin to 75 per cent minimum “lesser” aromatic white grapes and no more than 15 per cent of either aromatic or non-vinifera varieties allowed in the mix. Give or take some percentage points in each of the three categories, more or less. Why not tie the appellative room together and encourage wineries to produce a blend under one common name? Imagine the marketing potential. But I digress, and now it is time to get to the results. There were 55 medals awarded in this broad category, surely a record for the competition, including 14 Gold, 13 Silver and 28 Bronze. Some of the top wines are also the most expensive, an indication that growing grapes for the sole and express purpose of crafting a white blend will create some fantastic wines.

There were eight Tidal Bay medals awarded and that alone will tell you that the idea is a strong one, especially when all of them are available in 250 mL cans on shelves of the Nova Scotia Liquor Commission. How smart is that! In some cases, the best white blends are Meritage or Bordeaux joints between sémillon and sauvignon blanc, a classic Ontario and B.C. combination that does so well and in so many cases. Still there are many other miscellaneous, variegated, misfit, diversified and motley crews that work so well where the whole is a true sum of the constituent parts. These are wine to be celebrated and encouraged, for their audacity, creativity and just dumb luck. White appellative blends are the future, especially as Canadian growers and producers head deeper and deeper into a future filled with extreme and unpredictable climate change. Being able to mix and match, purpose grow and create blends that make post-modern sense is what everyone, producers and consumers alike, need in white wines across this vast country.

And the winners are…

Black Hills Estate Winery 2021 Alibi, Okanagan Valley, British Columbia
Blomidon 2021 Tidal Bay White, Nova Scotia
Gaspereau 2021 Tidal Bay, Nova Scotia
Jackson-Triggs Niagara 2020 Grand Reserve White Meritage, Niagara Escarpment, Niagara Peninsula, Ontario
Jackson-Triggs Okanagan 2020 Grand Reserve White Meritage, Okanagan Valley, British Columbia
Jost Vineyards 2021 Tidal Bay, Nova Scotia
Kismet 2020 Viognier Roussanne Marsanne Reserve, Okanagan Valley, British Columbia
La Frenz 2020 Reserve Vivant, Okanagan Valley, British Columbia
Nk’Mip Cellars 2020 Merriym White Meritage, Okanagan Valley, British Columbia
Palatine Hills 2020 Wild & Free White Meritage, Ontario
Terravista 2021 Fandango, British Columbia
Tightrope 2021 Tip-Toe, Okanagan Valley, British Columbia
Two Sisters 2019 Stone Eagle Eagle Eye, Niagara Peninsula, Ontario
Vignoble de l’Orpailleur 2020 Cuvée Natashquan, Quebec