WineAlign - Awards - 2024 NWAC Rosé

Results of the 2024 WineAlign National Wine Awards of Canada (The Nationals)

Rosé

Category Overview by Judge Sara d’Amato

(Jump straight to the medal winners.)

I am a fan of rosé. It is the colour of wine I drink most readily, and I drink it all throughout the year. I am not opposed to making a “piscine” when the weather calls for it, but I also don’t shy away from pairing rosé with a main course. I will age rosé, particularly when it is made in a more extracted, Tavel-style, and I don’t shy away from any colour on the spectrum. I do not mind if it is has residual sugar, but the wine must be balanced. If any of this offends you, perhaps you’ve been overlooking the versatility of this style of wine. Canada affords a great deal of flexibility with respect to crafting rosé wine. Extraction levels and pigmentation can vary, any grape variety can be used (VQA dependent), wines can be made from red grapes or an assemblage of red and white, and there are no rules governing sweetness levels, oak aging, or stabulation. What has become clear is that the best rosés are made with intention. Afterthought assemblages of underripe grapes are become less common as the category commands more attention.

There has been some debate in this competition about whether the grape varieties in these blends should be revealed to the judges. This year, they were not. In categories such as red and white blends, the grapes varieties are made known to the panelists. The idea was to remove biases – would a pinot noir or a cabernet franc rosé have an unfair advantage over a wine made from pinot blanc and baco noir if that information was made available to judges? I cannot help but wonder if wines made with hybrid varieties would fare better or worse in a context where lauded vinifera grapes were in the mix. Perhaps the judges would give them more of a chance if they understood the reason for their more idiosyncratic flavour profile. Yet, one of the three gold medal wines in this category is made from a blend of vidal, frontenac gris/blanc, leon millot rosé, osceola muscat, petite milo, l’acadie blanc, NY muscat, riesling, and chardonnay. Would it have fared differently had we known? I’d like to take the optimist position that we would have recognized the wine’s merit either way. Let us know your thoughts.

Do these represent the best rosés in Canada? There is one reason why I just shy away from a full throttle yes! In this category, more than others, the “seasonality” of its nature puts it at a disadvantage. Rosé availability is ephemeral. In Canada, rosés are not produced in the numbers of “red” and “white” styles. When they are released, the market scoops them up quickly either as by-the-glass-pours for summertime restaurant patios, or by consumers to have on hand for warmer weather. Most of them are not meant for extended aging, in fact, they are often best consumed in the year in which they are made (I concede, there are some exceptions). Having been involved in two firsts this year – curating a rosé case for WineAlign subscribers, and assisting in the organization of the rosé symposium, I’ve realized that timing is everything when it comes to rosé. Most rosés on the market are bottled somewhere between March and June. Available locally, the earliest rosés tend to come from Canada and make it to retail between April and May. These results are a snapshot of what is available at the time of the competition. We will miss some later-bottled rosés and those that whose supplies are allocated quickly but our Award timing is close to ideal.

There are many great wines in this category and here are some stats to back up my claim. The rosé category received one platinum medal. Even though the overall medals-to-entries ratio of rosé was small compared to other types of wine, even one platinum medal awarded is a signal to me that this is a category worth watching. To give you more context, there were 19 platinum medals awarded in this entire competition that had just over 1800 entries. One of those nineteen platinum awards went to a rosé. Even more context – categories like gamay, malbec, sauvignon blanc, Icewine and pinot gris/grigio didn’t receive any platinum medals, however, they did all receive a higher overall medal-to-entries ratio. If you haven’t already scrolled down to the bottom of this article, the platinum award winner was a modestly priced, $15.95, non-vintage rosé that pleasantly surprised us all – the Fresh Rosé, made from unnamed grapes with a VQA Ontario designation. Quite possibly the most affordable platinum medal winner in this competition and I imagine it won’t be in stock for long! Kudos to the three gold medal wines in this category that include Mercator Vineyards 2023 Compass Rosé, Culmina 2023 Saignée, and Fox&Archer 2022 Unfiltered Saignée. These rosés don’t have much in common suggesting that you can find greatness in many different styles of rosés from across the country. Two of them are from BC – Fox & Archer from the Naramata Bench, and Culmina from the Golden Mile Bench. Mercator is from Wolfville, Nova Scotia. The grapes and blends are wildly different although the colours do bear some similarity. Unquestionably a diverse group of high-scoring wines.

Regarding colour, having judged rosé with several different panels this year, I had the impression that pale was not a positive bias for anyone. In fact, there may be a slight leaning towards more extracted, deeply coloured styles, but generally, preferences have swung to neutral on the colour issue. Unless the colour was particularly brassy or murky it did not factor. A pale hue alone did not result in an advantage over a wine that was more deeply pigmented.

And the winners are…

Fresh N/V Rosé, Ontario

Culmina 2023 Saignée, Golden Mile Bench, Okanagan Valley, British Columbia
Fox&Archer 2022 Unfiltered Saignée, Naramata Bench, Okanagan Valley, British Columbia
Mercator Vineyards 2023 Compass Rosé, Nova Scotia
Tinhorn Creek 2023 Reserve Rosé, Okanagan Valley, British Columbia

1 Mill Road Winery 2023 Pinot Noir Rosé, East Kelowna Slopes, Okanagan Valley, British Columbia
13th Street Winery 2023 Expression Series Cabernet Franc Rosé, Niagara Peninsula, Ontario
Adamo Estate Winery 2022 Underdog Rosé, Niagara Peninsula, Ontario
Bartier Bros. 2023 Gamay Noir Rosé, Okanagan Valley, British Columbia
Creekside 2023 Rosé, Niagara Peninsula, Ontario
Inniskillin Niagara 2022 Reserve Cabernet Franc Rosé, Niagara Peninsula, Ontario
Malivoire 2023 Rosé Moira, Beamsville Bench, Niagara Peninsula, Ontario
Moon Curser 2023 Heist Rosé, Okanagan Valley, British Columbia
Mt. Boucherie 2023 Rosé, Okanagan Valley, British Columbia
Nk’Mip Cellars 2023 Winemakers Rosé, Okanagan Valley, British Columbia
Organized Crime 2023 Rosé, Beamsville Bench, Niagara Peninsula, Ontario
Tawse 2023 Quarry Road Rosé, Vinemount Ridge, Niagara Peninsula, Ontario
Wild Goose Winery 2023 Rosé, Okanagan Valley, British Columbia

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