Article content The 2024 National Wine Awards of Canada begin their annual medal rollout next week. Before that starts, let’s look at some trends observed at the Nationals over the last quarter century. The latest awards were held in Niagara wine country last week.
Full disclosure: I’m a co-chair of the eight-day event along with Toronto-based wine critic David Lawrason. The competition is open to any producers making 100 per cent Canadian-grown and produced wines, and in 2024, it attracted just under 1,700 wines from 230 wineries. This year’s 24 judges, with nearly 500 years of combined tasting experience, come from diverse wine backgrounds across Canada, England, and the U.
S. This diverse expertise ensures a comprehensive evaluation process. All wines are tasted blind, and the top-scoring 25-27 per cent are re-tasted blind.
The medals are awarded based on the panel’s final score, which is precise to two decimal points. Only the top one per cent of scoring wines, those that truly stand out, are awarded a prestigious platinum medal, followed by the gold, silver, and bronze categories. This stringent process, focusing on precision and excellence, ensures that only the highest-quality wines receive recognition in each medal class.
The year 2024 marked another change in entries, which tend to follow trends in retail and consumer demand, which ultimately provides an excellent guide to the future of any particular style of wine or the popularity of individual grapes. In th.
