Winners of the ARTEVÏNO 2009 Wine Awards

Posted September 21st, 2009 07:09 by John Szabo

In it’s short history of winemaking, and even shorter history as an official VQA-approved wine growing region (since June of 2007), Ontario’s Prince Edward County has amply established it’s suitability to making fine wines. It’s certainly heroic viticulture in the sense of the incredible amount of work required in the vineyards and the considerable risks of cold winters and too-cool summers, but when everything lines up – the right sites, grape varieties, winemaking know-how and a little help from mother nature - the region has the potential to produce some of Canada’s most exciting, wine-lover’s wines. PEC will never make big, blockbuster styles of wines, but who cares. The world has more than enough of those. What we do need more of are the finely etched, delicate, naturally low alcohol and crisply acidic, mineral-tinged wines that gets wine aficionados really excited. And that’s just what PEC is capable of. If you haven’t yet tried any “County” wines, now’s your chance. To make it easy, all you need do is source one of the wines listed here.

Below you’ll find the complete list of winners of the fifth annual 2009 ARTEVÏNO Wine Awards, restricted to wines made by wineries in Prince Edward County or Northumberland region, whether from grapes grown in the region or elsewhere in Ontario. This year 45 wines won awards, 32 of them made with 100% regionally grown grapes.

From the press release:

On August 24, 2009 a panel of six judges led by David Lawrason, co-founder of the Canadian Wine Awards and wine columnist for Toronto Life, gathered at Capers Wine Bar and Brasserie in Belleville to blind taste more than 75 entries from 19 Prince Edward and Northumberland County wineries. Others on the panel included Michael Pinkus, Ontario Wine Review, Billy Munnelly of Billy’s Best Bottles, Rod Phillips, Ottawa Citizen, Shari Darling, Peterborough Examiner and Chris Waters, editor, Vines Magazine and national wine columnist for the Sun newspaper. The judging was organized by Sadie Darby of the Wine Writers Circle.

“With 19 wineries entering the competition and such a large proportion of the wines being locally grown, it is clear that Prince Edward County has arrived.” said Mr. Lawrason. “And all the buzz we are hearing about the growth of the local wine industry is being proven out by what’s in the bottle. A distinctive County style is emerging with light, fragrant and fresh wines based on the County’s unique limestone soil”

Wines were entered in eight categories and the results are as follows: