Results from the 2026 Nationals – Pinot Noir

Announcing the Results from the 2026 National Wine Awards of Canada

The 2026 Nationals took place in Niagara, Ontario from June 12th to 18th. Today, we are pleased to announce the winners in the Gamay, Pinot Noir, Chardonnay categories. . Category results will be rolling out throughout the rest of July, concluding with the Winery of the Year announcement on July 31st. We hope that you will stay tuned to follow the results!

Pinot Noir

Category Overview by John Szabo MS

Go straight to the winners.

Pinot Noir at the NWACs

Pinot noir remains one of the deepest and most competitive categories at the National Wine Awards of Canada, and 2026 delivered a genuine changing of the guard. From 148 entries, 112 wines earned a medal—a 75.7% hit rate, up from 70% in 2025—comprising 2 platinum, 19 gold, 41 silver and 50 bronze medals at an average retail price of $46.18. That haul represents 9.01% of every medal awarded across the entire competition, trailing only chardonnay and red blends among all categories, a remarkable feat for a notoriously fussy, thin-skinned variety that continues to reward only the patient, precise and obsessive.

The headline this year is Ontario’s emergence at the very top. In recent memory, British Columbia’s Okanagan Valley had swept every platinum medal in pinot noir; this year Malivoire’s 2024 Pinot Noir Three Rows, from the Beamsville Bench, broke that streak alongside BC’s Little Engine 2022 Vineyard Selection—one platinum apiece, a genuine 50/50 split. Ontario also edged British Columbia in overall medal count, 57 to 54, with a single silver going to Quebec. Niagara’s Twenty Mile Bench and Beamsville Bench produced 13 and 11 medals respectively, underscoring the now-inescapable truth that these bench appellations are Niagara’s quality pinot noir heartland.

The Okanagan Valley overall matched this medal haul with 24, of which 14 hailed from more specifically-appellated bottlings from the Naramata Bench and Okanagan Falls, signalling that these areas are worth watching closely.

Yet one last but important observation: considering the diminutive production of Vancouver Island compared to the Okanagan, and of Prince Edward County compared to Niagara, the contribution of these tiny regions, seven and six medals respectively, is also very telling.

Specialist wineries continue to define the category: SpearHead and Meyer Family Vineyards each collected six medals, with Ontario’s Bachelder—devoted almost exclusively to pinot noir and chardonnay—matching that tally, a strong signal that focus pays off regardless of province. Tawse (five medals) and Stag’s Hollow (four) rounded out the list of repeat performers.

Pinot noir’s importance to Canadian wine is structural, not incidental: it is British Columbia’s second most-planted grape at roughly 670 hectares (13% of the province’s total vineyard area), having grown over 50% since 2008, and sits comfortably among Ontario’s top ten VQA varieties by sale – it’s a premium grape after all, even if compared to other premium pinot regions worldwide, I’d still put Canada into the high value category.