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National Wine Awards of Canada 2025 (NWAC)
The 2025 judging takes place June 21 to 25 in Penticton, B.C.
First, a few words from co-founders David Lawrason and Anthony Gismondi:
“This year, the National Wine Awards of Canada celebrates a quarter-century of our once-a-year “snapshot” of Canadian wines. We are proud to have shone a light on the developing Canadian wine scene, especially in its formative years when it needed a voice to help tell its story. Having an annual benchmarking of Canadian wines judged at that highest level by Canadians has been a privilege and a dream come true as founders.
From the beginning, the goal was to create a level playing field for all Canadian producers to compete against their peers from across the country that would inform them of their progress and, more importantly, share that information with consumers. This has been done with core values and procedures that have ensured a guarantee of fairness and objectivity in the true sense of those words.
The short story is that the wines are tasted blind in flights organized by style/grape categories, while a computer-activated shuffle determines the order of the wines in the flight. We often tell judges that the first wine of the first day could be the best wine of the year, so it’s game on from the start to the finish. The top-scoring 25-27 percent of the wines are tasted twice by a minimum of eight judges, and the results are professionally analyzed and comprehensively reported online at WineAlign for the world.
We have alternated the annual tastings between British Columbia and Ontario wine country, including stops in Nova Scotia. We have sought to create a roster of primarily Canadian judges with global wine credentials sprinkled with a handful of international wine personalities with strong judging resumés. Our judges come to us from various wine paths, including writers, sommeliers and retailers.
Over the years, we have worked with an army of volunteers who have tirelessly worked to meet a standard that assures a calm and quiet tasting room where wines are presented to a precise level and temperature, removing any obstacles to a perfect-tasting environment. Behind the scenes, the fact-checking goes on for five days, and every entry is checked several times to ensure its provenance.
Our first awards occurred in June 2001, in a loft on the top floor of Toronto’s Royal York Hotel. We had about 500 entries and used eight judges. They were called the Canadian Wine Awards then and ran under the auspices of Wine Access Magazine for the first dozen years. During that period, the number of entries and judges more than tripled, corresponding to the rapid growth of the Canadian wine industry itself. In 2013, Wine Access Magazine ceased publication, and the Awards were reconstituted as the National Wine Awards of Canada under the ownership of WineAlign but run by the same team since its inception. The last dozen years have continued to grow, with increasing sophistication, including fail-safe electronic scoring. The pandemic interrupted the run in 2020, but WineAlign published a Canadian Wine Buyers Guide based on the hundreds of samples sent to the office in Toronto. In 2021 and 2022, we resumed judging with Covid protocols in place and last year, 24 judges tasted 1,800+ entries from 230 wineries.
The 2025 Nationals return to the Penticton Trade and Convention Centre in British Columbia. We want to thank the hundreds, maybe even thousands, who have been a part of the Awards, from our family of talented judges and tireless background volunteers to the wineries who have supported this endeavour by entering wines and everyone who has helped with shipping, warehousing and preparing the venues. It has been a labour of love for 25 years, but we wouldn’t have it any other way. In a year in which our sovereignty has been challenged, the awards should have an extra meaning for all of us in Canada. Look for the results in mid-July.” – Anthony Gismondi and David Lawrason
We look forward to seeing your wines and ciders at Canada’s 2025 National Wine Awards.
Four Important Changes for 2025:
Reduced minimum annual production to 420 bottles – down from 900 previously.
Expanded cider categories in partnership with Cider Canada.
Library wine category – older vintages (not eligible for winery of the year calculations).
Replacement wine category – not eligible for NWAC, results announced separately.
For more details on these new categories please see our rules.
What You Can Win
Each year, the National Wine Awards presents four major awards: Canadian Winery of the Year, Best Performing Small Winery producing less than 10,000 Cases, Icewine of the Year, and Cider of the Year. Within the give-or-take 37 categories, wines are awarded Gold, Silver or Bronze medals, all topped by Platinum medals bestowed on the top one percent of the highest-scoring wines across all competition categories.
Speaking of results, we have sped up the final reporting process to get the results to all participants sooner. This allows you to maximize your ability to market your wines and wineries throughout the busy late summer and fall seasons. Full results, including Canadian Winery of the Year and Best Performing Small Winery of the Year, will be published on WineAlign by the end of July.
Cost of Entry:
April 1 – 30: $150/wine + GST
May 1 – 31: $155/wine + GST
June 1 – 13 : $160/wine + GST
Fees must be paid at the time of registration to receive the early bird price.
Important Dates:
Shipping to Eastern consolidation point ends: Friday, May 23 CLOSED
Shipping to Western consolidation point ends: Friday, June 13
Online registration ends: Friday, June 13
Wine entry fees must be paid by: Friday, June 13
Important Links:
Judges
Rules for Entry
Registration
Shipping
FAQs
Questions or comments? Contact us: [email protected]