Rocky Creek Winery wins 7 awards for excellence in winemaking
Yet again, Rocky Creek Winery is receiving accolades for their hand-crafted, sustainable, island grown estate wines. In the short time since they started in 2005, Rocky Creek Winery has won the most awards on all their wines made from locally-grown grapes.
Winemaker Mark Holford remarks “It’s a great indication of the consistency of our wines. We’ve really started to hit our stride. One example is our Pinot Gris, this is the second year in a row that we’ve won a gold medal for this wine and third year out of four that this wine has received a gold medal either at the Northwest Wine Summit or the All Canadian Wine Championships. Our other wines also are consecutive winners and the Blackberry is consistently the best Blackberry wine in Canada and even the entire west coast.
The winery is also proud of their special feature wines named after their two daughters, Robin and Katherine. Last year, the Robin’s Rosé had won a medal and it put the pressure on the winemaker to ensure the wine named after his other daughter also received the attention it deserved. The winemaker needn’t have worried though because in addition to the positive wine reviews from our debut sparkling, Katherine’s Sparkle has now received a silver medal at the Northwest Wine Summit.
Across the island many wineries are bringing home medals from these competitions and with the focus from the island wineries to produce top quality wines, they are now holding their own against any produced in Canada or the Pacific Northwest.
This holds true to Rocky Creek Winery because one of their key missions is to produce wines that are sustainable to Vancouver Island and true to the region. Rocky Creek Winery president Linda Holford states “We know that we can make great wines here that are sustainable, eco-friendly and true to the cool climates wines that we produce. It’s also good to now be acknowledged for these decisions and see that we have been consistently winning awards on all our wines.” This gives Rocky Creek Winery a good reflection of what the “experts” think of the wines and also marries into account what the customers are telling them.
Although growing grapes and making wines can be challenging on the islands, with the right grapes selections, careful grape growing practices and a focus on quality winemaking, we’ve proven that as a winery and as a region, we can compete with anyone in the world.
The winery is open Thurs to Sun from 11 am to 4 pm for tastings, tours and sales. See our website for a complete listing of all our awards, including our latest.