St. Catharines Wine Tasting of 2005

The St. Catharines Wine Tasting of 2005 was a blind tasting of four named growth Bordeaux and twelve Ontario Cabernet and Cabernet blends held at Brock University in St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, on February 27, 2005.

The 51 judges in the wine competition were as follows
* 8 members of The Wine Writers Circle of Canada
* 20 members of The Wine Judges of Canada
* 8 people from various wineries in Ontario, Canada
* 9 professors and students from Brock University, Canada
* 3 Canadian journalists
* 3 Certified wine tasters (Canadian)

They ranked the wines as follows:

Rank Region Wine
*1 Ontario Colio "Carlo Negri Signature" Cabernet-Merlot, 1999
*2 Ontario Thirty Bench Benchmark Blend, 1998
*3 Ontario Stoney Ridge Cabernet Franc-Merlot, 1995
*4 Ontario Cave Spring Cellars Cabernet-Merlot, 1998
*5 Ontario Henry of Pelham Cabernet-Merlot Unfiltered, 1998
*6 Bordeaux Chateau Branaire-Ducru, 1999
*7 Bordeaux Chateau de Camensac, 2000
*8 Ontario Konzelmann Cabernet-Merlot Reserve, 1998
*9 Ontario Inniskillin "Klose Vineyard" Cabernet Sauvignon, 1995
*10 Ontario Reif "First Growth" Cabernet, 2001
*11 Bordeaux Château Lynch-Moussas, 1996
*12 Bordeaux Chateau Haut-Bages Liberal, 1995
*13 Ontario Hernder Cabernet Sauvignon Unfiltered (500 ml) 1999
*14 Ontario Chateau des Charms Cabernet-Merlot, 1999
*15 Ontario “Little Fat Wino” 2003 Landot Noir, 2000 Cabernet Sauvignon (amateur)
*16 Ontario Cilento Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve 1999

The results for the Canadian wines appear, on the surface, to be impressive, especially given the fact that most of the wineries from which they came had been making wine for fewer than twenty years. Their competitors all came from Bordeaux châteaux that had acquired prestige high enough by 1855 to have been included as Fourth and Fifth Growth wines in the Bordeaux Wine Official Classification of 1855. However, it has been argued that as Bordeaux wines often don’t achieve their full potential for many years (those tasted here ranged from 5-10 years old) the comparison is not a fair one and that a re-tasting should be conducted in 2015.

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