NIAGARA COLLEGE
Excitement bubbles up over Niagara College Teaching Winery's latest Sparkling

After more than four years in the making, the Niagara College Teaching Winery has released its first ever Blanc de Blanc Sparkling - and it's proving to be worth the wait.

The 2014 vintage, labelled as Balance Blanc de Blanc Brut, marks the Teaching Winery's first venture into the style of Sparkling made exclusively from Chardonnay grapes. It also marks the first product made 100 per cent from grapes grown on the College's Niagara-on-the-Lake Campus vineyards.

Students from the College's Winery and Viticulture Technician program were involved every step of the way - from hand-tending to rows of Chardonnay grapes all the way to harvest, to picking and pressing, to bottling.

The result: a delicious, high-end Sparkling with a fresh citrus and mineral character.

Steve Gill, general manager of NC's learning enterprises, believes the Blanc de Blanc Brut is among the finest wines the Teaching Winery has produced.

"Niagara is a great Sparkling region, and Sparkling wine in Ontario is world class," said Gill. "To showcase what our students are learning and to showcase world class wine at Niagara College's Teaching Winery makes us all proud."

NC winemaker and instructor Gavin Robertson - who is also a graduate of the College's Winery and Viticulture Technician program (2011) - noted that 2014 was a good year for Sparkling at the College. Rows in the campus vineyard were allocated specifically for Sparkling. Made from high quality, bunch sorted Chardonnay grapes, it was fermented in stainless steel tanks and neutral oak barrels. The bottle-fermented Sparkling spent more than three years aging - 36 months on yeast lees - far exceeding the VQA standard.

Sparkling was introduced to the College's wine programs in 2012, when there was an uptick in Niagara's Sparkling wine production. While there were only a few Sparkling producers in Niagara then, Robertson noted that there are now far more producers in the region.

"The industry needs winemakers trained in the concepts and nuances of Sparkling - and Sparkling, in particular needs to be taught. There are a lot of steps, it involves a lot of equipment, and it's very a challenging and labour-intensive process," he said. "Here at Niagara College, we're making any style of wine that you can buy in Niagara - from table wines to Icewine to Sparkling - to support what the industry needs."

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