Scotch Block Country Winery

Halton's Scotch Block Country Winery has captured seven top awards at the second annual Canadian National Fruit Wines Competition.

The competition was sanctioned by the newly formed Fruit Wines of Canada Association, established to recognize excellence in Canadian fruit wines.

The Milton-based winery took a gold medal for its Cassis; a sweet dessert wine made from black currants grown at Andrews Scenic Acres farm, where the winery is located.

Silver medals were awarded for the winery's Gooseberry 2000, Regal Black Currant and Elderberry.

Third place bronze medals went to the winery's True Blue, Red Currant Cassis and Framboise. With only two years of full production under its belt, Scotch Block's seven medals were the most awarded to any Ontario winery in the competition.

"I was a bit overwhelmed at first," said Bert Andrews, who along with wife Laurine owns the winery and associated farm. "It's quite a thrill to see the winery grow from only a vision a couple of years ago into a position where we're readily competing against wineries that have been established for more than a decade".

"Without his knowledge and expertise we wouldn't have come so far so fast," said Andrews. For Moreau the awards are the effort of 25 years of making wine, first as a hobby and then a profession.

"When I first started making wine for a living, they (the winning wines) were naturally the ones I liked," said Moreau. "It is the customers who tell me what they want and those are the ones that won the awards."

Moreau said every winemaker knows that great wine begins in the fields and credited Andrews and his employees who grow the fruit for giving him the basis of the winning wines.

"We're all convinced that value-added products and services are the cornerstone of growth for business into the new millennium," said Andrews. "Right now we're looking forward to the new asparagus and rhubarb crop and the Farm Market opening the first weekend in May."

The National Fruit Wine Competition is a showcase of the very best of Canadian fruit wines. In all, 28 wineries from seven provinces entered 160 fruit wines into the competition. Judging was conducted by an expert panel from the Wine Writers' Circle and the Wine Judges Commission of Ontario.

Halton vintner takes 7 awards for fruit wines