Why we are Honoured to Receive the Honours

Some of the nation’s most noted wine scholars are preparing (with regret no doubt) to depart Penticton British Columbia.  For two weeks, the spectacular Okanagan lakeside city was Canada’s symbolic wine capital, being host to the National Wine Awards of Canada.

The 2025 awards, the event’s 25^th Anniversary edition, drew, in round numbers, seventeen hundred wine entries from 250 wineries “a mari usque ad mare”.

We were among them; Malivoire has history as an enthusiastic participant.  As Team Principal Shiraz Mottiar reflects, “At the beginning, our company had antipathy toward wine shows.  We felt their structural sterility gave the advantage to “showy” wines, failing to consider the social contexts that make certain wines stand out.  However, the National Wine Awards were among a select few that gained our confidence.  The judges seemed more astute.  They seemed to appreciate that wine can be a product of art, as much as business, and were willing to judge a wine individually, according to what they identified as its intuitive intentions”.

This year, Malivoire Wine achieved fourteen awards; these include:

2023 Small Lot Chardonnay - Chardonnay Category 2023 Wismer-Foxcroft Gamay - Gamay Category 2023 Moira Pinot Noir - Pinot Noir Category NV Bisous Rosé - Sparkling Wine Category

2024 Gewürztraminer 2024 Pinot Gris 2024 Rosé Moira 2023 Demo Series Analog 2024 Stouck Merlot

Bisous Brut NV 2023 Stouck Merlot 2022 Cabernet Franc 2024 Vivant Rosé 2023 Small Lot Pinot Noir

The judges offered us two closing compliments, including Malivoire on their lists of the Top Ten Ontario and Top Twenty-Five Canadian Wineries.

This brings to more than seventy the number of National Wine Awards medals presented to Malivoire over the past five years.  Among these are fifteen Gold and four rare Platinum Medals, and the coveted 2021 banner for Canada’s Winery of the Year.

Still, it’s fitting to point out that Malivoire’s founding sentiment remains true: the ultimate expert on the virtue of a wine, and its reward to whoever tastes it, is the person in the moment tasting it.