Aurora Cellars came out on top at the San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition. Our 2020 Grüner Veltliner was awarded ‘Best in Class’ and our Brut Rosé received a gold medal during the prestigious competition.
For the past 22 years, the competition has brought winemakers from the U.S., Canada and Mexico to showcase their wine on a larger level. It has been one of the world’s most highly publicized and well-respected wine competitions.
This year, Aurora Cellars was one of 14 Traverse City area wineries to bring home some new hardware. In total, Aurora Cellars was awarded seven awards – including one Best in Class, one gold and five silver medals.
The Grüner Veltliner is a variety that tends to develop slowly and relies on delicate extraction of character from the skins to give unique texture and aroma – which benefited greatly from the season’s peak temperature extremes. To get the Grüner Veltliner where we wanted it, we diligently managed the fruit in the vineyard, managed the canopy more like a red wine by keeping the crop low and opened up the canopy to expose the fruit to more sunlight and airflow.
Upon processing the fruit, we pulled more character out knowing that we wanted to highlight some of the quirky green aromatics the variety can have. During its life in the winery, the wine was subtle but something unique was always lying underneath. By driving this wine in a new-world cool climate style, we were able to accentuate more of its hidden aromatics such as the gooseberry and prickly pear. The strong grapefruit flavors allow this wine to work with but not overwhelm an intricate food pairing.
Drew Perry, the winemaker for both Aurora Cellars and Good Harbor Vineyards explains “this is the perfect example of how winemaking is not a process that can produce the exact same wine every time.” He continues to explain “it’s about understanding what you have and how to make subtle adjustments all along the way to hopefully arrive where you want it a few months down the road in the bottle. Sometimes things just work out how you wanted them to.”
Another award winner was the Brut Rosé. This wine is one of the most highly awarded wines in the Aurora Cellars portfolio. By using the Charmat method to produce Brut Rosé, we are able to highlight the fresher and fruity aromatics. The pink hue gives the consumer the mental picture to sense aromas that might not be picked up otherwise.
“For me personally, I look at the effect it can have on all of us creating these wines. We are constantly so focused on the next wine, that we rarely take a moment to relish past success. This helps to emphasize to everyone in the vineyard and cellar that their hard work is being noticed and appreciated,” says Perry. “Recognition reinforces the foundation of all of our practices and serves as a reminder that we can simply stay true to creating wines that we believe in rather than change our philosophy to chase validation.”
The Traverse Wine Coast more than doubled their awards from last year and nearly tripled the wineries that were recognized for their quality with 82 awards and 14 wineries taking away medals.
Come try these award-winning wines for yourself! Our tasting room is open Thursday-Monday from 12 p.m. to 5 p.m.
