Aurora Cellars Takes Home 3 Jefferson Cups

In this week’s Brewvine, Whitney Amann and photojournalist Jeremy Erickson take you to Lake Leelanau for a sip of Aurora Cellars award-winning wines.

Aurora Cellars took home top honors in the White Vinifera Wine category at last November’s “Jefferson Cup Invitational Wine Competition,” winning three Jefferson Cups.

“It was a bit of a shock, too, to win three awards,” said winemaker Drew Perry. “I wasn’t even aware we were in the competition this year because it had been postponed a year and then all of a sudden somebody just sent me a text and said, hey, look at your text and I saw that we had won three, which it took a little digging, as it turns out, nobody has won three, at least in the last 20 plus years.”

The winery won a couple Jefferson Cups back in 2019 for their sparkling brut rosé and their blaufrankisch.

The big winners this time was their dry Riesling.

For Aurora Cellars, each trophy is a testament to their teamwork and a tribute to their passion for winemaking.

“The reason we do well when we do well, it’s not really because of the notoriety, it’s because of our work across the team, it’s our work in the vineyard, it’s that in the winery itself, we’re working with all the vineyard guys, we’re out there in the vineyard trying to dial things in so that we can get the best fruit possible,” said Perry. “So it’s a team effort and we try not to let all that stuff go to our head.”