Rocky Creek Winery wins Excellence in Winemaking


 

 Rocky Creek Winery, one of the smallest wineries in BC continues its tradition of hitting above its weight class in international competitions.  President Linda Holford says “It’s so important to us because we are trying to establish our region as a world player”.  In the short time since they started in 2005, they have been going toe to toe against the best wineries in the world, Rocky Creek Winery has brought home their best year so far in medals, 13 for just this year, including many notable firsts:

First gold medal for their Wild Blackberry 2012 after winning fifteen medals in previous competitions.  Already their most award winning wine and consistently the best in its class.  It was recognized as being truly exceptional by the judges at the Northwest Wine Summit in Oregon. “This is our island speciality, something our region has that you won’t find elsewhere, after eight years of passion to make it the best it’s great to see it recognized as truly exceptional” say Mark Holford, winemaker at Rocky Creek.

Rocky Creek breaks ground by having the first silver medal for the first-ever Island grown Tempranillo and a bronze medal for an experimental variety both at International competitions.   “We made choices to be true to the region and develop the best wines for each harvest year”.  We are innovative with the new grape varietal called “Cab-Foch” to enhance and grow some new reds, which a few other wineries are also trying on the island.  The Tempranillo is also a passion for the winemaker personally to have one of his favourite grapes made into wine and to strive to try and grow it here.  This wine has now been recognized as an outstanding example of its class.  Jose’s Tempranillo is expected to be released in the fall.

Rocky Creek is a heritage winery, a true family operated business and farm, with only island grown grapes from our region.  We would love to develop this region as another wine destination in Canada, which takes time and entering in competitions helps us along the way.  We want to be recognized for our sustainability, innovation, high quality, and world-class wines.
Vancouver Island is a cool climate region, which provides challenges in some of the cooler vintages. Cool climate regions that are similar to the Cowichan are Northern France, Alsace and Germany.  We are demonstrating that wines can still be award winning and sustainable even in these challenging years.

We use new varietals such as Cab-Foch which we blend into our easy drinking “On The Mark” which won medals at both the Northwest Wine Summit and Finger Lakes International Wine Competition for the 2011 vintage which was an exceptionally cool year.   We also produce traditional method sparkling wines that are outstanding and also won international awards.

We love this area we live in and also believe Vancouver Island can stand out as a premiere wine region. That’s why these awards are important to us.

Linda and Mark Holford are available for interviews.
Rocky Creek Winery on Facebook
Rocky Creek Winery on Twitter

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