Field Stone brings home more hardware

Times Reporter     

 

Field Stone Fruit Wines has once again brought home the hardware with their delectable wines. This year nine medals have made their way into the collection, making it the best showing for the nine-year-old winery.

On May 29 the results came in from the North West Wine Summit. Field Stone was given the bronze medal for the Saskatoon dessert wine, and silver for the bumble berry fruit wine, raspberry fruit wine, strawberry dessert wine and the wild black cherry dessert wine. 

They also took home two gold medals for the strawberry-rhubarb and the raspberry dessert wine.  

“We’re thrilled. This is the first time we have won more than two golds in a single year. It’s been quite the journey,” said Elaine Gill, co-founder of Field Stone in a press release.

“It is very gratifying, it is an extremely tricky process to get the right combination between your fruit being different every year and having to balance these fruits together and come out with a wine that is that good three times in a year is very satisfying,” said Marvin Gill, who also co-founded Field Stone. 

The third gold medal was won at the All Canadian Wine Championships where the black cherry dessert wine took gold, and the strawberry dessert wine took bronze. 

This year Field Stone also received three more recognitions from the Summit, the Superlative Award for best of region for the strawberry-rhubarb wine, Winery of Distinction Award for being one of only 16 wineries to win two or more gold medals, and the Crystal Rose Award for best non-grape wine in the competition, again for the strawberry-rhubarb wine. 

Marvin has been contemplating the cause of the success for the winery this year.  He thinks it may be because he sang to the wine as he was making it. He is an opera singer with 30 years of training and while he was working on the wine he was thinking about frequencies.

“I was just thinking about how everything has a frequency, the wine has a frequency, the singing has a frequency, and I was thinking well why don’t I try to infuse my voice into the wine by singing and letting the frequency run into the wine, and so that’s what I did,” said Marvin. 

Other than that, everything else in the wine production this year was basically the same as it has been in the past. 

In 2012 a hailstorm destroyed many of the crops, but that didn’t deter the Gills who still kept making top quality fruit wine to the best of their ability. The plants are coming back, and things are looking better now, almost back to normal. 

In the past nine years Field Stone has come home with close to 50 medals, and they have always entered the same two wine competitions. This year they also entered the Alberta Food Awards and took top place in the best value added product using fruit also for the strawberry-rhubarb wine. 

On Field Stone’s Facebook page there are recipes for cocktails, sangrias and even sauces using the wines. 

“I think people over the summer are looking for something a little bit more light for their parties and time on the patio, they don’t always want to be drinking a heavy drink,” said Marvin. 

“Sangrias are a good alternative to that, they can be sparkling, more juicy, more fruity, however you want to make them, They can be a nice alternative to drinking a cooler or a beer or something like that.”

Field Stone wines can be purchased at Co-op and Crowfoot liquor stores, and at the winery.