The Great Semillon Mystery

MEDIA RELEASE

February 1, 2025

Last night at Ottawa’s Roger’s Centre, 300 guests at the Canadian Culinary Championship (CCC) went two hours sipping on a mysterious white wine, as they sampled chef creations at the Mystery Wine Competition. The chefs were also in the dark about the mystery wine’s identity, even though they had spent 24 hours designing and preparing a dish to match.

This was the first of three competitions held in Ottawa to crown the Canadian Culinary Champion. The Mystery Wine was selected by CCC National Wine Advisor David Lawrason. “Over the years I have often selected a lighter red like pinot noir or gamay to accommodate a variety of culinary interpretations by the competing chefs. This year I went to a boldly different white, that could conceivably pair with some richer dishes.”

At the end of the event Mr. Lawrason revealed the wine to be MW Cellars 2023 Semillon from a brand new Niagara-on-the-Lake winery. Semillon is a French variety important in Bordeaux for both sweet Sauternes and some of the great dry whites of Pessac-Leognan. The vines that produced this wine were planted in the nineties by John Neufeld. MW winemaker Marty Werner donated over 150 bottles of the $25 wine to this fundraising event.

After his wine was revealed, Mr. Werner told the crowd "When I set out to make eclectic wines I never thought I would have this many people pondering it's varietal. It's a real honour to have it selected and have 300 people thinking about this small batch wine".

The Culinary judges measured the success of the pairings with the Mystery Wine as Stage One of the CCC, but will not reveal the winner until the Grand Finale Saturday night. The guests in attendance however voted for the “People’s Choice Award”, their selection of the evening’s best dish. Taking home the prize was Ottawa's Lizardo Becerra of Raphael Peruvian Cuisine with his dish, beet cured HoKaido scallop crudo with citrus Grana Padano foam, spiced cucumber / charred basil nuts/ lemongrass plantain.

With competition #1 now under their belts, the Chefs head to La Cité Collégiale this morning for the “Black Box” challenge where they have one hour to identify seven ingredients and prepare two dishes for the judging panel. From there, they will journey to the Rogers Centre in order to start preparing their signature dish for the Canadian Culinary Championship Grand Finale, which starts at 6pm tomorrow, February 1st.

ABOUT CANADIAN CULINARY CHAMPIONSHIP (CCC) | The Canadian Culinary Championship is an annual national event in Ottawa. The winning chefs from ten different regional qualifiers (called Canada's Great Kitchen Party) are flown in to compete in three challenging and entertaining competitions: Mystery Wine, Black Box, and the Finale. To be invited to compete locally is a notch in the belt. To win regional gold and be on the podium is a significant achievement. To be eligible to compete against each regional gold winner at the national competition the following year is a thrill. To be crowned the top chef in Canada at the Canadian Culinary Championship is a career changer! 

Media Contact:

Whitney Zelmer

Ottawa Media Contact

Canadian Culinary Championship

613-878-7344

whitney@kowconnected.ca