{"id":13436,"date":"2011-11-11T13:58:37","date_gmt":"2011-11-11T18:58:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/?p=13436"},"modified":"2015-09-25T13:33:19","modified_gmt":"2015-09-25T17:33:19","slug":"brock-grad-takes-top-wine-honours-for-second-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/2011\/11\/brock-grad-takes-top-wine-honours-for-second-year\/","title":{"rendered":"Brock grad takes top wine honours for second year"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_13437\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-13437\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13437\" title=\"Derek Kontkanen\" src=\"http:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/derekkontkanen-300x168.jpg\" alt=\"Derek Kontkanen\" width=\"300\" height=\"168\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-13437\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Derek Kontkanen<\/p><\/div>\n<p>An alumnus from Brock\u2019s Oenology and Viticulture program has struck winemaking gold \u2013 again.<\/p>\n<p>Derek Kontkanen, who finished a masters degree through Brock\u2019s <a href=\"http:\/\/brocku.ca\/ccovi\" target=\"_blank\">Cool Climate Oenology and Viticulture Institute<\/a> (CCOVI) in 2005, is taking home the best dessert wine trophy from the International Wine and Spirits Competition in London, England next week. He is white winemaker at Jackson-Triggs Okanagan Estate in British Columbia.<\/p>\n<p>It is the second year in a row that Kontkanen\u2019s icewine has won the award.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt shows that we make world class wines in Canada,\u201d he said. \u201cIcewine is one of Canada\u2019s known wine products. It\u2019s something we know we can do very well.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Kontkanen attended Brock as an undergraduate student in the Oenology and Viticulture program from 1997 to 2002. As a graduate student from 2002 to 2005, his supervisor was Debbie Inglis, director of CCOVI and an Ontario grape and wine ambassador when she was named <a href=\"http:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/?p=5017\">the province\u2019s 2010 Grape King<\/a>. (The 2011 Grape King, Ed Hughes, is also a CCOVI grad.)<\/p>\n<p>Kontkanen displayed \u201cgreat work ethic and remarkable problem-solving skills\u201d as a Brock student, Inglis said. His success is an example of how Canadian research makes our country competitive on a global stage.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs a graduate student, Derek developed a method to improve Icewine quality through controlling yeast metabolism during fermentation,\u201d she said. \u201cHe now applies this technology as a commercial winemaker, and has won best dessert wine for his Riesling Icewine two years in a row.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Kontkanen credits his Brock education for giving him a solid foundation when it came to learning key chemical reactions in wine processes. It allowed him to branch out into what he calls \u201cthe science and art\u201d of winemaking.<\/p>\n<p>Winning two awards in a row was \u201cquite a nice surprise,\u201d said Kontkanen. \u201cJust winning one was nice. But winning two is a lot nicer.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Derek Kontkanen has struck winemaking gold \u2013 again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13437,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[119,1],"tags":[3333,61],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13436"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13436"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13436\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13591,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13436\/revisions\/13591"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13437"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}