Education/training
Premier Award winner Jordan Harris raises the bar for Ontario's wine industryWinemaker has a very good yearWinemaker Jordan Harris has created international award-winning Canadian wines, ranked high at prominent sommelier events and been lauded by a leading industry publication -- and he's only 28. SHARON ASCHAIEK -- Special to Sun Media |
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Jordan Harris will be presented with his Premier's Award at a ceremony at the Westin Harbour Castle on Feb.23.
Now, the Niagara College graduate can add a 2008 Premier's Award to his growing list of accolades.
"I was shocked and excited. It's a great compliment," says Harris, currently director of winemaking, viticulture, and operations at Tarara Winery in Leesburg, Virginia.
It was a childhood move during his teenage years to the Niagara Peninsula, Canada's largest and fastest-growing wine region, that first ignited Harris' interest in the beverage. But it was his college training that provided him with the tools and direction to really develop his passion.
Georgian College's Culinary Arts program was Harris' formal introduction to the field. He left the program after a year to pursue a management position at a friend's fine dining restaurant and gain some first-hand industry experience.
A year later, however, he decided his core interest lay in actual winemaking, so he applied and was accepted into Niagara College's renowned Winery and Viticulture Technician Program.
Developed in consultation with the wine industry, the college's award-winning program teaches students the day-to-day responsibilities and inner workings of a winery, from planting grapes to selling wine.
Taking place at the college's Niagara-on-the-Lake campus, the two-year program features courses on
subjects such as vineyard management, wine business and marketing, the biology of grape growing, the chemistry of wine, and horticulture mathematics.
Students have access to the country's only commercial teaching
winery, allowing them ample opportunities to engage in actual wine-making.
"WORLDLY KNOWLEDGE"
Graduates are prepared to work in roles such as winemaker, sommelier, wine sales and marketing, and cellar technician.
"It gave me a worldly knowledge of wine, and taught me how to make money in the industry -- essentially, everything that I've learned to get me this far, I learned from that program," Harris says.
Learning from instructors with extensive experience in the field, Harris says, made the curriculum more interesting and accessible.
"They have some great mentors there -- everyone, from teachers to administrators, works in the industry and understands what's going on," he says.
Harris' exceptional competence in the field first became apparent during his fourth semester, when he participated in a national student sommelier competition and placed first. He followed up that accomplishment with a third-place win at the prestigious Cotes du Rhone International Sommelier Challenge in France.
After graduating with high honours, Harris was hired as an assistant winemaker by the college's teaching winery, and helped create several critically acclaimed wines, including a chardonnay that took top prize at a Canadian Wine Awards, and several national and international award-winning pinot noir and Bordeaux varieties.
Since June 2007, Harris has been applying his expertise to his role at Tarara, which is located on 475 acres of farmland on the Potomac River and makes premium wines, with an emphasis on Bordeaux, Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon.
Recently, Harris' accomplishments netted him another distinction: recognition by the Ontario Hostelry Institute as a "Top 30 Under 30" professional throughout Canada's food and beverage industry.
For Harris, who'll accept his Premier's Award at a ceremony at the Westin Harbour Castle in Toronto on Feb. 23, 2009, the best part of the job continues to be plumbing the depths of what he calls a very complicated drink.
"There's so much history to wine, and every region and grape has something else to offer. It's a very complex beverage," he says. "My goal is to let the fruit speak
for itself."
sharon@summitmediagroup.com
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