Robert Broome knows never to quit.
It wasn’t until his fifth year entering wine competitions that he finally took home gold.
After sipping through nearly 5,000 entries for 965 hours, the judges declared his Specialty Select Cream Sherry one of approximately 200 gold medal winners in the Winemaker International Amateur Competition for 2012.
At last year’s competition, which receives entries from seven countries, he took home a silver and a bronze for two of his many recipes produced on the premises of his Wine N Suds Lazelle Ave. business in downtown Terrace. The year before that, he won one bronze.
“The reason I enter competitions is not to win medals,” Broome said. “It’s to get the judges’ comments.”
Every time he receives feedback, he works to improve his product.
“There’s nothing unique about it,” he said of his now perfected award-winning cream sherry. “That’s the key. It has to follow a certain profile.”
Broome hasn’t always been in the winemaking business. Years ago, truck driving was his means to brew beer and wine as a hobby.
“I was injured doing the high-paying job, so I had to find something else.”
His second career is thriving.
“Economic times haven’t been good here, but if you put out a good product and service your customers, they’ll come back to you,” he said.
Broome said he doesn’t have a wine suggestion for newcomers, but he would instead find out about their tastes.
“Everybody’s got an individual flavour.”