Baco Noir is a bit of an oddball. Although it's a deep red grape that produces an extremely dark red wine, the wine has forward-fruity flavours, bright acidity and low tannins. Due to the intensity of the colour, people think that it will be a highly structured wine like a California Cabernet but it isn't. It's more like a California Zinfandel. Baco Noir is quite compatible with tomato-based dishes, especially barbecued foods, but is not a great match with steak or other large cuts of meat. The flavours are frequently described as wild berry, bramble berry, smokey and meaty. In structure, Baco Noir is similar to many of the everyday Italian wines.

Originally, Baco Noir was created by the French grape hybridizer Maurice Baco. (Some literature also lists him as Francoise Baco.) Baco Noir was created by crossing a European vitis vinifera with a North American grape from the vitis riparia family. When the European Union passed regulations outlawing all hybrids, the Baco Noir was pulled out. Eventually the grape was brought over to North America where it found a home in cooler areas, especially the northern US and southern Ontario.

In the early 1980’s, Baco almost disappeared from Ontario when the government paid grape growers to pull out North American grapes like Concords, Delaware, Niagara and also the cold hardy hybrids so they could replant with vitis vinifera, or European grapes. A few hybrids survived: Vidal Blanc, Marechal Foch and Baco Noir. Vidal is currently used to produce many unremarkable tables wines and some great icewines while a few wineries are producing some really good Marechal Foch. Baco Noir is, fortunately, still used by eight or nine wineries to produce really interesting wines.

Baco is not considered to be a first class grape. In Ontario, it is a Tier 2 grape which means that it can only be labelled VQA Ontario. No other appellation or sub-appellation can be used.

Konzelmann Estate Winery 2008 Baco Noir - $11
As usual, this is an intensely dark red wine with notes of blackberry, rhubarb, black cherry, and some earthiness in the nose. Due to the low level of tannins and fairly low acidity, this wine is very smooth and soft in the mouth. The medium long finish has notes of sour cherry and cranberry. Konzelmann produces two slightly different Baco Noirs; one is dry, a (0) in the Ontario Sugar Code system while the other is a (2). I found the acidity a little more pronounced in the sweeter wine and the nose had some aromas that reminded me of cherry cola.

Peller Estates Private Reserve 2009 Baco Noir VQA Ontario - $16.95
The nose here is filled with red fruit, smoke, allspice and grilled sausage. In the mouth, the bright acidity highlights the cranberry and tart cherry flavours all the way through the medium long finish. There is also some vanilla in the background from the nine months that this wine spends in the American oak barrels.

Riverview Cellars Winery 2008 Baco Noir VQA Ontario - $15.95
This wine won a Bronze Medal at this year's Finger Lakes International Wine Competition. Three quarters of this wine was fermented and aged in stainless steel to preserve the fresh fruit aromas and flavours while one quarter was aged in American oak to smooth out the acidity and add some oak, vanilla and spicy flavours and aromas. The nose has red fruit, vanilla, a hint of oak and cocoa powder, while the moderate plus acidity carries through to the black cherry, spice and currant finish.

Caroline Cellars 2008 Baco Noir VQA Ontario $10.70
When I asked to taste this wine, I was told that it was "quite acidic and a little bit tart", and it is. It also has a huge smoky, meaty nose with aromas of black cherries, currants and dark plums. The long finish shows a combination of cherry, rhubarb and smoke. I bought a bottle to take home as, by this time, I was craving pizza.

Niagara College Teaching Winery 2006 Baco Noir VQA Ontario - $11.95
This is the oldest of the Baco Noirs that I tried, which shows that Baco has some capacity for ageing. Usually, it is the tannins that preserves the wine during the ageing process but in Baco's case, it is the acidity. However, I wouldn't age Baco more than five or six years. There was a slight whiff of nail polish on the nose of this wine in addition to the earth, black cherry and vanilla, and this wine was very soft in the mouth with a medium length black cherry finish.

Henry of Pelham 2008 Baco Noir VQA Ontario - $13.95
This is the general list Baco Noir for Henry of Pelham who have been working with these grapes longer than almost everyone else; the fruit was produced by vines that are about 16 years old. This wine was fermented in stainless steel and then aged in oak for six to eight months. The nose of red and black cherries, red fruit and oak is followed by similar flavours and are brightened by the brisk acidity.

Henry of Pelham 2007 Baco Noir Reserve VQA Ontario - $24.95
This is the gold standard for Baco Noir in Ontario. The Reserve Baco is made from grapes from vines from the original 1984 planting at Henry of Pelham. This is a serious, well crafted wine that shows what can be done with this grape. The intense nose of chocolate, cherry, plums and vanilla benefited from the fact that the bottle had been open for several hours to let the wine breathe. The wine was silky smooth in the mouth due to the low level of tannin and the moderate acidity. There was some herbaceousness on the finish, a little cedar and dark fruit.

Do try Baco noir. Although it is not to everyone's liking, the winemakers are producing distinct and interesting wines from this under-rated grape. And what about the pizza and Baco Noir dinner? I dropped the Baco Noir on my concrete driveway and had to settle for the Caroline Cellars Zweigelt.

A couple of posts ago, I talked about A Day Trip to Beamsville. This post picks up where that one left off.

If you are coming along the Queen Elizabeth Way, get off at exit 64 and head south, or away from the lake, along Ontario Street, towards downtown Beamsville. Turn left at the “T” intersection onto King Street and your wine tasting trip begins. (Did you remember to select a Designated Driver?  If not, now is the time. Remember to buy them dinner and possibly a bottle of wine or two.) You should also look for the Official Ontario Wine route map which is available at most wineries or you can print a copy from the Wines of Ontario web site.

There are around 20 wineries in this area. Many are on King Street, or as the locals call it, Highway 8. The rest are a short drive off King. The four wineries mentioned below are typical of the area, with two of them being older while the other two are relatively new. Remember to try some of the other wineries as well, as each one is distinct and interesting and they all produce a variety of wines to appeal to different tastes. Also, as you are diving along King Street, there are a number of fruit and vegetable stands including the one at Hipple Farms which was established in 1800,  according to the sign. Buy some local produce to go with your local wines.

Malivoire Wine Company
4260 King Street, Beamsville

As you turn in from King Street, it will be apparent that Malivoire is not a traditional winery. The winery itself looks like a stack of Quonset huts - although the huts aren’t really stacked, they go up a hill. Part of the thinking behind the design is that the grapes can be brought into the building at the top of the hill and gravity is then used to move the grape must and wine through the winery. The wine doesn’t have to be mechanically pumped, which is gentler on the product and reduces the need for filtration.

The entry door for the tasting room is at the bottom of the hill. Once inside, the building is very modern and as you taste at the bar, you can look up through the storage and fermentation tanks to the top level of the winery.

2009 Pinot Gris VQA Niagara Escarpment - $19.95
The nose of this wine shows melon, some yellow apple and almond skin aromas. The flavours are more citrusy then I thought they would be with lime, pink grapefruit and tangerine. The lime and tangerine notes last through the medium length finish. I’ve never been a fan of Pinot Gris but some of the Ontario cool climate ones I’ve had recently are winning me over.

2009 Guilty Men Sauvignon Blanc VQA Niagara Escarpment - $19.95 (To be released in August 2010)
This is Malivoire’s first Sauvignon Blanc and it has a fresh grassy nose, lime and white grapefruit flavours, bright acidity and noticeable minerality. Ask the tasting room staff about the name.

2008 Courtney Gamay Noir VQA Niagara Escarpment – 29.95
This Gamay is grown in the Courtney block of one of the vineyards which has mostly clay soils with good drainage. The floral nose has notes of cherry, red plum and white pepper. The sour cherry and plum flavours also show spice and chocolate with peppery raspberry finish. This is a fairly serious Gamay so it would be interesting to get a couple of bottles and open them over the next three or four years.

Megalomaniac Wines
3930 Cherry Avenue, Vineland

A little further along King Street is Cherry Avenue, home to several wineries - turn right and go up the hill to get to them. Megalomaniac is easy to miss as there are only a few small signs along the road saying that they are open for “Cellar Door Sales”. As you proceed along the very long driveway,  you will realize that there doesn’t seem to be a winery at all, although there is something at the top of the hill. Once you get to the top,  look for a cellar door built into the hill. The whole facility is underground and when you go inside, the tasting bar is actually in the cellar. As you taste, surrounded by the stainless steel tanks and barrels, you might see Sue-Ann Staff, their Winemaster, working on the wines, or one of the cellar workers busily washing out barrels at the other end of the space.

2006 Narcissist Riesling VQA Niagara Peninsula - $17.95
Check out the label while you are tasting this wine. There is a terrific nose of flowers, lime and tangerine with similar flavours, along with quite a bit of minerality that shows on the finish which also has some melon flavours.

2007 SonOfaBitch Pinot Noir VQA Niagara Peninsula - $24.95
The nose shows raspberry, beet root and some earthiness. The tart raspberry flavours are supported by background flavours of chocolate and spice and moderate tannins and acidity. This wine was recently bottled and is still a little tight in that the flavours are there but you have to let the wine breathe and open a little, either in the glass or in a decanter, before the flavours come forward. Cellaring this wine for 4 or 5 years before drinking it would pay off.

2007 Bigmouth Merlot VQA Niagara Peninsula - $24.95
This wine is very smooth in the mouth, like most really good Merlots. The soft cherry and red plum flavours are brightened by the moderate acidity and supported by the soft tannins. The favours fade to cherry and coffee on the medium long finish.

Stoney Ridge Estate Winery
3201 King Street, Vineland

Stoney Ridge is an older winery and was originally built as a split level house. Over the last few years, they have built extensive gardens between the house and the winery. After tasting some of the wines,  you should go downstairs to the cheese shop to sample and buy some cheese. You can also pick up a glass of wine and sit outside in one of the many sitting areas of the garden.

Excellence Pinot Gris VQA Niagara Lakeshore - $23.20
The Excellence wines are hand numbered small production wines. The bottle tasted was numbered 1118 of 1212. Stoney Ridge also bottles a Pinot Grigio so it is interesting to try the two together as Pinot Gris and Pinot Grigio are made with the same grape. The two names generally denote stylistic differences in the wines. The French style Pinot Gris tends to have more flavour and crispier acidity than the Pinot Grigio, which is made more in an Italian style. This particular Pinot Gris has notes of ripe peach and melon with some minerality and a pleasantly full mouth feel. The moderately low acidity makes this a very soft wine.

2009 Pinot Grigio VQA Niagara Peninsula - $17.20
This wine is lighter and has slightly crisper acidity that the previous wine. There are similar flavours of soft melon and peach with a medium length finish to the wine.

The Stoney Ridge 2008 Petit Verdot was reviewed in my earlier post on Unusual Grapes and Wines.

Cave Spring Cellars
3836 Main Street, Jordan

Cave Spring Cellars, founded in the early 80s, is one of the older wineries in the area. The winery itself is housed in a historic building that runs down the main street of the Village of Jordan.

For those people who haven’t been to Cave Spring in several years, the tasting room is now about half way down the building, and it has been enlarged and features a dolomite limestone wall made from escarpment limestone. The rest of the building houses a number of other businesses including the Inn on the Twenty and their acclaimed restaurant.

If this is your first trip to Cave Spring, you should try their Rieslings as Cave Spring have a great reputation for this style of wine. The sparkling Riesling Brut and the Riesling Dolomite are particularly good.

2008 Riesling Estate VQA Beamsville Bench - $17.95
This wine is made using grapes from a mixture of young and older vines from the Beamsville Bench area. The flavours of pear and apple are supported by the moderate acidity. There is some minerality on the medium-long lime dominated finish.

2008 Chardonnay Musque Estate VQA Beamsville Bench - $15.95
Chardonnay Musque is a very aromatic clone of Chardonnay. It is usually made in stainless steel tanks to preserve the floral and fruit aromas and flavours. This particular Chardonnay Musque was not as floral as some that I have had, which means that it will be appreciated by people who like regular Unoaked Chardonnays. The melon, apple and pear aromas and flavours are highlighted by the moderate plus acidity and the noticeable minerality. At 13.5% alcohol  this leaves a slight heat on the finish.

2006 La Penna Estate VQA Beamsville Bench - $34.95
Most of the grapes used to make La Penna have been partially dried in racks placed in the barn in the Cave Springs vineyard. The windows are left open to the breezes for the 8 to 9 week drying time. This removes the water from the grapes and concentrates the flavours and aromas of the wine. La Penna is made from Cabernet Franc (66%) and Cabernet Sauvignon (34%) and 85% of the grapes are dried. The fresh grapes and the dried grapes are crushed and fermented separately and then the resulting wines are blended. The wine has a very complex nose of black cherry, dark plum and burnt toast with intense flavours of coffee, black currant and cranberry. If you want to drink this wine now, it will need to be decanted for an hour or more. Otherwise, let it rest in your cellar for several years.

Downtown Jordan features a variety of small shops and small restaurants. Save some time to walk around the village and relax after your long day of tasting. There are a number of places to have dinner before you pop back onto the highway and head for home.

Led by sommelier Taylor Thompson, enthusiastic wine students filled the lovely back patio at cafe Taste to try a variety of Ontario wines that were either graceful or full-figured.

The cool and graceful whites included a Trius Brut from Hillebrand Estates Winery, a chardonnay from Flatrock Cellars and a barrel fermented chardonnay from Henry of Pelham. Thompson explained the different processes used for the two chardonnays, explaining how the barrel fermentation created an oaky flavour with notes of honey and a creaminess in the second wine compared to the minerality and buttery flavour of the first.

Reds can be graceful too, though, and a pair of Pinot Noirs from Cave Spring Cellars and Lailey Vineyard Winery were the next to be sampled. The Cave Spring pinot noir was bright and full of strawberry notes, very light in colour whereas the Lailey pinot was darker, with a nose of over-ripe fruit, and an earthy acidity. But on Mad Men, graceful Betty is known for her cold demeanour and to my palate, pinot noir tends to leave me a bit cold as well.

Maybe it's because I am a "full-figured red", but my preference is for heartier red wines with more intriguing flavours than fresh berries, and the second set of wines to sample - 5 reds that increased in intensity - were much more up my alley. These were paired with an assortment of artisanal bread (Cafe Taste makes all their bread in-house and it's awesome!) with a plate of Canadian cheeses to pair with each wine.

We started with the 2007 Laura Red from Creekside Estate Winery. Thompson pointed out the nice legs, opaque colour and low acidity. This wine won Gold at the 2009 Royal Agricultural Winter Fair for wines under $20... after which the winery raised the price to $22. It's still a nice wine, regardless of the price, and Thompson advised that it would age well.

The 2007 Mountainview Merlot from Angel's Gate Estate Winery came across almost medicinal with softer tannins, but it was overshadowed by the 2006 Merlot Reserve from Reif Estate Winery. This wine offered up a typical merlot juiciness with lots of ripe red cherries but also notes of anise and leather. This was our choice for best overall sipping wine.

Moving through our samples, we were all startled by how much we liked wine #9, a 2007 Estate Series Cabernet Merlot from Wayne Gretzky Estates Winery. Celebrity wines, like critter wines, have a reputation as being less than stellar, but this wine was also awarded a gold medal at the Royal, and it is well-deserved. Full of the leather and tobacco notes that I love, this was our pick to pair with a big juicy steak, although it would go wonderfully with chocolate as well. It definitely won our Joan award for "favourite full-figured red".

The final wine was a Peninsula Ridge Estates Winery 2002 Reserve Cab Franc. Thompson described it as "well balanced and integrated". This was too tannic for me, giving me awful "sweater mouth", but the ageing was definitely respectable.

For years, Ontario had a reputation for not producing very good "full-figured" reds, but the one good thing to come out of global warming seems to be the warmer summers that have produced banner years for Ontario wines (most of what we tried were from 2007 and 2008, both warmer, humid summers). These reds can stand up tall against product from other regions. And fans of these big robust wines can happily buy local and still be satisfied.

This was the final class in the iYellow Wine School spring/summer session, but they will return with new tasting classes in the autumn.

As I travel around wine areas trying wines, I sometimes want something different, something that is not the standard Chardonnay, Riesling, Cabernet Merlot blend or Pinot Noir. Fortunately, wine makers frequently want to do something a little different, whether it's something that reminds them of their homeland or something they have tried at another winery. While driving around the Niagara region west of St. Catharines this past month, I’ve found some wines that are a different.

Nebbiolo

This grape originates in the Piedmont region of Italy where it is used to produce a wine called Barolo which tends to be a big, tannic, alcoholic and sometimes slightly bitter wine. It is also used to produce Barbaresco. The name Nebbiolo had two possible origins. Some sources say that it is derived from the Italian word “nebbia” which means fog - the Barolo region is said to have considerable fog in the mornings - or the name could also refer to the prominent grey bloom on the grape. Other sources claim that the name is derived from “nobile” or noble. Whatever the origin of the name Nebbiolo, in Italy it is also known as Spanna, Picutener and Chiavennasca depending on the district.

Nebbiolo is a difficult grape to grow as it very sensitive to differences in soil and geography and yields wines that vary widely in body, aroma and flavour, tannins and acidity. In addition, it is a very late season ripener which makes it very difficult to grow in a cool climate like Ontario. When I asked Mauro Scarsellones at Ridgepoint Wines why he was growing it, he said it was because of the fog that was shrouding the property when he first saw it. Bernard Moos over at Alvento Winery said he was growing it because of it reminded him of the Piedmont. Although Ontario is further south than the Piedmont, it has colder winters. He felt that the Nebbiolo would respond well to a “normal” year in this region.

Ridgepoint Wines Nebbiolo 2006 VQA Twenty Mile Bench - $40

I’ve had both the 2001 and 2002 vintages of this wine and loved they way they developed over the years. Unfortunately, 2003, 2004 and 2005 were not kind to these grapes so Ridgepoint did not make the Nebbiolo again until 2006. It’s been recently released and it was worth the wait.

The nose of tar, violets and red fruit is quite interesting as is the pale orange red colour. Strawberry flavours dominate the other red fruit flavours which fade in the finish to a tart cranberry. As is usual with Nebbiolo, the tannins are quit firm so that the tannins and the moderate plus acidity will support this wine for several years of aging.

Alvento Winery Aria 2006 VQA Niagara Peninsula - $25.95

Tar, violets and mushroom notes abound in this wine which also has a hint of toasted oak. The cherry and strawberry  fruit flavours are a little muted as I think this wine needs to age a couple more years before it really comes into its own. The tannins, alcohol and acidity will support 5 to 8 years of aging.

Petit Verdot

Petit Verdot is one of the grapes from the Bordeaux region of France. It’s probably the least grown of the red grapes of Bordeaux, the others being Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Malbec and Carmenere. Petit Verdot was frequently added to the Bordeaux blend to add colour and tannins in years that were not good for the Cabernet Sauvignon. Very few places still grow Petit Verdot and even fewer bottle it separately.

Stoney Ridge Estate Winery 2008 Petit Verdot VQA Niagara Peninsula - $28

This wine is a very dark, almost blackish red in colour. The nose of spice, black cherry, chocolate and smoke leads to flavours of cherries, chocolate and red fruit with a long, slightly peppery finish. The fruit flavours, alcohol, tannins and acidity are well balanced and promise a wine with that will age for 5 years or more. It should develop into something rich and complex over the years.

Appassimento Style Wines

Amarone is a special wine made from the same grapes and in the same region as Valpollicella. The difference is that Amarone is made from grapes that have been dried on straw mats after harvest. This reduces the amount of water in the grape and therefore concentrates the flavours and also increases the sugars and therefore, the alcohol in the wine.

When Len Crispino, the owner of The Foreign Affair Winery tried Amarone, he fell in love with their flavours and texture so when he opened his own winery, this is what he wanted to produce. Not all of the wines are made in the same style as Amarone. Some of the wines are made with only some of the grapes being dried.

The Foreign Affair Winery 2007 Chardonnay VQA Niagara Peninsula - $27

Twenty per cent of the grapes used in this wine were dried and then pressed with the other grapes. The wine was aged in new French Oak which contributed buttery notes to the green apple, melon and lemon flavours. This wine is heavier in the mouth than regular table wines. The 14.1% alcohol is not obvious as this wine is so well balanced but there is a slight heat in the finish of the wine.

The Foreign Affair Winery 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon VQA Niagara Peninsula - $38

Only 10% of the grapes used in this Cabernet Sauvignon were dried. This makes the nose of earth, black currants and dark plums and the flavours of black cherry, currants and chocolate quite intense. The firm but smooth tannins and the 14.5% alcohol will let this wine age for 8 to 10 years.

If your budget won’t stretch to a week away this summer or you just want a great day out of the city, consider a day trip down to Niagara to do some wine tasting. There are a number of distinct wine areas with something to suit everyone’s taste. In addition, the wide variety of architectural styles in the wineries makes the day more interesting.

Before you start out, three points to remember. First, even if you spit out the wines instead of swallowing them, you will be affected by the alcohol. You need a designated driver for this day. Draw straws, pitch pennies, do "rock, paper, scissors" but someone has to drive and not taste. Second, most of the wineries have a modest fee for tasting. Usually this fee is waived if you purchase wine, but check first. Third, if you normally wear perfume and lipstick, skip the perfume and remove your lipstick. Your perfume can interfere with other peoples enjoyment of the wines and lipstick is difficult to wash off the tasting glasses. [Lipstick-wearing editor's note - or at least wipe your lipstick off the glass when you're done.]

The group of wineries closest to Toronto is in the Beamsville area. If you are on the Queen Elizabeth Way, get off at exit 68 and head away from the lake, towards the escarpment. Turn left at the first lights which is Main Street which turns into King Street. About a kilometre from the turn you will see Peninsula Ridge on the right. The old farmhouse perched on the knoll is the restaurant and the winery is just on the other side of the parking lot. The timbers and flooring used are reclaimed lumber and give the tasting room a comfortable feel. I especially liked their Reserve Syrah.

As you leave Peninsula Ridge, turn right as you leave the driveway and about a kilometre and half away, you will see Mountainview Road. Turn right again and head up the hill towards the cluster of wineries.The first winery you will find is Rosewood Estates Winery and Meadery. In addition to a selection of outstanding table wines, Rosewood also has a couple of meads, or honey wines, available along with a variety of honey and beeswax products.

Turn right as you exit the driveway and the first left will be 30 Bench Winemakers, producers of one of my favourite Rieslings. (See my previous post on the Ontario Wine Awards.) Try the three single vineyard Rieslings to see the difference that the terroir makes to the wines. If you like icewines, and even if you don’t, try their Riesling icewine. The last time I tried it, I described it as an incredibly intense version of their regular Riesling. It even seems to have a dry finish.

Head up the hill again after turning left when you exit the driveway. The next winery is Angel’s Gate which has a really open, airy feeling to the tasting room and also a great patio overlooking their vineyards and the vines of Rosewood and 30 Bench. This might be a place to stop for lunch. If you’re not hungry yet, you can eat at EastDell later on.  Once you leave Angel’s Gate, turn right and head up the hill again. You will see a turn for Hidden Bench winery but you can ignore it. We will get there later in the day.

On the left side of the road, you will see an old buggy with the sign for the Organized Crime winery. Check out their website for the origins of the name or ask at the tasting room. The tasting room is in the house so after you park, walk around back and look for the sign. I had the feeling that I was breaking into someone’s house. As Krystyna, the owner and tasting room host will tell you, the tasting room used to be her dining room, but you aren’t breaking in.

When you're done here, turn left as you leave the driveway and you will be heading towards Fielding Estates. You will have to turn left onto Locust Lane to get to Fielding. When you first turn into the driveway, you will see the newly planted Riesling vines in their protective milk cartons, and once you are in the winery tasting room, you have a view of the steel fermentation tanks on the inside and a great view across the vineyards and the lake looking towards Toronto on the outside.

Turn right on Locust Lane and the road will curve north and EastDell Estates will be on your right. They have a small tasting room and a large dining room where they serve lunch and dinner on the weekend. There are also walking trails on the property. Try the Port while you are there.

Turning right coming out of the driveway will take you down the hill but drive slowly so you don’t miss Hidden Bench.  If you come to a "T"  intersection, turn around and head back up Locust Lane. Hidden Bench will clearly visible on your right. They currently have to 2007 and 2008 Felseck Vineyards Riesling. Tasting them together shows the vintage variation between the really hot 2007 and the moderately cool 2008.

Once you leave Hidden bench, you are done for the day. Turn left out of the driveway and go down to McLeod Road.  Turn right and McLeod becomes Lincoln Avenue. Follow Lincoln back to King Street, turn right and shortly you will be in Beamsville. There are several restaurants that serve reasonably good food at reasonable prices where you can sit and talk about your day. Buy dinner for the designated driver!

I tried many good wines at these wineries.  These are a few of them:

Angel’s Gate 2006 Cabernet Franc VQA - $16.95
This wine is made from grapes from their Marcus, Crispino and St. John vineyards. The wine spent 12 months in oak after fermentation which gave the wine a nose of dark fruit, smoke and dark strawberry. The flavours of strawberry and dark cherry have a hint of vanilla in the background. The smooth tannins and moderate acidity will let this wine age for 3 or 4 years but it’s quite delicious now.

EastDell Tawny Port - $29.95
This port style wine is made from Cabernet Sauvignon and has a nose of cold coffee, orange and dried fruit mix. There are flavours of raisins, other dried fruit and orange rind with a medium length finish with hints of chocolate toffee.

Fielding Estates 2009 Viognier VQA Niagara Peninsula - $30.15
White peach, orange flowers and melon aromas lead to flavours of ripe melon, peach and a hint of hazelnut in the background.  This wine has moderate acidity and alcohol and a fullness in the mouth that is quite pleasing. The medium length finish is full of peach with tangerine highlights.

Hidden Bench 2007 Terroir Cache – Red Meritage - $45
This blend of Cabernet and Merlot has been aged in oak for 18 months and has aromas of wood, black currant, plum and coffee with a hint of herbaceousness. The forward flavours of black currant, blackberry, dark plums and cherries. The well integrated oak, balanced alcohol and acidity, and smooth tannins make a wine that you will be able to age for an extended period of time.

Organized Crime 2006 Gewürztraminer VQA Beamsville Bench - $22
The off dry white wine has a classic rose petal, lychee and melon nose. The low level of acidity and the soft, rich mouthfeel of the wine give a texture sometimes referred to as “oily”. The mango, rosewater and melon flavours lead to a melon and tangerine finish that is quite long.

Peninsula Ridge 2007 Syrah Reserve, VQA Niagara Peninsula - $24.95
The nose of black tea, white pepper and toasted oak is followed by forward flavours of cherry, red fruit and cranberry. The moderate acidity and firm tannins will help this wine age for 3 to 5 years. The medium long finish is highlighted by tart cranberry.

Rosewood Estates Winery 2007 Harvest Gold - $10 – 375 ml
If you didn’t know in advance, you would have trouble picking this wine as being made from honey. The nose has notes of white flowers and a hint of almonds. It’s medium dry with a light lemony finish.

Spending a lazy summer afternoon with a good book and a cold beer or glass of wine is something that many of us do from time to time, but it's not often that we give any thought to how well the beverage we choose will pair with the book we're reading. But just as a great story can evoke certain moods and emotions, so can a great beer or wine, so why not try to bring the two into harmony?

That was at least some of the reasoning behind a new initiative launched by the Ontario Media Development Corporation (OMDC) in which the shortlist of books up for this year's Trillium Book Awards were each matched with a different craft beer and wine - all made in Ontario, of course. The resulting pairings, as selected in partnership with the Wine Council of Ontario and the Ontario Craft Brewers, were revealed last week at an industry and media reception at the Thompson Hotel.

"This is the 23rd year for the Trillium Awards which celebrate the best Ontario-based authors and publishers," said Karen Thorne-Stone, president and CEO of the OMDC. "We’re always looking for new ways to build audience and awareness, and to engage other industries. We think we’re very lucky in Ontario that we’ve got so many strong industries both in the food and beverage area and in the cultural area. And for a lot of people, when they sit down to read a good book, they pour themselves a glass of wine or beer and sit down to enjoy it. So what better way to celebrate that than to invite the experts to do some interesting pairings for us."

On the beer side, that "expert" role was filled by world-renowned brewmaster Bill White (pictured above) who was on hand along with Christine Mulkins of the Ontario Craft Brewers to pour and ponder the selected beers. White  is especially well known for his skill in pairing beer and food, and switching over to bringing together books and beer was a new and unique challenge, but one he was happy to tackle.

"As a brewer I’m obviously passionate about beer," White explained, "and beer can create emotions when you drink it. So I tried to match the theme and the emotions carried in each book with the beers, usually in a complementary manner, but with a couple of contrasting ones as well. Deux cercles (by Ryad Assani-Razaki), for example, is a heavy book about immigration and difficult lifestyles, so I went with a lighter beer (Wellington Trailhead Lager) to represent an escape. In other pairings, the twists and layerings of the beers go with the nuances of the books. Or sometimes it was an historical attachment, like the retro tractor in the Beau's Lug Tread logo that takes you back to the Depression (as represented in the poems in Jacqueline Borowick's Le chant do coucou)."

Across the room at the wine table, Ed Madronich (below right) of the Wine Council of Ontario was joined by sommelier Zoltan Szabo (left) to fill glasses and discuss the various selected vintages. "There's an artistry in both writing and winemaking," said Madronich, "and in our everyday life, we enjoy those things together. Look at any book club, I guarantee you that they’re drinking wine, sharing the amazing skill of an author with the passion and skill of a winemaker at the same time. It’s just part of what we do when we enjoy the arts, but we’ve never really pursued it as organizations. Hopefully this project breaks down those silos."

Rather than having a single expert take care of all of the pairings, the Wine Council decided to pass each book to a different member winery and have them select a wine from their portfolio that they felt was the best match. Madronich noted that in the case of Flat Rock Cellars, his family's winery were he sits as president, "it wasn’t just 'this wine has these characteristics and it should go with this book'. The book that we had (Lemon by Cordelia Strube) was about someone who was a bit of an outcast in society, who was very unique and wasn’t doing all the things that her friends were doing. And that’s really what our wine Twisted was all about. It's a blend of three varieties that were never really blended before, and when we created it, everybody said 'oh, you can’t do that, that’s not normal.' So the story of the wine really reflected in the story of the book."

Looking around the room filled with an authors, publishers, and an assortment of book and food media, it was obvious that a lot of learning and discovery was taking place. Thorne-Stone was checking in with the authors in attendance to see what they thought of the pairings selected for their books, and the opinions seemed to be positive. "This is the first year we’re trying this event," she reiterated, "but if it goes over well then I look forward to doing it again."

Below is a list of the finalists in each of the four awarded categories along with their beer and wine pairings. For the winner in each category as awarded at a luncheon last Thursday, a synopsis of the book as well as notes on the selected pairing is also included. More information on all nominated books and authors can be found on the OMDB website.

English Finalists for the Trillium Book Award/Prix Trillium

Winner

Ian Brown, The Boy in the Moon (Random House Canada)
Walker Brown was born with a genetic mutation so rare that doctors call it an orphan syndrome: perhaps 300 people around the world also live with it. Walker turns twelve in 2008, but he weighs only 54 pounds, is still in diapers, can’t speak and needs to wear special cuffs on his arms so that he can’t continually hit himself. Told with tenderness and stark honesty, Ian Brown infuses his book with love for his amazing son, for his family and for life.

Scotch Irish Brewing Sergeant Major India Pale Ale
First impressions can be deceiving. If you allow yourself to take the journey, this fine ale will surprise you with its depths and heights.

13th Street Winery Gamay Noir 2008
An ideal wine to sip and contemplate as you turn the pages of The Boy in The Moon. Like the novel, the wine intrigues with its complexity and nuance. Like the story, the importance of family, loyalty, hope and spirit is central to the production of this Gamay thanks to the efforts of the Willms family who raise the grapes and the Whitty and Mann families, owners of 13th Street Winery.

Runners-Up

Margaret Atwood, The Year of the Flood (McClelland & Stewart)
Great Lakes Brewery Devil’s Pale Ale 666
Kacaba Vineyards 2009 Rebecca Rose

Alexandra Leggat, Animal (Anvil Press)
Nickel Brook Maple Porter
Reif Estate Cabernet Merlot

Anne Michaels, The Winter Vault (McClelland & Stewart)
Trafalgar Brewing Elora Grand Lager
Southbrook Vineyard Triomphe Chardonnay

Alice Munro, Too Much Happiness (McClelland & Stewart)
Muskoka Cottage Brewery Hefe-Weissbeer
Pillitteri Estates Winery Gewurztraminer Riesling Fusion

Emily Schultz, Heaven is Small (House of Anansi Press)
Railway City Brewing Dead Elephant Ale
Cave Spring Cellars Riesling

Cordelia Strube, Lemon (Coach House Books)
Mill Street Brewery Lemon Tea Beer
Flat Rock Cellars Twisted

French Finalists for the Trillium Book Award/Prix Trillium

Winner

Ryad Assani-Razaki, Deux cercles (VLB éditeur)
This first collection by Ryad Assani-Razaki, a young writer who shows surprising maturity, deals with discrimination and exclusion. Each short story in Deux cercles is about a point in an individual’s life where the person has to face the difficulties and frustrations of immigration.

Wellington Brewery Trailhead Lager
The hints of toasted malt this light, golden lager serve is an oasis of taste in the face of difficulties and frustration. Nothing complex, just simple pleasure.

The Good Earth Riesling
Canadian Immigrants face many challenges, as Ryad Assani-Razaki alludes to in his book Deux cercles. Riesling, also an immigrant to Canada, has faced its own challenges, such as cold Canadian Winters, new pests and pathogens and the ever changing tastes of the Canadian wine consumer. The Good Earth Riesling, with its complexity and great depth of flavour, is a fine example of not only the Riesling grape, but also of what is possible when immigrants can overcome their challenges.

Runners-Up

Nicole Champeau, Pointe Maligne. L’infiniment oubliée (Les Éditions du Vermillon)
Black Oak Brewery Nut Brown Ale
Trumpour’s Mill 2009 Rosé

Jean Mohsen Fahmy, Frères ennemis (VLB éditeur)
Barley Days Brewery Wind and Sail Dark Ale
Chateau des Charmes Gamay Noir ‘Droit’

Daniel Poliquin, René Lévesque (Les Éditions du Boréal)
King Brewery Pilsner
Sprucewood Shores Deux Rouge

Daniel Soha, La Maison: une parabole (Éditions du GREF)
Flying Monkeys Craft Brewery Hoptical Illusion
Angels Gate Winery Angels III

English Finalists for the Trillium Book Award for Poetry

Winner

Karen Solie, Pigeon (House of Anansi Press)
Karen Solie’s first collection of poems, Short Haul Engine, launched her writing career to prominence, winning many awards and citations. She continued her upward trajectory with Modern and Normal and this collection is another leap forward. The poems are X-rays of our delusions and mistaken perceptions, explorations of violence, bad luck, fate, creeping catastrophe, love, and the eros of danger. Once again, Solie shows that her ear is impeccable, her poetic intelligence rare and razor-sharp.

Niagara’s Best Brewery General Brock Stout
The darkness belies the fate and creeping catastrophe. Stout meaning “strong” will provide the intensity to match the tone of the poems.

Pelee Island Winery Late Harvest Riesling
Anyone who works with the land can identify with Karen Solie’s observations. Pelee Island Winery’s Late Harvest Riesling reflects the sweet reward that comes with such an iconic struggle. It is an ideal balance of cool-climate acidity with a fragrant orchard fresh aroma and a delicate peach bouquet. A lovely wine to savour while pondering the elegance of Solie’s poetry.

Runners-Up

Susan Holbrook, Joy is so Exhausting (Coach House Books)
Neustadt Springs Brewery 10W30
Trumpour’s Mill Pinot Gris

Matthew Tierney, The Hayflick Limit (Coach House Books)
MacLean’s Ales Farmhouse Ale
Black Prince Winery Cabernet Franc

French Finalists for the Trillium Book Award for Poetry

Winner

Michèle Matteau, Passerelles (Les Éditions L’Interligne)
Recounting the unfolding of a single day in parallel with the seasons of the year, Michèle Matteau’s first poetry collection, Passerelles, explores the human journey. From the day’s dawning to the last light of dusk, the author recalls voices that have fallen silent and uses lines full of imagery to evoke the stages of their lives, their secret songs and calls for help, torn between joy and pain, certainty and doubt, revolt and acceptance. With lucid understanding, the author uses the stories of their lives to define her own more clearly.

Cameron’s Brewing Company Dark 266
On a journey of four seasons in one day, this beer will be an ideal companion. Refreshing for the gentle moments, but full of flavourful roasted malts to compliment more intense times. In the end, a smooth and comforting finish.

Norman Hardie Melon de Bourgogne
Michèle Matteau’s poetry is so reflective of the many days we spend labouring in the vineyards and cellar growing and crafting premium wines. The many facets and interaction of terroir, human skill and moods as well as dedication and focus makes this poetic piece the perfect match to enjoy with our Melon de Bourgogne. Light, refreshing, perfect for those long summer days on the patio, just enjoying life. Ideal as an aperitif, fantastic with oysters, crustaceans or a perfect alternative with a light lunch.

Runner-Up

Jacqueline Borowick, Le chant du coucou (Inanna Publications & Education Inc.)
Beau’s All Natural Brewing Lug Tread Lagered Ale
Reif Estate Chardonnay Sauvignon Blanc

Although the awards and medals were handed out on the 17th, the work behind the awards starts much earlier. Tony Aspler and a group of 19 other wine judges blind taste all the submitted wines over two weekends in early April. They taste the table wines over two Saturdays and Late Harvest and Icewines on the first Sunday. This part of the event is not open to the public.

In conjunction with the awards luncheon, the sip & Savour Ontario event to celebrate local VQA wines and local foods was held the afternoon and evening. There is a trade tasting in the afternoon attended by wine writers, sommeliers and other industry people and while there is cheese and bread to cleanse our palates, the Savour part of the event is really reserved for the evening when the public is there. This is when a half dozen of Ontario’s best chefs show off their skills with local ingredients.

During the afternoon there were three different seminars focusing on a particular varietal popular in Ontario. Bill Redelmeir from Southbrook Wines and the driving force behind the Seriously Cool Chardonnay events discussed Chardonnay. Natalie Reynolds, winemaker at Thirty Bench, discussed Rieslings while Norm Hardie, from the appropriately named Norm Hardie Wines talked about Pinot Noir. I indulged my fondness for Riesling and attended Natalie’s excellent session called “Rieslings to Believe – Ontario’s Cinderella Grape”, where we tasted the Thirty Bench Small Lot Riesling Steel Post Vineyard – the gold medal winner in the Dry Riesling category; the Rosewood Estates 2008 Riesling Reserve, the bronze in the same category; the Flat Rock Cellars 2008 Riesling Twenty Mile Bench, gold in the Semi-Dry Riesling category; and the Tawse 2009 Sketches of Niagara Riesling, silver in the Semi-Dry category.

Natalie discussed the history of Riesling in Ontario, the types of Riesling grown and some of the techniques used in the vineyards to give the best Riesling possible. During the Q&A, she pointed out that, “It’s not a Germanic or an Alsatian style. It’s a Niagara style.” I am hearing this more and more often. It seems that the Ontario wine industry has evolved to the point where we are no longer as concerned with producing wines that are French or German in style. We have developed our own style and it’s producing some very good wines.

I didn’t get to taste all of the wines that I wanted to, so I did have to run out to Vineland Estates to taste the 2010 Red Wine of the Year and the gold Medal winner in the Cabernet Franc category. This wine puts some weight behind my contention that Cabernet Franc should be Ontario’s signature red wine. It ripens earlier than Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon and is less finicky than Pinot Noir. I don’t think we should drop the other reds. I just think that Cabernet Franc is more suited to our climate and is capable of producing some really interesting wines. So how good was it?

Vineland Estate Winery 2007 Cabernet Franc Reserve – VQA Niagara Escarpment $40
Gold in the Cabernet Franc Category and Red Wine of the Year
At $40, this wine is a steal. The intense nose of cherry has notes of cola and vanilla while the focus of the cherry flavour is astonishing. The last wine I had that had such purity of flavour was the 2008 Chateau Margaux in Bordeaux. The wine spent 12 months in French oak but there are no overt oak flavours. The hint of vanilla on the nose is the only confirmation of the oak which indicates how well the oak is integrated into this wine. The long finish has a hint of cranberry. The acidity and the tannins are beautifully balanced in this wine and will support it aging for 5 to 10 years. (I also tried the 2005 Cabernet Franc while I was at the winery. You could see that it was a similar wine but the two vintages are significantly different.)

Thirty Bench Wine Makers 2008 Small Lot Riesling Steel Post VQA  Beamsville Bench - $30
Gold in the Dry Riesling Category
This wine has been one of my favourite Rieslings for some time. The piercing nose of lime, minerals and some floral and apple notes are followed by equally intense flavours. Thirty Bench never adjusts the acidity or the sugar levels of the wine and they cool the wine to stop the fermentation at an appropriate balance of acidity and sugar. There was a little discussion at my table during the seminar about food matches for this wine. I said I wouldn’t match food with this wine as I wouldn’t want anything to distract me from the wine.

Konzelmann Estate Winery 2008 Sparkling Riesling Methode Cuvée Close - $16
Bronze in the Sparkling Wine Category
The citrus and lime nose lead to a wine with a slightly creamy mouth feel and the characteristic lime and mineral flavours of Riesling. Like most sparkling wines, it’s mostly about the bubbles and the brisk acidity of the wine.

Jackson-Triggs Estate Winery 2008 Proprietors’ Grand Reserve Chardonnay VQA Niagara Peninsula - $19.95
Gold in the Oaked Chardonnay – Under $20
There are aromas of hazelnut, oak and butter in this wine and a nice weight in the mouth. The lemon and citrus flavours persist through the long finish. There is a slight heat to the finish but other than that, this is a well balanced wine.

Southbrook Vineyards 2009 “Fresh” White (biodynamic / organic) VQA Ontario - $16.95
Silver in the  Blended White Category
The winemaker asked me to guess which grapes were in this wine. The nose of white peach made me think Riesling which the apple note and stone fruit made me think unoaked chardonnay. I was surprised to find out that it was Vidal Blanc, a wine I usually describe as boring. Not this one. I will be buying this one although I'm still not sure why it was in the Blended White category.

Tawse Winery 2009 Chardonnay Musque VQA Twenty Mile Bench - $21.95
Gold in the Unoaked Chardonnay Category
Chardonnay Musque is a very aromatic clone of Chardonnay. This one is no exception. The forward aromas are of melon, apple and flowers, while the melon, apple and exotic fruit flavours last through the long finish. There is enough acidity that this is a very refreshing wine and it will be popular on my patio during summer.

Ridgepoint Wines 2008 Late Harvest Cabernet Sauvignon VQA Twenty Miloe Bench - $12.50
Silver in the Late Harvest Category
One of the many interesting things about late harvest and icewines is that they frequently taste completely different from the table wines produced from the same grapes, and this one is no exception. The nose reminds me of my mother's strawberry-rhubarb jam which is my all time favourite jam. The flavours of strawberry with a hint of cherry last throughout the finish. The acidity is high enough that the sweetness does not overwhelm. As this is a late harvest wine, it is less sweet and less weighty than an icewine and may appeal to people who find icewine too rich. I would like to try this over vanilla ice cream.

I’m going to try to clarify the differences between VQA wines and Cellared in Canada product to explain why I don’t taste CIC wines.

Vintners Quality Alliance or VQA wines are made from grapes grown in Ontario. The grapes are also crushed, fermented, turned into wine and bottled in Ontario. VQA wine is a local product that keeps local farms in production and employs people in Ontario. As it is pointed out on the website for the Dirty Hands Project by Henry of Pelham Wines “Every bottle of our wine preserves one square metre of Ontario's Greenbelt in the Niagara Peninsula for another year.”

Cellared in Canada wines, on the other hand, are a blend of wines from outside Ontario and wine made from Ontario grown grapes. The percentage of Ontario wine in these blends has varied over the years and is currently 30%. In the fall, it will rise to 40% until 2014, and then it will fall to 0%. (Not a typo, it really will be zero.) So, until 2014, CIC wines are made by taking bulk wine made in another country, shipping it to Ontario and blending it with wine made in Ontario made from local grapes. It is then bottled in Ontario. After 2014, bulk wine will be imported and then bottled in Ontario without blending the local wine into it.

Like many other people, I feel that the “Cellared in Canada” label is not clear enough. I have read that when this designation was created, the intent was not to mislead. However, I don’t think the intent was to clarify the origin of the wine. “International Canadian Blend” is better than CIC but a label that identifies the country or countries of origin would make the critics happier. Maybe the manufacturers don’t want us to know where the wine comes from. If we know that our nightly glass of Merlot is a blend of Merlots from Hungary, Italy and Canada we might just walk over to the Hungarian section of the LCBO and buy a bottle of Hungarian Merlot.

A couple of years ago, KPMG produced a study about the impact of the wine industry in Ontario. The most quoted statistic from that study is that “for every litre of Ontario wine purchased by Ontario residents, the value-added return to the Ontario economy is $8.48 (combined income for labour, business and government) versus $0.67 per litre of foreign wines in 2007.” CIC wines are somewhere between $0.67 and $8.48 but my suspicion is that they will be close to the lower figure.

So, why won’t I taste and report on CIC wines? After all, I enjoy and comment on wines from all around the world.

My feelings are that:

• It is a wine from nowhere. These blends are made so that there is no vintage variation, no changes in flavour, no sense of place. CIC is actually their origin designation. They are the wine equivalent of cheese slices.
• They aren’t very good wines. I have tasted many of them. I don't like them.

Now, I freely admit that not every bottle of wine I open is a great, terroir-driven wine. I wish I could afford to always open a great bottle but I do try to always open an appellation controlled wine that has some character. Even some of the lower priced entries from Argentina and Chile exhibit some sense of place.

I don't think that many wine producers set out to make bulk wine. It is usually wine that is excess to requirements or wine that the winery does not want to put their name on. My feeling is that if the wine is not good enough for the winery to put their name on and then sell for around $8 per bottle, then blending it with generic Ontario wine and selling it for $11 is not going to improve it that much.

Many people have called on the LCBO to stop selling CIC wines. However, the LCBO is a profit-making organization as are the wineries that make CIC wines. If you look at the cost of the imported portion of the blend, the reason these wineries make the CIC products become clear. According to the US Department of Agriculture Global Informational Network, bulk wine could be purchased in Chile for $82 per hectolitre or $0.86 per litre. The Australian Wine Export Approval Report for March of 2010 reports that the average price of bulk wine exports is $0.99 Australian per litre or about $0.82. If the imported wine in the package only costs you about $0.60 plus shipping, how much profit does the $1o.95 litre of wine make for the LCBO and the producer?

More on Vintners Quality Alliance Wines

The Vintners Quality Alliance is a regulatory board that is our appellation control system which is similar to the AOC system in France. It guarantees the origin, production and labelling of the wines that have a VQA label. Wineries are free to produce wines that are not VQA labelled as it is specific wines that are labelled VQA.

The VQA regulations have changed over the years to allow for more precise labelling. The four major appellations in Ontario are: Niagara Peninsula, Lake Erie North Shore, Pelee Island and Prince Edward County. The Niagara Peninsula is further subdivided into sub-appellations such as Four Mile Creek, Niagara River and Beamsville Bench. These sub-appellations were created after a great deal of work by the industry and each area has specific attributes that make it unique and worthy of a separate sub-appellation.

A wine from Beamsville Bench should taste different from a similar wine from the Niagara River while two Beamsville Bench Rieslings, for example, would tend to have similar aromas and flavours. As the appellation becomes larger, for example, the Niagara Peninsula, the wines would become less unique. This system parallels that of most other countries.

VQA vs CIC

I don't taste or drink CIC wines as I feel that they are nondescript blends of less than stellar wine from a variety of places.  Why would I taste a wine that is a blend of product from two or three countries when I could buy a bottle from each country that might express some of the flavour of that country? Sure, I might pay a little more as they are not bulk wine but I would rather pay a little more and drink a little less.

I know that over 95% of the wine made in the world is made for early consumption and is not intended to be laid down in your wine cellar and aged. I also know that a great majority of wine produced is not wine that you will write notes about or discuss with your friends. But, your everyday bottle of wine does not have to be some bland, dull blend of stuff.

As I said previously, I try to drink wines that are part of a country's appellation system. Wine is one of the food products that we consume that should reflect its origin. My every day wines are, by and large, Ontario VQA wines.

Do I sit and contemplate each and every glass?  No! Not really. After the first glass, I sit back and enjoy. I invite you to do the same. But do me a favour. Try the local VQA Ontario products. Sure, they might cost a little more out of your pocket, but the shorter the distance between the producer and the consumer, the lower the environmental cost. If you spend a little more to buy green cleaning products, you can spend a little more to buy local wines.

Think Green! Drink VQA!

A wine’s vintage is the year the fruit was grown, harvested and the vinification process started. The meteorological nuances of a growing season have a dramatic effect on the fruit and so the resulting wines. Cooler weather can slow the ripening processes. Rain at the wrong time can encourage blights on the fruit like bunch rot. Too much water throughout the growing season and vineyard managers have problems keeping fruit yields low enough. Hot weather without cool nights can ripen grapes too much and rob them of natural acidity. All of these can change the composition of the harvested fruit and the wine made from that fruit.

In the Niagara region, the 2007 growing season was a near perfect vintage. It was a dry, hot summer with very little rain. The drought-like conditions naturally pushed fruit yields down. Vine roots had to delve deeper into the soil to find needed nutrients, so the fruit that did appear was smaller, and more concentrated in flavour. The longer growing season meant the fruit was harvested at an atypical level of ripeness for the Niagara region. This was particularly good news for the Bordeaux varietals (Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Malbec, Petit Verdot) planted in the Niagara region. These grapes can be challenging to ripen fully in our cooler climate. The longer hang time afforded by the long, dry summer and record breaking heat in the fall brought fruit to a level of ripeness not seen in Niagara since 1998.

Merlot is one of the Bordeaux varietals that did extremely well in this unexpectedly great growing season. Merlot is an offspring of Cabernet Franc and an obscure cultivar named Magdeleine Noire des Charentes. The French born cultivar has enjoyed a resurgence recently, as it tends to produce low acid, low tannin red wine which has proven popular with consumers. Wines made from Merlot can present ripe berry and exotic spice aromas, flavours of black cherries, dark chocolate, fruitcake and plum without the structural impositions of other wines. “Smooth” is the descriptor most commonly applied to wines created from the Merlot grape. It’s an easy drinking wine. Merlot vines represent 56% of the wine grapes planted in Bordeaux. Planted all over the world, wines of distinction made from Merlot grapes come from Italy, California, Switzerland, Australia and South Africa in addition to Bordeaux. Chile has a growing reputation for good Merlot, although there is still confusion in Chilean vineyards around what vines are actually Merlot and which are Carmenere. The vine’s early budding, flowering and ripening make it a great choice for the Niagara region, and many wineries continue to use the grape successfully in their wines.

The Lailey Vineyard Merlot 2007 (Vintages 591396| $25/750mL) is a triumph for the Lailey Vineyard team. It’s a great example of the magic of the 2007 vintage in Niagara, and it shows how good Merlot can get here in Ontario. The nose shows ripe black cherries, strawberries, toasted hazelnuts with hints of coffee and cinnamon stick. In the mouth it feels luxuriously heavy and smooth. The initial attack presents ripe summer raspberries, blackberry, clove spice and plum. The mid-palate is full and luscious, with flavours of black cherry preserve, bumble-berry pie with lemon. The finish is long and carries through flavours of lemon zest, clove, red cherries and plum. At $25, this is an excellent value for an outstanding wine from an great vintage which will age well over the next 10 years.

Vincor Portfolio Tasting – Exposé – April 26th

Vincor’s Portfolio Tasting at the Art Gallery of Ontario was entitled Exposé and was themed as an art show with the wines divided into 4 categories – Pop Art, Modern, Classics and Masters. At the risk of sounding stodgy, I actually found the set-up confusing, as wines from any of the wineries might be in any of the categories. For example, Jackson-Triggs wines were in the Masters, Classics and Modern groups. Also, I’m not sure I agreed with the wines that were included in each category. The wines in the Classics category were labelled as being classic wines from around the globe; even allowing for artistic license, I’m not sure that Strut wines or Red Guitar wines are truly "classics" in any sense of the word.

But, to talk about the wines…

The Pop Art Category was mostly “Cellared in Canada” products so I skipped it.

The Modern category was the most diverse with products ranging from Vextini and Swedka Vodka to Mezzomondo Pink Sparkling and Jackson-Triggs Proprietors’ Grand Reserve Methode Classique Sparkling wine.

Mezzomondo is best known for its rustic red Negroamaro (in the Classics Section) which retails for $8.95 and is a good red for hamburgers and hot dogs. The Mezzomondo Pink Sparkling is a refreshing sparkler with a light nose of strawberry and raspberry. It has moderate acidity and, if served well chilled would be a fun patio wine. (LCBO # 143321 - $11.95)

Classic Wines included wines from all over the world including Argentina, Australia, Canada, Italy, Spain and the US. These wines were all between $8 and $18. I would actually label these wines as Everyday Wines. Most of the ones I tasted were well made, good value wines but not necessarily wines that you would spend time discussing, and not wines that you would age for many years.

Inniskillin Cabernet Franc 2007 VQA (LCBO #317016 - $13.50)
This Cabernet Franc has a floral, fruity nose and flavours of strawberry, red currants and raspberries. The moderate acidity made this wine refreshing and I would suggest chilling it for 15 to 20 minutes before serving it either as a patio wine or with light barbecued foods such as hamburgers or chicken without a heavy sauce.

Banrock Station Sauvignon Blanc 2009 (LCBO #143909 - $12.95 for 1 litre)
(Yes, I admit it. I tried a wine from a 1 litre TetraPak! Now that I’ve admitted this I can move on. In theory, there is nothing wrong with packing wine in TetraPak boxes. They are lighter than bottles which reduces their carbon footprint from shipping, the package is recyclable in most areas and the wine stays fresh for up to 6 months from the day it is packaged. If you don’t finish the wine after you open the box, you can crush the box to remove most of the air and keep the wine fresh. So what’s the problem? People think of them as cheap wines and so usually cheap wines are put into TetraPaks.)

This Sauvignon Blanc is fairly fruit forward with aromas and flavours of gooseberries and white grapefruit. The moderate acidity made it refreshing as it was quite chilled. It would be good for a picnic.

Robert Mondavi Private Selection Pinot Noir 2008 (LCBO #465435- $18)
The warm cherry and raspberry nose also had some earthy notes. The bright fruit and leathery flavours were supported by the moderate plus acidity.

The Masters Section had wines that I would describe as weekend dinner and special occasion wines. They varied from the very interesting Inniskillin Winemakers Series of wines that are priced from $18 to $22 to the Osoyoos Larose Le Grand Vin at $39.95 and up to the Robert Mondavi Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve at $139.95.  Now I don’t have many weekend dinners that warrant the Mondavi, but the Winemakers Series will be on my table fairly often. The wines from Le Clos Jordanne were also in this part of the tasting but I didn’t get to taste them as the feeding frenzy around their table never subsided. The best news from this section is that the Canadian wines were certainly as good as the wines from other countries. So, drink Canadian!

Inniskillin Winemaker Series Two Vineyards Riesling 2008 VQA (LCBO #105387 - $17.95)
This wine has a lime citrus and floral nose with flavours of lime, peach and melon. There is also some minerality in the flavours. The long finish highlights the refreshing acidity and moderate (12%) alcohol.

Inniskillin Legacy Cabernet Franc 2007 VQA (upcoming LCBO release - $39.95)
The 2007 Vintage of this wine was made from a single vineyard. The fruit forward nose and the 14% alcohol are the result of the hot summer we had in 2007. The rich dark plum nose and the plum, cherry and vanilla flavours of this wine are supported by the well-integrated oak. The fruit flavours, acidity and oak influence are well balanced making this wine a real pleasure to drink. I would suggest buying a few of these to lay down and try over the next 4 or 5 years.

Osoyoss Larose Le Grand Vin 2006 VQA (LCBO #626325 - $39.95)
It’s strange that I couldn’t find this when I was in B.C. last summer as the LCBO has a good supply. It is a blend of the classic Bordeaux red grapes as follows: Merlot (69%), Cabernet Sauvignon (6%), Cabernet Franc (4%), Petit Verdot (4%) and Malbec (3%). The complex nose has cherry, black currant, plum and toasted oak and the dark fruit flavours last through the long finish. The well balanced alcohol and acidity and the firm but smooth tannins indicate that this wine will last for some time in your cellar. Buy a case and open a bottle on every birthday for the next 12 years.

New Zealand Wine Fair – April 29th

The New Zealand Wine Fair was held this year at the Design Exchange. New Zealand has been famous in recent years for their intensely fruity Sauvignon Blancs but they are not a one trick pony. New Zealand wine makers also produce some really interesting Pinot Grigio, Chardonnay and more recently Pinot Noir. Unfortunately, I was on my way to work when I stopped in at this tasting so I didn’t get to spend as much time as I would have liked. However, I did get to try some good wines.

Bird Sauvignon Blanc Marlborough 2008 (Vintages Release in August)
This wine has the piercing nose of gooseberries and cat’s pee that you expect from New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc but the flavours are surprising. Instead of the brisk flavours I was expecting, they were warmer peach and melon flavours, the result of a warmer than usual summer. The heat also contributed to a slightly lower level of acidity which would make this wine more approachable for people who tend to favour Pinot Grigio.

Nautilus Chardonnay 2008 (LCBO# 657569 - $24.95)
This is a limited production wine of 500 cases but the LCBO seems to have a reasonable supply. This Chardonnay was barrel fermented and half of it was a wild ferment so that no yeast was added. The winemaker left the yeast that was on the skins and in the winery to do their work. There is some risk to this method but it was worth it. The nose and flavours are a complex mix of cream, peach, apricot and citrus.  The oak does come through towards the end of the finish but it is quite subtle.

Sileni Cellar Selection Pinot Noir Hawke’s Bay 2009 (LCBO # 694901 - $16.95)
The soft red fruit nose of dark raspberry and cherries precedes the same flavours in the mouth. The moderate acidity matches the soft tannins and they don’t overpower the long cherry finish. This is a lovely wine to match with medium weight food but don’t expect this wine to age very long. Besides, it’s really good now, so drink up!

Riesling (pronounced “reece-ling”) is one of the wine world's best kept secrets. It’s the darling wine of connoisseurs, sommeliers and serious wine aficionados everywhere, yet the average bottle can be found in the LCBO for under 20 dollars. The grape has humble beginnings in Germany where it was abused for centuries in unfortunate blends and concoctions. In the 19th century wines from the Mosel, the Rhine and around Worms made from Riesling grapes began to gain respect among European aristocracy, and so earned a place on tables around the globe. Wine makers in other countries followed suit and Reisling grapes began growing all over the planet. Its hardiness and late budding characteristics made it a great match for cool climates where many other grapes did poorly. More recently, Riesling grapes have found their way into the soils of the winemaking regions of the Niagara Peninsula.

Wines made from Riesling can take on a large range of attributes. Smoke, stone fruit, various flowers, honey, earth, petrol/kerosene, anise, dried apricot, and citrus peel are all terms that have been applied to Rieslings at some time. The grape is naturally high in acid, which provides a key point of balance to the residual sugars sometimes left by the wine maker. Acidity also provides a key component to one of Riesling’s most famous attributes: its aging potential. Rieslings age exceedingly well, easily passing twenty years; the wine’s acidity allows it to still feel fresh and vibrant even after long years in a wine cellar. Off-dry wines are also made from Riesling for this same reason. These wines are higher in residual sugar and so need higher acidity to keep them from tasting flat and uninteresting.

Thirty Bench Wine Makers in the Beamsville Bench region of the Niagara Peninsula has been making outstanding Rieslings since its inception. Winemaker Emma Garner is passionate about Reisling, leveraging specific techniques to maximize the complexity of wines made from the hardy grape. In the vineyard, the Thirty Bench philosophy is centred on “small lots”. They treat each vine with infinite care in its own microcosm within the vineyard. They then produce wine from small batches of grapes harvested from the same tiny section of the lot. The resulting wines have surprisingly different characteristics and are always excellent.

The Thirty Bench Small Lot 2008 Wood Post Vineyard Riesling ($30/750mL, available at the winery only) is no exception to this winery’s excellent track record. It won a Bronze Medal at the 2009 Ontario Wine Awards. This is a slightly off-dry riesling, with aromas of lemongrass and ripe summer peaches providing the main attraction for the olfactories, while the scents of last night's campfire and hints of petrol are the backdrop. The wine has outstanding balance. Acidity clears the palate for flavours of peach, pineapple and lemon rind. The remaining sugars support a tropical mango and pineapple finish of excellent length. There is a hint of spice that lingers in the mid-palate that inevitably requires iterative investigation to fully appreciate. It is an excellent Riesling, providing absolute proof that Riesling has a home in Niagara, and that Niagara Riesling should have a home in the hearts of wine lovers everywhere.

To start the busy month, there was a Premium Spirits Trade Tasting at the LCBO headquarters. These tastings are held in advance of product releases so that wine writers can publish their columns on these wines just ahead of the product releases. This was the first Premium Spirits tasting I attended, and there were 19 premium spirits available and 5 extra flavoured vodkas. More on those in a bit.

Of the 19 products, there were 5 vodkas, 3 gins, 5 rums, 2 tequilas, 2 liqueurs and 2 whiskeys. I usually don’t drink gin or liqueurs as I prefer Scotch and Bourbon, so I was surprised that the spirits I found the most interesting were one of the liqueurs and one of the gins and that they were both Canadian products.

Victoria Gin – (LCBO # 118737 - $49.95)
This product comes from Victoria Spirits in Victoria, British Columbia. It’s flavoured with 10 organically-grown ingredients including juniper berries, coriander, angelica, orris root, lemon and orange peel, star anise, cinnamon bark, rose petals and a secret ingredient.

It has a intriguing complex nose with the juniper, citrus, anise, and rose all coming out. I could just smell this stuff without drinking it, as it's so interesting. It is not perfumey like so many gins. The attack in the mouth is quite hot but it is 45.9% ABV. After a moment, the heat settles down and there is a long floral and citrus finish. Try this straight up or an ice. It’s too good to add mixer.

Genuine Taboo Absinthe – (LCBO # 162099 - $59.95 – 500 ml bottle)
Yes, the green fairy is back and she’s Canadian. This Absinthe is a lovely pale green and it turns a milky white when water is added, just like it should. The nose on this Absinthe is quite complex, with notes of fennel, lemon, various flowers and an aroma that I assume is wormwood coming from the glass. The flavours are slightly dominated by fennel and anise but the finish is also quite complex. This comes from Okanogan Spirits in Vernon, BC.

The strangest product I tasted all month was also available at this tasting as a flavoured vodka. Three Olives Bubble Flavoured Vodka (LCBO # 157941 - $25.85)  and its companion product Three Olives Root Beer Flavoured Vodka (LCBO # 157933 - $25.85). The Bubble flavoured vodka is pure Bazooka Joe bubble gum. It has that generic strawberry candy smell and taste. I’m sure that Bubble gum vodka martinis [Bah! Martinis are made with gin! - martini-nazi Ed.] will be available at several clubs this summer. The companion product tasted like they over-roasted the root beer components and, although it smells like root beer, it tastes burnt.

On April 19th, the California Wine fair rolled into town and into the Royal York Hotel. This tasting is almost as large as the Italian tasting, with around 125 wineries present, pouring over 400 wines. Way too much for a couple of hours. I focused on whites this year, but I did try some reds, including several Zinfandels. Although Zinfandel was not accepted as the state grape for California, red Zinfandel really is a unique California product. Deeply coloured, full bodied, full of blackberry, blueberry, coffee and chocolate aromas and flavours, Red Zinfandel has moderate acidity and a low to moderate level of tannins that makes it perfect with barbecued foods.

Domaine Chandon Blanc de Noir  (LCBO #100693 - $23.95)
Chandon was positioned right beside the door so people could enjoy a taste of bubbly while planning the rest of their tasting. The Blanc de Noir has a slight grey/pink cast to the wine as it is made from Pinot Noir. The nose reminds me of toast and raspberry jam due to the sur lie aging and the Pinot Noir. The mousse is quite fine and the moderate acidity makes the medium length finish quite refreshing. A nice sparkling wine for any festive occasion.

Dry Creek Vineyard Chenin Blanc 2008
Chenin Blanc is one of those wines that you either like or don’t, which is probably the reason that many places that grow it use it as a blending wine. It has more character than Pinot Grigio or Unoaked Chardonnay so it has less mass market appeal. This bottling has a warm, slightly hazelnut nose and flavours of peach and mango with a medium length citrus finish with a slightly nutty after taste. The 2007 vintage of this wine was carried at the LCBO for $14.95.

Seghisio Family Vineyards Home Ranch Zinfandel 2008
Zinfandel is California’s great contribution to the wine world. Yes, I know that Zinfandel and Italian Primitivo are the same grape but they just don’t taste the same. This Zin was made from vines planted in 1895 and is full of blueberry, blackberry and mocha with a slight jamminess. Ageing this wine in 75% American oak imparts a vanilla top note the aromas and flavours. The moderate acidity and low to medium level of tannins make this a perfect wine for anything barbecued with a rich sticky sauce. The long chocolate/coffee finish goes on and on.

Next up was the “Discover the Flavours of Argentina” Tasting. Most of the wineries present were seeking agents in the Canadian market and are not currently available. Many of them had very good wines so I hope that an importing agency picks them up soon. The following wines are available through agencies as noted.

Laborum Torrontés 2009 – (The Wine Agents - $17.99)
Torrontés is a really interesting white grape from Argentina that doesn’t seem to be grown in many other places. I’ve had it in a variety of styles ranging from a light refreshing patio wine, to a more serious oaked version, to a sweet dessert wine. This particular wine has a forward honeysuckle nose with citrus and mineral notes. The honey and citrus flavours have some minerality on the finish. It has a full, rich mouth feel and the acidity and alcohol are well balanced.

Laborum Torrontés Late Harvest 2008 – (The Wine Agents - $32.99)
The late harvest is picked two months after the regular wine so that the grapes partially raisin on the vine. This concentrates the flavours, sugars and aromas which produces a more intense version of the table wine. Quite yummy!

The same afternoon, the LCBO held the Green Evolution Eco-Friendly Wine Tasting at Earth restaurant on Yonge Street. The wines were all organic or biodynamic or practicing sustainable agriculture. Leading the group was Southbrook Wines from Niagara on the Lake. There were also wines from Champagne, the Alsace, New Zealand and California.

Yealands Estate Pinot Gris 2008 (LCBO #172031 - $19.00 – Fall Release - $19)
I usually find Pinot Grigio to be a little bland but not this one. The intense nose of pear and melon is followed by equally intense flavours. The grapes for this wine were all grown in the Seaview vineyard where it was hand-harvested and then whole bunch pressed. Some of the wine was aged in new French oak to add some vanilla and barrel spice notes to the nose. The wine was also aged on the lees to provide a softer, smoother mouthfeel.

Domaine Weinbach Reserve Personelle Gewurztraminer 2007 (LCBO #172288 - Not Yet Released - $43)
This is luscious! The rose petal, lychee and spice nose is followed by intense flavours of exotic fruit, rosewater and lychee. This wine has a mouth-filling texture that is quite rich. The finish highlights how well balanced the alcohol and acidity are in this wine. Although you could match it with food, it seems a shame to not focus entirely on the wine.

Compañia De Vinos Telmo Rodríguez Lanzaga 2008 (LCBO # 107433 - $29)
The winemakers searched to source the oldest and noblest grapes for this wine. Although it is not 100% biodynamic, it is organic. The nose is captivating – red fruit, roasted coffee, you could just stand and nose this wine. The flavours of cherries, coffee and vanilla are equally complex.

The big name (and big buck) attractions include wine dinners with chefs Lynn Crawford (at her hot new restaurant Ruby Watchco) and Michael Stadtländer (under the stars in The Stop's greenhouse at Wychwood Barns), but there are plenty of other events suitable for every budget. Tomorrow night at Hart House, for example, 40 bucks will get you cocktails by NYC mixologist Sasha Petraske and local booze maven Christine Sismondo along with nibbles by Chef Tawfik Shehata of Vertical. And sessions in the Salut Seminar Series, covering topics ranging from cheese to dinner parties to comparing wine and beer, can be attended for as low of $20.

Of course, getting something for free is always way better than paying for it, so we're glad to say that thanks to the kind folks at Salut Wine & Food Festival and CityBites we've got tickets to give away to several Salut happenings.

Specifically, we have a pair of tickets up for grabs for each of the following events:

MONDAY MAY 10TH
Hot Chefs & Cool Food: Iron Chef Duel, Round 1
Nyood Restaurant, 1096 Queen Street West
6:30 pm to 9:30 pm
Chefs Gord Mackie (corporate executive chef of Far Niente and Reds) and Bruce Woods (executive chef of Brassaii, ex-chef/owner of Centro) battle it out for kitchen supremacy and — even better still — the Salut Iron Chef Duel Award. Toronto’s downtown hotspot, Nyood, will be transformed into a gourmet promenade, a cool festival style walk-about venue with “action” stations showcasing food and wine demonstrations you can enjoy while watching the competition unfold in the open “stadium kitchen.” A panel of celebrity judges will be on hand to select the winner. Who will reign supreme?
(Ticket value: $75 each)

WEDNESDAY MAY 11TH
Fetzer Great Beginnings Appetizer Challenge
The Bram & Bluma Appel Salon at the Toronto Reference Library, 789 Yonge Street
6:30 pm - 9:30 pm
Ten top chefs from the hottest Toronto establishments square off in competition as they go for the Gold. Selecting the ingredients and designing the dish they feel will pair the best with Fetzer Pinot Grigio, the chefs are challenged to create an inventive and delicious appetizer. Guests will taste, compare and vote on their choice for most innovative food and wine pairing. This is a great way to get a snap shot of “who’s who” in Toronto’s culinary scene.
(Ticket value: $65 each)

THURSDAY MAY 13TH
Toast to Terroir - Celebrate Ontario
George Brown College Centre for Hospitality & Culinary Arts, 300 Adelaide Street East
7:00 pm - 10:00 pm
The impact of terroir on the taste of wine is undeniable, yet hard to describe. Terroir is the sense of place, a combination of the physical location and landscape, weather, techniques and culture that together influence how a wine tastes. From the stony soil of Prince Edward County to the heart of Ontario wine country in Niagara, south to Pelee Island (which shares the same latitude as France’s Bordeaux region) and Lake Erie North Shore, we enjoy a range of terroirs that influence the flavours of our wines, giving them each a distinct profile. You have to taste it to believe it! Come sip and savour a selection of wines produced from a broad range of local Ontario wineries and get the winemaker’s take on the true meaning of terroir in Ontario.
(Ticket value: $60 each)

FRIDAY MAY 14TH
Salut Grand Tasting - French and International Wines
Hart House, University of Toronto, 7 Hart House Circle
7:00 pm – 11:00 pm
This marquee event brings you some of the best wines of France and the world for a charming and unforgettable tasting experience. The gorgeous Gothic architecture of the University of Toronto’s Hart House is the setting for this gourmet journey, with tasting stations located on both the elegant courtyard grounds and the interior Great Hall. And it’s not just about the wine. Chuck Hughes, host of Chuck’s Day Off on the Food Network, will grill up a variety of delicious treats to delight your taste buds, and he’ll be on hand in the outdoor courtyard to demonstrate his techniques. Featured wines represent all the major wine producing regions. Globetrot around this event, sipping and sampling more than 150 varieties wines from France, Italy, Australia, New Zealand, California, Chile and Argentina. A world of wine, no passport required.
(Ticket value: $75 each)

SATURDAY MAY 15TH
French Toast! A Celebration of France
St. Lawrence Hall, 92 Front Street East
7:00 pm – 11:00 pm
You can argue that many of the world’s most refined cultures are inextricably linked to (even fueled by) the glorious gift of nature known as wine. But it is without question the country of France that comes to mind first in any discussion of quality, leadership and longevity in all aspects of fermented grape juice. The French just know how to do it, and they’ve been doing it masterfully for centuries. But this is also a country of innovation. Modern winemakers are building on generations of winemaking experience, crafting contemporary styles that match perfectly with evolving tastes. Yet the respect for tradition and uncompromising quality never waivers, as you will discover while you taste, discuss and share the joy of discovery with the visiting winemakers. This event will take you on a journey through France, its people, its passions and, most of all, its wonderful wines.
(Ticket value: $80 each)

THE TICKET GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED. Thanks to all who entered, and congratulations to the winners!

Champagne is the name that comes up most often in reference to sparkling wine, but in the modern age only one in twelve bottles of sparkling wine produced across the globe is made in Champagne. Champagne is not a style of wine, but a legal moniker applied to wines produced from grapes grown in this region in France. There are somewhere in the neighbourhood of 19,000 growers in the region but most sell their fruit to the large houses most familiar to wine consumers. These large houses make sparkling wine on an impossible scale, and must source fruit from wherever they can within the region.

Champagne’s soils were a seabed millions of years ago, and are composed primarily of white chalk. These chalky soils provide great drainage for the vines, but are very poor in nutrients, so vineyards in the region must be constantly fertilized. This has led to a consistent push to make the appellation larger, so houses can buy more fruit and still legally call it “Champagne”.

Grapes used in the Champagne region are Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier. Sparklers from the Champagne region are generally non-vintage, so the wine used to make the stuff can be sourced from fruit from all over the region, and across many different years. Blanc de noirs is made only from black grapes, blanc de blancs is made only from Chardonnay. Rose champagnes are made by allowing a little skin contact during pressing.

The traditional method of making sparkling wine starts when fruit is gently harvested to avoid transferring anything from the skins, seeds or stems to the final wine. The grapes are pressed, and fermented into wine. A blend is generally made at this point, based on the winemaker’s understanding of how to make the best sparkling wine. The blended wine has sugar and yeast added and is fermented again. This second fermentation is where the bubbles are created. The fizzy concoction is often left to sit on the “lees” or particulate matter left over from the fermentations. The longer the time spent in the bottle with the lees, the greater the chance that flavours from the dead yeasts and other matter will be transferred to the final product.

Riddling is the name for the next phase, where bottles are tilted forward and turned regularly to get the remaining solids into the neck of the bottle. The final stage after riddling is complete is disgorgement and dosage. During disgorgement, the neck (which now contains all the solid particulates) is frozen, then the bottle is turned upside down, opened long enough for the frozen solids to eject and turned upright. The dosage, a mixture of sugar and wine, is injected into the bottle directly after the bottle returns upright, then the cork is inserted.

There are a great many variables to account for within the process. What characteristics are best for the base wine? Which yeasts should be used along the way? How long do the wines sit on lees? It’s a complex process requiring a great deal of attention and dedication, which explains the higher prices.

Sparkling wine can be made anywhere, and a number of regions around the world are gaining notoriety for their spin on bubbles. Cava is made in Spain by the traditional method, using Macabeo grape, Xarel-lo, and often Chardonnay. Prosecco is a white grape, native to north east Italy, which is used to make sparkling wines that are gaining in popularity for their price point and easy drinking manner. Prosecco is made through a non-traditional method that uses a pressure tank for second fermentation, rather than in bottles like the traditional method.

Sparkling wine can be made from any grape, by any winemaker, who can follow the exact same method as used by the Champagnois and produce sparkling wines of equal or even greater quality. Smaller lot sparklers made by winemakers using the grapes they have grown themselves can have more interesting personality than an average Champagne.

Niagara winemakers have been making sparkling wine for quite sometime, and there are some spectacular examples available on the shelves of the LCBO.

The 2006 Cuvee 13 Rose from 13th Street Winery (LCBO 147504 - $24.95/750mL) was made from a blend of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay via the traditional method. The mousse here is medium fine, the nose shows toast with strawberry jam, and a hint of raspberry. It’s golden with a light salmon-pink tinge. In the mouth the bubbles are fine, and the wine presents a citrus-infused flavour profile - lemon and tangerine, with a crisp, clean lemon finish. The finish shows a great deal of lemon.

Cave Spring Cellar’s 2006 Chenin Blanc Extra Dry (LCBO 128363 - $24.95/750mL & at the winery) is made with 100% Chenin Blanc grape, and was also transformed into sparkling wine using the traditional method. The aromas from these bubbles are very citrus infused, lemon and white grapefruit with hints of toast. Green apple and grapefruit flavours are abound, and the bubbles feel more refined on the palate than they appear in the glass. The finish is long on this glass, and echoes of the lemon and grapefruit flavours dominate.

Chardonnay buds early, so in areas with late spring frosts, the grape growers have to install wind machines to prevent cold damage. Chardonnay is also a vigorous vine which grows easily and produces large consistent crops every year. This can lead to over production and too many grapes which, in turn, produces wine without much body, flavour or character.

Once the grapes are ripe, the winemakers take over and use Chardonnay to make a variety of styles of wine. Even in its homeland, there are two major styles of Chardonnay – the stony, minerally Chablis and the subtly oaked, complex white Burgundy. In cold climates, Chardonnay wines express aromas and flavours of yellow and green apples and pears while warmer climates produces melon and sometimes yellow peach aromas. Hot climate areas produce Chardonnays with ripe golden pineapple and mango notes. Add oak into these various styles and you can get an almost unlimited variety in Chardonnays.

Perhaps this is part of the appeal of Chardonnay for winemakers. Most white wines are relatively simple to make. After the grapes are picked, they are de-stemmed and crushed. The juice is chilled and allowed to stand overnight in a stainless steel tank so all the little bits of skin and grape fall to the bottom of the tank. The juice is moved to a fresh tank leaving the sediment behind and as it warms up, yeast is added, fermentation starts and 10 to 14 days later there is wine. It still needs to be clarified, aged and bottled, but the winemakers’ work is basically done.

Unoaked Chardonnay is made this way. Most Chablis is made this way so that the wine expresses the cool climate and aged sea shells in the soil with green fruit flavours, brisk acidity and an affinity for shell fish. In growing areas around the world, unoaked Chardonnay expresses the climate and soils with a variety of aromas and flavours but few areas produce a wine as exciting as Chablis.

Oaked Chardonnay is where the skill of the wine maker comes to the forefront. After the grapes are picked, de-stemmed and crushed, the choices begin. Should the wine be fermented in stainless steel and then aged in oak barrels? This will keep most of the crisp acidity of the wine but still allow the barrel aging to contribute the vanilla and oak aromas and flavours, and also soften the acidity a little.

Should the wine undergo malo-lactic fermentation (MLF) which reduces the green apple flavours and creates softer more buttery flavours?

Should the wine be fermented in oak barrels and then aged in oak barrels? Fermenting in oak provides different aromas and flavours than just aging in oak alone and reduces the uptake of the tannins from the barrels. Should the wine be fermented in large oak vats instead of stainless steel or barrels?

Should the barrels be toasted on the inside? When barrels are being made, they are placed over a fire and toasted on the inside to change the flavours that make their way into the wine. The heavier the toast, the more charred and the more the flavour of the barrel tends towards burnt toast.

Should the oak barrels be made from French oak? American oak? Hungarian oak? Canadian oak? They all have different flavours and different effects on the wine.

Should the barrels be new so that the wine gets the full impact of the oak or should some or all of the barrels be one or two years old? Or should all the barrels be old so that they don’t contribute any flavour but they to allow the wine to age and soften as they do in oak?

As is obvious, a wide variety of options are available to the winemaker, so many will make a variety of styles of Chardonnay – unoaked, barrel fermented or barrel aged in a variety of oaks.  Lailey Vineyards, for example, make an unoaked Chardonnay and two barrel fermented Chardonnays, one of which is aged in Canadian oak. Other Ontario wineries are also experimenting with Canadian oak.

So, why Chardonnay and oak? Chardonnay, by itself, is usually not very aromatic and is not very distinctive. When Chardonnay is aged and/or fermented in oak, the oak contributes a variety of flavours of that range from a subtle vanilla to downright woody. In addition, the oak helps to soften the acidity of the wine and produces a softer, sometimes creamy feel in the mouth. At one time, California Chardonnays were heavily oaked and tasted more like lumber than wine but, by and large, those days are gone. If you really like the taste of oak, drop into Cave Springs Cellars the next time you are down in Niagara and try their Oaked Chardonnay. At one time they aged their Chardonnay in one new barrel for several months and then moved it into another new barrel for another several months.

Anyone interested in trying 34 of the  best Ontario Chardonnays should attend the Ontario Wine Society’s “Ontario Chardonnay – Seriously Cool” event on Wednesday, March 24, 2010 at 6:30pm. Thirty-four of our best Chardonnays will be poured as a dress rehearsal for an event at Canada House in Trafalgar Square, London, England on May 17th. For more details, follow this link.

Angels Gate Chardonnay 2007 VQA – (LCBO # 1818 - $ 13.95)
2007 was an unusually hot year in Ontario which is apparent from the notes of golden pineapple and melon in the aromas and the flavours. The expected cool climate citrus and pear notes are also there in the background and the finish. There is a slight sweet apple flavour in the finish which is a little hot due to the 13.5% alcohol.

Domaine Chevallier Chablis 2007 (LCBO # 112227 - $ 22.95)
The nose on this wine is all citrus and stone. It’s probably all in my head but it smells like clam shells that you find on a beach in the summer. (Chablis soil is composed of old sea shells.) This is a typical Chablis – lemon and lime peel and brisk acidity. This wine would be perfect with any simple seafood dish.

Le Clos Jordanne Village Reserve 2006 VQA – (LCBO # 33936 - $25)
The rich buttery citrus nose gives way to citrusy flavours with a hint of vanilla in the background. The long finish highlights how well integrated the oak is in the wine. It’s there but not in an obvious way. This is a very elegant, well balanced wine.

DeLoach Vineyards OFS Chardonnay 2007 – (LCBO # 729343 - $48.60)
The light lemony vanilla nose is followed by the exotic fruit flavours of a warm climate Chardonnay. The golden pineapple and mango flavours are supported by a hint of coconut from the toasted barrel. The acidity, flavours and alcohol are so well balanced that you are unaware that the alcohol level is 14.5%.

Domaine de la Vougerais Vougeot Premiere Cru ‘le Clos Blanc de Vougeot’ Monopole 2006 (LCBO # 950808 - $ 94.95)
The nose of this wine is very subtle – the light toast, citrus, yellow peach notes are repeated in the flavours and followed by a long citrus and yellow pineapple finish. The oak, alcohol and acidity are very well balanced and produce an overall impression of elegance.