It is rare for me to single out one wine like this but I just have to do it. At yesterday’s Taste Ontario event at the Royal Ontario Museum, an annual fête hosted by VQA Ontario and Wine Country Ontario, I tasted Cave Spring Winery’s CSV Riesling 2015 for the first time. The room went quiet and the air thickened with possibility. Time stood still. I was alone.

I have been moved by riesling many times. In Alsace it happens every day as I’m sure it will when I go to Düsseldorf in two weeks time. It has happened in Ontario, most notably after having comes across (any one of four or five) Charles Baker Picones and Emma Garner’s Thirty Bench Small Lots. Or in particular, Jay Johnston’s 2012 Nadja’s from Flat Rock and most notably Brian Schmidt’s Vineland Estates St. Urban. With Cave Spring it happened after tastes of both Cave Spring CSV Riesling 2013 and 2012, Cave Spring Vineyard, VQA Beamsville Bench, Niagara Peninsula, Ontario (566026, $29.95, WineAlign) and while those vintages will sublimate riesling retrospectives and dinner dates for many years to come, what is born out of 2015 is one of a generational greatness. In 2014 the CSV is of course a very good wine and we are thankful to have it available while 2013 continues to develop and the ’15 continues to cement its immortality.

Riesling at the Carriage House, Vineland Estates Winery – March 7, 2015

Related – I shall be Riesling

Two years ago, right around this time in March I penned a post about riesling. I remember well the #CAPSCAN15 and Wine Country Ontario entourage escape to Niagara and a packed Carriage House at Vineland Estates Winery as we tasted through 19 rieslings from the Escarpment, Vinemount Ridge and Twenty Mile Bench sub-appellations of the Niagara Peninsula. That retrospective and now this Taste Ontario 2015 has me thinking, again. “Thinking about riesling. Thinking about drinking more riesling. Thinking about how my life is not complete, without riesling.” I reviewed all 19 of those wines and you can find them on WineAlign though I never published them together on Godello. If you want to see them together just click on this link I’ve created call Godello’s riesling retrospective.

There can be no procrastinating or waiting to unearth my thoughts on the CSV ’15. These are them.

Cave Spring CSV Riesling 2015, Cave Spring Vineyard, VQA Beamsville Bench, Niagara Peninsula, Ontario (566026, $29.95, WineAlign)

In a word, balance. Well two, balance and brilliance. CSV in 2015 takes the reigns from itself and stands firm. The fruit is in charge, the mineral a support system unparalleled and the minor celebratory sweetness a mere afterthought when it comes to rounding out the complexity. CSV is pretty darn back in ancient dolomite time travel and escarpments high great in 2015, uplifting, serious but yet not so. The numbers trip the light fantastic, fooling like gold and bones dry are seemingly preserved in karst but impossibly not. The sensoria apprised reel from the finest acidity it can possibly carry in its veritable truth. Deep lemon intent and a new wax vernacular speak the clarity of a wine that listens to its own expert advice. Might as well have made itself. CSV 2015 is one of the finest rieslings ever made from Ontario grapes. Drink 2019-2031.  Tasted March 2017  @CaveSpring  @TheVine_RobGroh

Good to go!

Godello

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