Tag Archives: 8th Generation Vineyard

13 Canadian wines that rocked in 2013

Here are 13 Canadian wines that rocked in 2013

Here are 13 Canadian wines that rocked in 2013.
Photo: valeriy555/Fotolia.com

as seen on canada.com

It has been a remarkable year in the evolution of the Canadian wine industry. Some will rant and others argue over the lack of cohesion and togetherness when the idea of a Canadian wine culture is discussed. What is of greater interest, at least in terms of the year in retrospect, is the wines themselves. When the wines are assessed and considered in part or as a whole, who would dare to say there are no great wines being produced?

I have personally tasted nearly 1,000 Canadian wines in 2013. This thanks to friends, colleagues, events, winery visits, LCBO media and vintner tastings, restaurant wine lists and agents. Not to mention the necessary organizations such as The Ontario Wine Society and the Wine Council of Ontario.

There was Cuvée 2013 and the Expert’s Tasting at Brock University. Somewhereness, County in the City, The Riesling Experience, Cool Chardonnay and Taste Ontario 2013 were just a few of the many events to discover the wonders of Ontario and Canadian wine. A summer visit to the west coast opened a window to the wonders of the Okanagan and B.C. Wine.

This was a very difficult list to narrow down. It is based on wines tasted but not necessarily released in 2013, though I did try to focus on more current selections. In the end, these choices are meant to offer both a cross-section and a definitive compilation of what Canadian winemakers do best. That is producing unique, cutting edge and brilliant takes on cool climate grapes. They also match beautifully with the songs referenced in their tasting notes. Here are 13 Canadian wines that rocked in 2013.

From left: CHÂTEAU DES CHARMES CHARDONNAY MUSQUÉ 2010, 8TH GENERATION VINEYARD RIESLING 2012, FIELDING ESTATE CABERNET FRANC 2011, QUAIL’S GATE PINOT NOIR 2011, and HUFF ESTATES CUVÉE JANINE SPARKLING ROSÉ 2010

From left: CHÂTEAU DES CHARMES CHARDONNAY MUSQUÉ 2010, 8TH GENERATION VINEYARD RIESLING 2012, FIELDING ESTATE CABERNET FRANC 2011, QUAIL’S GATE PINOT NOIR 2011, and HUFF ESTATES CUVÉE JANINE SPARKLING ROSÉ 2010

CHÂTEAU DES CHARMES CHARDONNAY MUSQUÉ 2010 (318303, $16.95, B.C. 230961, $18.99, WineAlign)

The song: The Rolling Stones, If You Can’t Rock Me

Intensifies in juicy, bright, nearly candied fruit cut by sour patch and blanched nut. Clean, cool Chardonnay and right on. My earlier note, from ‘It’s Only Rock ‘n Roll’ (but I like wine) is the unoaked result of aromatic Clone 809 combed from the heavier clay-based soils from the St. David’s Bench Vineyard and the silty, mineral rich soils from Seven and Seven Vineyard. Tropical, strutting stunner with “a thousand lips I would love to taste.” Tell Ms. Musqué if you can’t rock me, nothing can.  90  Tasted April 2013  @MBosc  From: Hot weekend wines and cool Chardonnay

8TH GENERATION VINEYARD RIESLING 2012 (B.C., $20.90)

From Okanagan Falls bolts rapido from the gate with the ripest fruit (pear, plum) and though there is citrus, it’s really quite semi-dry. At 12.9 per cent alcohol and 24gr/L of residual sugar this may as well be Mosel Trocken Spätlese. Fantastic presence and awesome winemaking from Bernd and Stefanie Schales. Got me by the vines and will be on my table. 92  Tasted July 2013  @8th_Generation  From: B.C. Wine: From Vancouver to your table

FIELDING ESTATE CABERNET FRANC 2011  (36194, $21.95, WineAlign)

Sets the pepper mill on speed dial and certainly knows the inside of a barrel but what more could you possibly ask for? Unabashed, unbridled purple goodness. From my earlier note: “…has to be the best yet from Richie Roberts.  From a 35-acre Grand Cru (Five Rows) vineyard in the making in the heart of the warmest Niagara locale (St. David’s Bench). Zanthoxylum, capsicum and pencil shaving. Ropy grain, chewy, sylvan charm. On the card at Barque.  90  Tasted March 2013  @FieldingWinery  From: Masters wines in purple, yellow and green jackets

QUAIL’S GATE PINOT NOIR 2011 (585760, $26.95, WineAlign)

With a flat-out ambrosial aromatic entry bequeaths extremely ripe, fleshy red stone fruit and a hit of java, hold the crema and the splinters. Toss in some cool eucalyptus to that tincture, perhaps, like De Loach Van Der Kamp. Intimates a Sonoman dream in confected perfume unlike any Okanagan predecessor. This is flamboyant stuff for OV, toothsome, and were it from California I might think it OTT but from B.C., not so. Expertly judged fruit/acid balance and such plush texture. Gobs of fruit with just enough grit to keep it real. “The clamorous owl, that nightly hoots and wonders at our quaint spirits.” 91  Tasted July 2013  @Quails_Gate  From: A midsummer night’s chill red wine 

HUFF ESTATES CUVÉE JANINE SPARKLING ROSÉ 2010 ($29.95, winery only, WineAlign)

The song: Genesis, In The Cage

100 per cent Pinot Noir grapes is a phenomenal, inaugural genesis effort. More sanguine in colour than one would imagine, this sparkler is wonderfully sweet but also ”turns sweat, turns sour.” Pinot Noir is always potentially so dramatic but who knew it could be like this, like blood swirling in the glass. “Bottled in a strong compression,” with black raspberry, noticeable yeast and impressive finesse.  Out of the cage.  91  Tasted May 2013  @HuffEstatesWine  From: You can lead a county to the city

From left: NORMAN HARDIE COUNTY PINOT NOIR UNFILTERED 2012, PELLER ESTATES CABERNET FRANC ‘SIGNATURE SERIES’ 2010, PEARL MORISSETTE CUVÉE DIX-NEUVIEME CHARDONNAY 2011, and BURROWING OWL SYRAH 2010

From left: NORMAN HARDIE COUNTY PINOT NOIR UNFILTERED 2012, PELLER ESTATES CABERNET FRANC ‘SIGNATURE SERIES’ 2010, PEARL MORISSETTE CUVÉE DIX-NEUVIEME CHARDONNAY 2011, and BURROWING OWL SYRAH 2010

NORMAN HARDIE COUNTY PINOT NOIR UNFILTERED 2012 (125310, $35.00)

Cuts a rug with immense, stepping out juicy behaviour. It’s both turntable old-school, astatic in smooth groove rotation, but also digitally forward thinking towards a perdurable future. The nose is Norm’s most intense floral burst to date, with incredible brightness and sparkling acidity in the key of fresh plum. This brings to mind indelible Burgundy, enveloped in PEC’s warm ’12 blanket. Hardie’s measure of consistency abides in a Pinot of parity and undemanding polish.  93  Tasted October 2013  @normhardie  From: Top wines shine at Taste Ontario 2013

PELLER ESTATES CABERNET FRANC ‘SIGNATURE SERIES’ 2010 ($40.20, winery only, WineAlign)

The song: Frank Zappa, Joe’s Garage

Has got the funk in dark and dank waves. Top-tier barrel selection out of Four Mile Creek, this one is tight, tense and ready to jam with “a Stratocaster with a whammy bar” in Joe’s garage. Saw through to 100 per cent Malolactic fermentation after 20 months in barrel. If you are jonesing for Cab Franc, don’t miss this player.  91-92  Tasted March 2013  @PellerVQA  From: A long and winding tasting road

PEARL MORISSETTE CUVÉE DIX-NEUVIEME CHARDONNAY 2011 303602, $40.00, WineAlign)

A child of a hot and dry summer, a stress-free winter slumber and a non-invasive spring awakening.  Sets out lean, tight and mean, but the dry extract invites spicy, stone fruit and an emergence of tropical lushness. Can there be another specimen that so rightfully defines Pearl Morissette, the top of the Bench or Niagara as a whole in 2011?  93  Tasted July 19, 2013  @PearlMorissette  From: Nine big November best buy wines

BURROWING OWL SYRAH 2010 (73072, $41.95, B.C. $39.99, Alberta $44.99, WineAlign)

The song: The Beatles, Dig a Pony

This Syrah will cure so many ails. Vouchsafe for a pepper-laced, plasmic mouthfeel, a maroon liquid pewter party of rocks and stones in the mouth. Playful and childlike, digs a pony, playing and offering really good fun. Does its own Okanagan thing becuase “ev’rything has got to be just like you want it to.”  92  Tasted October 4, 2013  @BurrowingOwlBC  From: Nine big November best buy wines

From left: STRATUS WHITE 2006, HIDDEN BENCH TÊTE DE CUVÉE CHARDONNAY 2009, BACHELDER WINES PINOT NOIR LOWREY VINEYARD 2011, and BENJAMIN BRIDGE BRUT RESERVE MÉTHODE CLASSIQUE 2007

From left: STRATUS WHITE 2006, HIDDEN BENCH TÊTE DE CUVÉE CHARDONNAY 2009, BACHELDER WINES PINOT NOIR LOWREY VINEYARD 2011, and BENJAMIN BRIDGE BRUT RESERVE MÉTHODE CLASSIQUE 2007

STRATUS WHITE 2006 (660704, $44.20, WineAlign)

Was a “great recovery year,” after the winter damage of ’03, ’04 and ’05. A cool vintage, which required careful picking. The Sauvignon Blanc driven ’06 has the highest melon component, not to mention Boxwood. Yet that rose/floral/honey medicinal note is even stronger. Not over the hill at all and developing a graceful white wine character. Very French with late acidity and verve. Remarkable. Love this one. “This is a style of aged wine where I want to go,” says J-L. Nutty finish.  93  Tasted September 2013  @Stratuswines  From: Select tasting through the years of Stratus Red and Whites

HIDDEN BENCH TÊTE DE CUVÉE CHARDONNAY 2009 ($45, winery only, WineAlign)

From Big wines from California and the Bench from HB’s oldest, most highly regarded and meticulously maintained vines shows ravishing and refined restraint in elegance. Warm pineapple and mango coagulation jarred by the vintage’s piercing acidity and immense length. Head of the class, rings the bell, nails the lecture.  93  Tasted March and May 2013  @HiddenBench  From: Around the world in eight Chardonnays

BACHELDER WINES PINOT NOIR LOWREY VINEYARD 2011 (361816, $44.95, WineAlign)

The Song: Bruce Sprinsgteen, Blinded by the Light

Defies logic in laying out the welcome mat. Fleshy St. David’s fruit, relentless aromatics, a glue of tannins pushing on the pedal. From my earlier note in Top wines shine at Taste Ontario 2013 “springs eternal from an ocean of cranberry and an island of spice. The somewhereness of this St. David’s vineyard can’t be denied, and in the hands of Thomas Bachelder the extraordinary happens. I am simply blinded by the light, by the weight and the weightless gravity. By a sweetness that just isn’t sweet, like exotic red fruit that knocks you sideways upside the cerebral cortex. Not to mention an iron madness that “plays that song with the funky break.”  94  Tasted Oct. 10 and Nov. 6, 2013  @Bachelder_wines  From: Vineyards, winemakers and their sense of place: Bachelder and Leaning Post

BENJAMIN BRIDGE BRUT RESERVE MÉTHODE CLASSIQUE 2007 (275396, $74.95, NSLC 1012526, $74.79, WineAlign)

The song: The Jam, Town Called Malice

Peter Gamble struck gold with this Gasperaux Valley, Nova Scotia Sparkling Wine project. This Bridge comes from ”radically and frighteningly low yields” (3/4 ton per acre, as opposed to the new 6 ton world of Champagne). The ’07 is spun so fine and endowed with a prominent and great leesy nose, along with baking biscuits and lemon purity. To taste there is zest, white pepper and ultimately this is streamlined and refined. A Gamble style that will integrate in ’08 the idea of emulating grower’s Champagne. One will find no holes and no holds barred, in tension and in ease. Like Iggy Pop, Paul Weller, Brandon Flowers and David Bowie rolled into one, a thin white duke with a lust for life in a killer town called malice. Eight some odd cases of the 2005 are still floating around in the monopoly’s system so keep an eye on the labels. You just might get lucky. Price tag, $75? Cost, “priceless.”  93  Tasted November 2013  @Benjamin_Bridge  From: Crack open these Canadian made apolitical wines

Good to go!

B.C. wine: From Vancouver to your table

Vancouver’s Blood Alley PHOTO: SINIDEX/FOTOLIA.COM

as seen on canada.com

On a recent West Coast swing I sampled wines from British Columbia’s Okanagan Valley without ever leaving the city of Vancouver. A bicycle was all I needed to find Salt Tasting Room in Blood Alley. A couple of telephone calls to L’Abattoir and Fable Kitchen quickly and effortlessly landed me in the wine program hands of Robert Herman and Kathy Schleyer/Ron MacGillivray, all ready and willing to introduce me to a thing or two about B.C. wine. The Okanagan Valley’s indelible stamp is now etched upon my wild yeast, fermented brain.

PHOTO: Michael Godel English Bay Inukshuk

A well-known California wine writer recently lashed out against the city’s wine scene with this soul-searching, pharisaic headline. British Columbia: Okay Wines, Retarded Wine Culture. I feel for the author, who in his own right is possessive of a tremendous palate, for he could not locate a knowledgeable sommelier or a decent glass of B.C. wine anywhere in the city. But I suppose I shouldn’t blame him for never having solicited any advice from Anthony Gismondi, DJ Kearney, Jessica Bryans, Rhys Pender, Treve Ring, Frank Haddad, Kurtis Kolt, Andrea Vescovi, Lindsay Ferguson, Jay Whiteley, Barbara and Iain Phillip, Mark Taylor and Lynn Coulthard. Just a few names for next time. Nor can I hold him accountable for never having made it out to Penticton, or Kelowna. Two weeks later the Wine Blogger’s Conference in Penticton remained surreptitiously out of reach. I too am guilty of not being able to plan a side trip to the Okanagan during my quick western jaunt and yet I had no trouble unearthing several watering holes with more than a willingness to keep me in the B.C. wine loop. “It ain’t no big thing but it’s growin’.”

PHOTO: Michael Godel Second Beach, English Bay

Unlike Ontario, British Columbia has finally begun to emerge from the dark ages of wine legislation and pre-prohibition rules. Thanks to MP Dan Albas and the #freemygrapes movement, Ontario wineries (and others in Canada) can now ship their bottles to B.C., free from persecution. Private wine shops like Kitsilano Wine Cellar have begun to allot space to Ontario but the choices are few and far between. Blue Note agency’s Patrick Ellis is working towards more free movement of wine from Ontario to B.C.  Despite the prevailing tailwinds, shipping wines west to east remains taboo. Christy Clark will be handing out B.C. wines to fellow premiers at this week’s annual meeting. The ball is in your court Kathleen Wynne. People are talking.

The LCBO is so un-flush with B.C. wines the back-up is downright constipating. The monopoly threatens, the wall’s eastern bloc shows few faults and still B.C. wines (privately) flow east. Why? It’s the right thing to do. My table is set and ready for B.C. wine to be written all over it.

PHOTO: Michael Godel Summer table

Here are notes on eight Okanagan Valley wines tasted at Salt and on a hotel balcony overlooking phantasmagorical English Bay.

Salt Tasting Room, 45 Blood Alley, Gastown, Vancouver, BC V6B 0C4 (604) 633-1912

It’s 11 a.m. on a Tuesday, I’m in unfamiliar territory and Colin greets me with a turntable and Another Side of Bob Dylan. I know I’ve come to the right place. A half hour in I am turned over to Sommelier and General Manager Kyle Gartlan-Close, clearly a pragmatist when it comes to the wines of British Columbia. I sense he’s still waiting for the renaissance to happen and the local wines on his list must adhere to what are clearly his high standards of quality. I tasted 15 wines over a 90-minute stretch at the tasting bar. Not all were hits but Salt was clearly the portal to crawl through and cross over into Vancouver’s wine scene. All prices are B.C. at the winery, unless otherwise noted.

From left: Tantalus Old Vines Riesling Natural Brut 2010, Thornhaven Tortured Grape 2012, Pentâge Winery Sauvignon Blanc Semillon 2011, Poplar Grove Chardonnay 2011, 8th Generation Vineyard Riesling 2012, Synchromesh Pinot Noir Rosé ‘Palo Solara’ 2011, and Joie Farm Pinot Blanc 2012

Tantalus Old Vines Riesling Natural Brut 2010 ($35) at 11:00 am on the nose spins effortlessly out of the vinyl gate along with Dylan’s The Girl From North Country. No shrinking violet, this inaugural Brut, méthode Champenoise sparkler. Straining yeast, naphtha and prickling pear go crazy in acerbic pith. No Peggy Day neither, though “she stole my poor heart away.” Score one for Godello’s cellar.  90  @tantaluswine

Thornhaven Tortured Grape 2012 ($17.90) melds a kitchen sink of Okanagan Chardonnay, Riesling and Muscat. Slides down the pipe with edacious oomph, in a good way. The label’s eerie graphic might shock but this is no hollow or shallow white, but rather a hallow ode to blending with great floral intensity.  But, may I ask, who crop-thins with a scythe?  87  @ThornhavenWines

Pentâge Winery Sauvignon Blanc Semillon 2011 ($20) is classically styled white Bordeaux divided between 65 per cent SB and 35 Sem, though it’s true to its roots and rocks, speaking uniquely of its place. Glides coolly and reggae rhythmically in cohorts with Bob’s Kaya, is perfumed by humid sea salt and oyster shell. SB imparts near tropical fruit and Sem brings terrific texture. Goes to show you “can’t run away from yourself.”  88  @PentageWinery

Poplar Grove Chardonnay 2011 (338434, $27.95, B.C. 732958, $21.90) from Hot weekend wines and cool Chardonnay sees minimal (15 percent new French) oak influence and while there is a ripe coconut tang, a sense of creamy butter and a spike of citrus, there really isn’t too much of anything at all. Tasted this fresh Okanagan a second time in Vancouver, alongside Another Side of Bob Dylan at Salt Tasting Room, I decided I could drink a barge full of the stuff. “All I really want to do, is, baby, be friends with you.”  90  @poplargrovewine

8th Generation Vineyard Riesling 2012 ($20.90) from Okanagan Falls bolts rapido from the gate with the ripest fruit (pear, plum) and though there is citrus, it’s really quite semi-dry. At 12.9 per cent alcohol and 24gr/L of residual sugar this may as well be Mosel Trocken Spätlese. Fantastic presence and awesome winemaking from Bernd and Stefanie Schales. Got me by the vines and will be on my table. 92  @8th_Generation

Synchromesh Pinot Noir Rosé ’Palo Solara’ 2011 ($18.90) from an east-Kelowna vineyard is made using the traditional saignée method. The result is a cottony texture and clinquant cantaloupe hue. An alkali, dry Provence notion is raised dutifully by bright but savoury fruit notes, like rhubarb and watermelon. Only 150 cases produced and true to serious Rosé everywhere.  90 @SynchromeshWine

Okanagan Crush Pad Gamay (on Tap) rolls melodically around the mouth in fresh fruit flavours so it must be Piano Man time. Solid black cherry core, good extraction, simple structure and no hard lines combine for basic but beneficial keg effect. “La la la, di da da. La la, di da da da dum.”  87  @OKCrushPad

Joie Farm Pinot Blanc 2012 ($23) found at Kitsilano Wine Cellar elevates a yeoman’s grape to mountain heights. Okanagan acidity injects life to do away with “useful” and score a notch for necessary. Like Gamay, Pinot Blanc should receive more planting consideration in B.C.  Zesty, invigorating and refreshing. A tumbler of delectation when matched with a view of English Bay.  89  @JoieFarm

Good to go!