Confession: we only picked this winery on our festival tour for two rather superficial reasons. First, it was our day to taste riesling icewine and no other wineries in the Beamsville area were serving any. Second, they were also serving gourmet grilled cheese, which placated Chris after the Gorilla cheese fight the week before. We'd never even heard of Greenlane, probably since it only opened in 2010, and were a little skeptical when we drove up because of the small barn like exterior, the unpaved parking and the fact that the public washroom is in a separate building on the other side of the lot! So, when we walked into the small but stylish tasting bar to be greeted warmly by a hostess despite the crowd of tasters, we were instantly impressed. The hostess took her time to explain the tastings, took our passports and ordered what turned out to be our lunch. The sampling included 2 wines and 2 baguette sized gourmet sandwiches. This really impressed me because the passport itself only costs $30 for six tastings so the winery only gets $5 for each of us, less any fee it has to pay to the industry association for festival advertising, etc. Greenlane treated this as an opportunity, perhaps a marketing expense, to gain exposure to new consumers whereas some other wineries treat the $5 as cost recovery and some even try to profit from it by keeping their portions extra small.
The first tasting was their 2007 Cabernet Merlot with an aged cheddar and bacon sandwich. Since we were so impressed with the experience so far, I really wanted to like this wine but in the end agreed with Chris that it was a bit too thin and acidic. The second was the 2008 riesling icewine with a grilled Gorgonzola and spinach sandwich. Chris felt the gorgonzola was too strong for the wine but we weren't really there to review the cheese, and I personally don't think a gorgonzola can be too strong. This riesling was entirely different from the one we tasted earlier in the day at Angels Gate. It was very juicy, like biting into a ripe green apple, and somewhat more syrupy. It's finish wasn't quite as clean as most icewines, implying not enough acidity, but I actually like this quality. (The longer it lingers on the tongue, the less likely I am to drink the whole bottle!) Interestingly, the wine really picked up the grilled butter on the baguette. Since this is the second time I've noticed this, I'm determined to try serving icewine with Grandma's traditional Scottish shortbread next Christmas season. For the bottle I did buy, I was thinking maybe grilled pineapple to go with it. (Please comment if you think that's a terrible idea and a waste of an otherwise good bottle!)
No comments:
Post a Comment