We saw Magnotta as a learning opportunity as it offered a 'horizontal' tasting of 3 dessert wines, each made with vidal grapes harvested at different times of the season. (On a side note, we had only recently tried a regular harvest, table wine vidal for the first time, a 2009 Pelee Island Winery Vidal Monarch. We really enjoyed experiencing the vidal flavour without the concentrated sweetness of dessert wine, since its sugar level is only 1.) By comparison, Magnotta's first offering was its 2010 Harvest Moon Vidal, with a sugar level of 7. It's a fun wine, very fruity with an acidity that bites the tongue like limonade, an Italian blend of carbonated water and lemonade. They served it with a creamy brie that cut right through the sweetness and acidity to reveal a pleasant banana flavour. Anyone who likes pink wine would like this one!
Next up, instead of a late harvest, was a vidal passito with a sugar rating of 10. Passito is an Italian dessert wine that concentrates the juice by letting the grapes bake in the sun, instead of waiting for them to freeze as with icewine. That's probably why I found the predominant taste to be of gold, juicy raisins. Chris categorized it as "sherry made from vidal grapes". It was served with fontina cheese, and the salt affected this wine just like the cream did the last one, by breaking through the sweetness and the high alcohol content. Finally, we sampled the 2007 vidal icewine, a 23 on the sugar scale. It opens with a taste of honey which gives way to dramatic peach and apricot flavours; if you have this bottle, drink it now because it wont develop any more than this. Chris even thinks it's reached its cooking years, and suggests using it in a marinade, a salad dressing or over ice cream. (I'm not sure he's ever tried any of those things before, but they all sound like good ideas!)
So we left empty handed. As for Magnotta's wine store itself, the phrase "lipstick on a pig" comes to mind. The floor space is divided between carefully arranged displays of icewines and utilitarian shelving to store its large stock. They seem to keep bottles of everything they make on hand, and they make a lot; local grape varieties, imported grape blends, aperitifs, iced fruit wines, and port. You can even buy wine making supplies, or stock up on its most popular labels in 4L boxes! The signage and shelf cards are not overly helpful, acting more as an inventory management system than a marketing tool. The tasting bar and cash register area are filled with high margin kitsch, but I admit I was impressed at their selection of Riedel glasses. Even the private tasting room for the festival was awkward, as other customers would inadvertently walk in but then get shooed out by the server. The next time I taste Magnotta wines will be at the LCBO.
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