Wine & Herb day 4 (Sauvignon Blanc)

Although we toured 4 different wineries on the last day of the Wine & Herb event, we enjoyed Stonechurch Vineyards so much that it gets its own blog entry.  We had no prior expectations for this winery and chose to visit only because we were tasting all the sauvignon blancs that were on offer in the passport that day.  It's somewhat off the beaten path, meaning its not on Lakeshore Road, Niagara Stone Road or Niagara Parkway, but we enjoyed the drive past fields, orchards and farmhouses before arriving just in time to see a group departing on a guided wagon-pull tour of the vineyards.

 

Along the entrance way, its hard not to notice how carefully tended are the numerous brightly coloured gardens.  Attention has been paid to many details of the decor, and it successfully strikes the elusive balance of eclectic without being tacky, quaint but elegant, authentic shabby-chic.  Inside there are three distinct areas, the first of which is the spacious wine bar.  Its retail products are more unique than other winery boutiques, offering an extensive array of Brickstone condiments and various entertaining utensils, including two different sets of "amuse bouche" spoons.  (That impressed me!) 

We headed through the boutique to the extension off the back, essentially a barn, which had been tastefully decorated for a private event but which was temporarily housing the Wine & Herb tasting.  Here we tried the 2009 Sauvignon Blanc paired with a tabbouleh salad featuring quinoa, fresh parsley and cucumber.  The wine first presents a soft whiff of freshly cut, dewy grass.  Its following taste is very clean, dry and smooth, and Chris and I both noticed a slight taste of lime ("tropical fruit" in the winery's online tasting notes).  The wine accented the parsley and the cucumber beautifully, and would be an excellent accompaniment to several mild Mediterranean dishes.  Since I have just such a recipe in my cue just now, we picked up a bottle for $12.95 and agreed that our next two stops of the day would have a lot to live up to.

Wine & Herb Day 3 (Chardonnay)

I'd never really liked Chardonnay until quite recently, when Flat Rock convinced me to give it another chance. I know other times I've said that chardonnay confuses me. On our third day of Wine and Herb touring, though, I started to understand why; chardonnay is very diverse, so much so that it's sometimes hard to find similarities between different wines made from the same type of grape. That was certainly the case when we visited Palatine Hills Estate Winery, Lailey Vineyard, and Marynissan Estate Wines, even though these 3 chardonnays themselves only represent a small subset of what's available in the region.  Actually, each winery really stood out in one regard or another.

Best Food - Marynissan Estates Wines

Marrynissan served its 2008 BFBA Chardonnary.  BFBA stands for barrel-fermented, barrel-aged, meaning this chardonnay is oaked, explaining its big nose of toasted vanilla.  Unfortunately, that didn't flow through to the palate.  Although very smooth, the lemony flavour seemed sour in light of the sweet smell.  We did find though, that the food pairing of spicy gazpacho featuring sweet basil eliminated the sourness, improving the wine's flavour while highlighting the winery's featured spice.  Chris absolutely loved the gazpacho, but we found when we sat down to write our tasting notes two minutes later, that was the only flavour we could recall, hence the rather short description of the wine.

Best Pairing - Palatine Hills Estate Winery

Palatine gets points for creativity and effort.  It combined its assigned spice, anise, with a hot caramel sauce, which it used as a topping over Hewitt's Cannonballs ice cream, a special flavour to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the War of 1812.  (The wine boutique also has war relics found on its property on display.)  It then topped the whole concoction with tiny blackballs, further highlighting the black licorice flavour of the anise.  The wine to accompany this was the 2008 Neufeld Vineyard Chardonnay, which I noticed has a rather spicy (but clean) nose for a chardonnay.  This wine was oaked longer than that of Marynissan, which might be what I was smelling.  Chardonnay is often described as buttery, something I've never fully understood, but I did start to notice a creamy sensation  which the ice cream accentuated.  I also remarked that the body felt somehow thick, with a toasty or smoky background flavour.  This wine is not at all dry.  We did not taste the citrus that the bottle's tasting notes promised, but this could be because the anise, blackballs and caramel focused our attention on the wine's creaminess and mild spiciness. 

Best Chardonnay wine - Lailey Vineyard

Like the last time we visited Lailey, it used the festival to introduce a new release, its 2011 Unoaked Chardonnay.  It's smell was barely noticeable, but Chris indicated a light passion fruit note.  The label describes flavours of honeydew and stone fruit, which I interpreted as melon and perhaps nectarine.  Its lightly creamy texture was really the only thing distinguishing it as a chardonnay.  Being fermented and aged in steel, its flavour and finish are both very clean.  We have two chardonnays in inventory just now, one fully oaked and one lightly oaked.  If there was more room in the bar, this would make a nice contribution, and has solidified Lailey as one of our go-tos on both the wine route and in the LCBO.

Wine & Herb day 2 (Riesling)

Since the Wine & Herb passport includes Fridays, and because Carrie and I always get the Friday before the long weekend off work, we headed out for the afternoon to the three wineries exhibiting their rieslings: Joseph's Estates Winery, Ravine Vineyard , and Maleta Estate Winery.  We also stopped by The Ice House, because it was on our route and its assigned spice was arugula, which I absolutely love.  Since I've blogged about Joseph's and Ravine before, I'll focus here just on the riesling pairings, and will give a more thorough review of our visits to Maleta and the Ice House at a later date.

The Contender - Ravine Vineyard

Coming third in a 3 person race perhaps isn't something to brag about, so I should note that all 3 rieslings we tried today were very enjoyable.  I should also note that Carrie disagrees with me about the relative order of 3rd and 2nd place.  Our main point of contention is that Carrie likes sweet wine, and Ravine Vineyard's 2010 Estate Riesling rates a 3 on the sugar scale.  The server explained that this is an organic wine, and that its sweetness is the result of a particular fungus which would be eliminated were the vines to be chemically treated.  After a weak grassy nose, I was a little taken back by both the sweetness and body of this wine, for an Ontario riesling, and I invented a new category: boat wine.  (Boat wine is wine my parents would drink on a Sunday afternoon at their boat, requiring no food accompaniment and often leading to a headache despite not tasting in any way like alcohol.  The exemplar for all boat wine is the Beringer White Zinfandel from California.)  The wine's flavour is fruity, and lemon seems to stick in my mind, but this is probably because it was paired with a lemon tart infused with citrus thyme.  The intense lemon flavour from the dessert seemed to suck up all of the wine's sweetness, leaving behind a flatter, more tart taste, especially on the sides of the tongue.

The Runner Up: Joseph's Estate

Joseph's offered a very similar pair, matching its 2007 Riesling to a lemon square seasoned with thyme.  In this dessert, the lemon was slightly more subtle, the crust more buttery and flaky and the thyme more prominent; Joseph's definitely did a better job with its assigned herb pairing.  Although Joseph's does bottle a sweet riesling, it offered instead its drier version, a 0.5 on the sugar scale.  It has a weak nose with a hint of grass, and a clean flavour featuring yellow grapefruit.  There was initially a pronounced tartness near the front of the tongue, but the addition of the lemon square dulled it, evening out its taste and consistency.  The resulting flavour was very much like that of Ravine's combination.  If that's the result I was looking for, though, I would be far more likely to buy the Joseph's bottle at $9.95 than the Ravine one at $28.  (It is entirely possible that I just don't know how to appreciate extra-sweet rieslings though, or that organically produced wines always sell at a premium.)

The Winner: Maleta Estate

Maleta's 2010 Riesling is all around more subtle, complex and sophisticated than the other two visits of the day.  I noted an aroma of tomato vine or stem but didn't take any notes about the delicate taste as I was too distracted by the fantastic and well thought-out pairing of baguette, brie and marmalade made with the assigned spice, pineapple sage.  (I'd never heard of pineapple sage; it looks like regular sage but smells like pineapple.)  The wine was very well balanced, falling in between Joseph's and Ravines on sweetness and smoothness.  Like Joseph's, though, it must be purchased at the winery (for $16.95) as it is not available at the LCBO.

Emily's 30th Birthday

After spending the weekend in a Niagara-on-the-Lake cottage, my contribution to the festivities was to plan a wine route on the way back to Hamilton for myself and three other girls.  Our first stop was Reif Estate Winery, where tours are offered daily at 11:30 am and 1:30 pm for $5 per person.  The guided tour lasted about 30 minutes, taking us through Reif's sensory garden, antique barrel storage, vineyards, production facilities and bottling line.  In hindsight, leading such a tour for a group including a chemist and an engineer seems like a daunting task, but our guide, Jenn, did a fantastic job; by the end it basically felt like she was part of our group!  The tour ended in a private tasting room for the four of us where we sampled the following three wines.

Riesling - The 2009 Riesling, a 1 on the sugar scale (which I think translates to an 'M' for medium under Ontario's new sugar code system,) smells very green; think fresh cut grass, tomato stems or a rainy forest.  It's predominant flavour is lemon and its mild flavour fades away quickly and cleanly.  Although I didn't dislike it, it didn't stack up to the other two rieslings we had this weekend: a 2009 Angels Gate Susreserve and, my favourite, the 2009 Tawse Echos.

Cabernet-Merlot - In this 2009 blend, the cabernet franc really comes through on the nose with strawberry and leather.  Unfortunately, the strawberry was too prominent on the palate, tasting almost candied.  This is not a wine I would purchase and I think the girls agreed with me.

Vidal Icewine - The colour, the scent and the flavours of the 2009 Vidal Icewine were as close to perfect as they might be while still maintaining a unique expression of the winemaker.  I am so confident about this one that I plan on serving it to the folks over at Zippy Sauce the next time we visit.  On the server's advice, we swirled this wine quite vigorously, then swooshed it in our mouths like mouthwash.  Although it looked and felt ridiculous, it allowed us to experience all of the flavours - peach, apricot, honey, vanilla, caramel, mango - simultaneously and with a giggly smile!  At $47.05 per 375ml, this one's a "strong buy" in stock market terms, and we were able to use our tour tickets to get a $5 discount in the boutique.                

Wine & Herb day 1 (Gewurztraminer)

The Wine & Herb festival is a lot like February's Wine & Chocolate festival in that for the passport price you can visit each of 28 wineries once over the four weekends in May to taste one of their wines paired to their assigned herb.  This passport is more expensive ($43 + HST), probably because it's a lot easier to attract people to wine country when there's no snow on the ground, but also because it includes Friday evenings as part of the weekend.  Because there's much more variety in herbs than there is in chocolate, there's also a much wider variety of wines being offered amongst the different wineries, with several more white choices available than in the winter.  For day one, we stopped at three wineries all serving gewurztraminer, using the previous night's wine as a comparison.

Stop 1: Hillebrand Winery

THE WINE - The 2010 Artist Series Limited Edition Gewurztraminer had an airy, floral bouquet, followed through with a taste of rose petal and lychee.  It would be very drinkable on its own, or with mildly to moderately spiced food, but would not stand up to spicer Indian or Thai food.  At only 13% alcohol, the first taste was a bit sour, but not for long.

THE FOOD - The chef from the winery's on-site restaurant prepared a creamy carrot and leek soup containing several spices, including its assigned coriander.  The creaminess instantly coated our tongues, permanently taking away the wine's initial sourness.  The combination and interplay of the wine and the food was similar to what we tried the night before, but with more delicate flavours and spices.

WINERY'S BEST FEATURE - The entire property is beautifully constructed and landscaped, and I love tulips, but on this visit, it was the new loft tasting bar that really impressed us, both for its interesting assortment of decanters and for its very knowledgeable staff.

Stop 2: Jackson Triggs Winery

THE WINE - The 2009 Black Series Gewurztraminer is exemplary, in that it offers a little bit of everything that a gewurz should have: a mild nose of yeast with subdued flavours of lychee and rose petal contrasted with light spice and citrus (possibly grapefruit).  It's very light bodied, and despite its 14% alcohol content, offers no sour shock at the start.  I do wish it was a little dryer on the finish, but that's just my personal preference.

THE FOOD - I commend Jackson Triggs for taking on a difficult, not to mention expensive herb, but found that its saffron aioli tasted more like mayo than saffron.  This was used to dip naan-bread pizza topped with partially dried tomatoes.  These were all interesting flavours, but didn't come together the way I think they intended, so the effect of the pair was lost on me.

WINERY'S BEST FEATURE - Although Jackson Triggs looks quite industrial from the front, the tasting bar at the back offers a relaxing patio overlooking the rear vineyards.  They also host a vineyard concert series in the summer that we're sure to return for.

 Stop 3: Konzelmann Estate Winery

THE WINE - The 2010 Late Harvest Gewurztraminer was Chris' favourite wine of the day, but I'm not sure how it classifies itself as late harvest, as it rates only a 2 on the sugar scale and really isn't a dessert wine.  In colour and body, it was comparable to what we'd tried the night before, but better tasting with little sourness and a creamier texture.

THE FOOD - Konzelmann's assigned spice was lavender, which it baked with honey into biscotti.  Although unimpressive on its own, the biscotti worked nicely with the wine, the lavender bringing out the wine's natural spiciness and the honey rounding out all of the flavours.

WINERY'S BEST FEATURE - The vineyards sit right on the lakeshore, offering a pituresque view of lake Ontario and the Toronto skyline.

Gewurztra-weekend!

My last two wine and food pairing attempts didn't go as well as I'd hoped and I really wanted to knock one out of the park so I picked a wine from our bar, (2010 Angel's Gate Gewurztraminer), and consulted the Canadian Wine Wheel before designing the menu.  Along with several incarnations of the word, "spicy", it specifically suggested coriander, cumin, five spice and garam masala, leading me to Indian cuisine; samosas contain all of those!  It also suggested sweet potato as a vegetable, and I knew of a salad I'd been wanting to try with roasted yams and a whole slew of fresh spices.  The salad recipe came from the vegetarian cookbook, Plenty, from which every meal is both yummy, and painstakingly difficult.  The first challenge in this one was finding a particular ingredient: dried Persian limes.  Three different stops and 1/4 tank of gas later, I found them at an Arabic store on  Concession St. between Upper Wentworth and Upper Wellington.  The next challenge was the preparation; most salads don't require the use of a roasting pan, a frying pan, a sauce pan and a rice cooker!  The samosas were much easier, since we cheated and got takeout from The Himalaya, a vegetarian East Indian restaurant near Eastgate Mall.  We also picked up our dessert there, consisting of various brightly coloured pastries.

Onto the wine, we'd tried this gewurz before, and remember liking it, but do tend to have a positive bias towards Angels Gate.  It has a striking gold colour to it and its bouquet features what Chris calls citrus and what I call dish soap, which I mean in a nice way.  The initial taste has two dominant features: minerality and alcohol, only the first of which is good.  The sourness did weaken both as the wine aerated and as we ate.  Actually, this turned out to be a perfect pair, or trio, as it were.  The wine picked up the spices in the samosas which in tern brought out the spices in the wine, and the flavour intensities were evenly matched.  Meanwhile, the sweet potato and feta in the salad worked to cool down our mouths, and the dried lime, mint and lemon juice all played off of the wine's citrus notes.  Once the food was gone and the wine had had more time to breathe, its dominant flavour became sour green apple, and it shared the quick dryness of the fruit.

Overall, we like this wine but find it really needs food and aeration, both anomalies for an Ontario white.  I'd like to find one with a similar body and flavour but either less alcohol or more sugar to alleviate the sourness.  That will be our goal tomorrow as we  head out for the first weekend of Niagara-on-the-Lake's Wine & Herb festival to taste 3 other gewurz pairings.  I might add, though, to keep this wine far away from desserts.  Later in the evening when we tried our extra-sweet treats from Himalaya, the wine became too sour to drink by comparison!