Non-vintage "Brunch" Red Field Blend (Ontario VQA)

In these days of rising wine prices, it was interesting to find this blend. Apparently a non-vintage wine, it retails for only $9.95. The LCBO entry for this product identifies it as a blend of Baco Noir, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, and Gamay...but the rear label of the bottle I have simply states Baco Noir and Cabernet Franc. Maybe it differs from batch to batch.

13% alc./vol. The colour is a nice, deep, dark-scarlet colour with that typical Baco colouration and magenta meniscus. The nose is all Baco—tart raspberries and a savoury hickory note, with a hint of wood chips wafting out of the glass.

Tart on the entry, again displaying the Baco front and centre. Cleansing and dry with an acid-driven structure and a zippy acidity on the mid-palate. Not much tannin here at all, so I'm guessing that the proportion of Cab Franc isn't that much.

The price is right and the quality is fine—though I'm wondering why the producer chose to release this as a non-vintage blend.

2013 Magnotta Dry Vidal Equus Series (Ontario VQA)

I remember enjoying this wine tremendously many years ago. I'm happy to say that Magnotta's dry Vidal, while having undergone a name and label change since the early days, is as fine a wine as I remember it.

In fact, I love dry Vidal table wine so much that the background on my blog is a photo of Vidal grapes growing in Niagara wine country. Vidal is one of Ontario's most versatile wine grapes.

12.8% alc./vol. Clear, medium-straw/yellow hue in the glass. Wonderful aromas of lemon candy, pineapple, pine needles and guava. Crisp and focused on the entry, with that lively and lovely varietal acidity; a warm but balanced texture; and a palate-cleansing, fully dry finish that I appreciate.

Magnotta's retail outlet is a fine place to visit and the prices are right. I have long believed that Magnotta makes Ontario's best dry Vidal table wine... I still believe it, having tasted this version.

$7.45 for a 750 ml bottle, and worth every penny.

2014 Peller Estates Baco Noir (Ontario VQA)

This is one of the best Bacos in Ontario: it is always fairly priced and done well.

Deep ruby-black with a ruby-magenta meniscus. Aromas of sweet plummy fruit and wild V. riparia grapiness. Mouth-filling, with bright, tense acidity and great structure. 2014 wasn't a great vintage for reds in Ontario, but Baco and its other V. riparia-derived brethren typically manage to shine, despite such obstacles.

Invigorating, palate-enlivening mouth feel, coupled with a dash of balancing residual sweetness and typical diminutive tannins.

The finish is clean and lean, and it leaves your palate refreshed.

12% alc./vol. Screw cap closure. $11.95 on general list at the LCBO.

2013 St. Julian Reserve Traminette (Lake Michigan Shore)

A wonderful white wine from Michigan. It pours with a clear, pale straw colour. 12% alc./vol. The nose has the typical spicy/rosewater nose of Gewürztraminer, with a hint of the aromas typical of Riesling and Vidal—though this is varietal Traminette.

A bright, lemony acidity sweeps the palate, fanning out to reveal lemony, floral fruit and a balancing residual sweetness. There's lots of floral flavour in this wonderful Michigan wine. Crisp and off-dry, it works both as a standalone sipper and with food.

It went well with herbed, grilled chicken breast. A good buy, and a good representation of the Traminette grape.

2013 Peller Estates Baco Noir (Ontario VQA)

The 2013 Peller Estates Baco Noir pours with a deep, dark garnet core that turns bright ruby at the meniscus.

The bouquet shows fantastic aromas of plums, prunes and brackish, wild, Vitis riparia. The texture has a bright, clean, crisp, invigorating and tart entry with tart blue plum flavours that fan across the palate. There's excellent fruitiness.

The texture is warm, balanced, clean and cleansing, with acidity leading and tannin playing back-up.

The finish is crisp all the way across the palate, with a clean and bright personality. There's prune jam and tartness on the finish.

This Baco has 12.5% alc./vol. It costs $10.95 and can be found on regular list at the LCBO. It's bottled with a screwcap closure.

An excellent, clean Baco...at an exemplary price!!

2012 Konzelmann Baco Noir (Ontario VQA)

Konzelmann's 2012 Baco Noir pours with a black-garnet colour that fades to magenta near the rim of the glass. There's great colour in this Baco, as in virtually all Bacos. As with most reds, this wine needs some decanting to come into its own - and it actually integrated really well within a day of being opened.

On the nose are aromas of plum, and a briny, bacon-like note that makes me think of Syrah; there are also hints of fine brackish scents from the grape's Vitis riparia lineage.

On the entry there is light acidity that is quite mellow for a Baco. It's a good thing, as the wine shows exemplary balance. A nice overlay of fine-grained tannin covers the palate and is followed by moderate warmth (12% alc./vol.), leading to a pleasant finish.

The wine is said to be slightly oaked, but I think that more overt oak would do the wine very well. Baco handles oak very well, and the oak adds not only wood tannins but additional olfactory and gustatory layers.

Konzelmann's Baco is bottled in a one-litre size and is available at the winery only, for $11.95.

2012 Reif Estate Vidal (Ontario VQA)

The 2012 Reif Vidal pours with a very light, pale greenish straw colour. Initially shy on the nose, the wine showed more of a bouquet a day after being opened and kept in the fridge.

After it warmed up and upon being swirled in the glass, the Vidal revealed clean, light pineapple aromas and a hint of pine needles. The entry is clean, crisp and light; some tangerine rind (common to Vidal table wines) shows up on the fore-palate. Very crisp and dry on the finish, with some warmth rounding it out (12% alc./vol.). Apparently, this wine has 10 g/L of residual sugar (as per the LCBO product description), but it tastes drier.

Overall, this is a light-bodied Vidal. It works really well as an aperitif, but also with any main course calling for a light, dry white wine.

Purchased for $9.95 on general list at the LCBO.

I like to think of Vidal being to Ontario what Grüner Veltliner is to Austria: a regionally recognizable grape that may not be one of the "mainstream" varieties, but that can be counted on to produce quality table wine with a defined character. 

Vidal is, in fact, a very versatile grape: it produces everything from icewines to late-harvest wines, off-dry table wines - and dry crisp wines, like this one. It's well worth checking out.

2011 20 Bees Baco Noir (Ontario VQA)

The wine pours with a beautiful dark garnet core and a magenta meniscus. The aromas are very Baco - but more in a fruity rather than funky way: bright raspberries cloaked in cherries; crispy bacon aromas round it all out. Tart, juicy, invigoratingly brisk entry; mouth-filling, cleansing acidity dominates the texture. Light bodied and tartish, but balanced. Diminutive tannins carry through on the mid-palate, and are followed by a wave of warmth across the aft-palate. The flavours all but peter out at this point; there is no strong or dominant flavour on the finish. I cannot pick up any oak in this wine.

This light Baco was purchased for less than ten bucks on general list at the LCBO. It is 12.5% alc./vol. and has been bottled with a screwcap closure. This would make a very decent pizza wine. As with all Bacos, it has that palate-cleansing quality that is particularly good if you're having cuts of meat that have some fat on them.

2011 Pelee Island Eco Trail Red (Ontario VQA)

A blend of 33% Baco Noir , 17% Chambourcin, 50% Cabernet Franc (according to the winery's website), this red comes with a natural, high-quality cork closure. It is 13% alc./vol.

Deep, yet clear, dark garnet with a good ruby tint. Some spice enters on the nose and is soon followed by Baco's brackish rootsy aromas, and a bit of cherry in the background. You can pretty much pick up each of the varieties and their contributions to the blend. Tart entry, with rootsy celeriac flavours, wrapped in a touch of oak spice. Brisk tartness, but good balance; a touch of warmth on the mid-palate, with more oak spice (very balanced) and that familiar Chambourcin cherry fruit, all rounding it out. Very invigorating.

A three-way red blend using a vinifera component, together with a hybrid component (or, as in this case, two hybrids), is a good formula. Years ago, Henry of Pelham made a Cabernet-Baco blend that showcased the best of each grape variety, and was a good blend.

This was a very good wine, and the price is right.

(Note: it was decanted for a bit over two hours.)

Ontarian Table Wines: A Call For Imagination and Originality

Grapes like Vidal, Seyval and Foch, which have established histories in Ontario's wine regions, are excellent varieties from which to create a whole new category of wine: inexpensive regional table wines. 

A while back I posted on the need for a good $7 local red wine.  It seems that you can walk into any LCBO and find lots of cheap Italian reds for around that price or a buck more; and that's great.  But why is it that Ontario's wineries don't offer a similar category - something akin to "vin de table" or "vino da tavola", but made from grapes that actually grow well here, cost relatively little to grow (compared to vinifera) and consistently fetch lower prices on the market?  Why should there not be excellent quality dry Seyvals and Vidals and Fochs for around $7-8 each?  In other words - something uncomplicated to have on the patio or to sip with pizza.  There is certainly the potential for this, but there doesn't seem to be the imagination to make it happen.

In fact, things have regressed in the past decade: there are fewer examples of these varietal wines on the shelves.  Foch has all but disappeared in Niagara, save maybe one or two producers.  Yet this grape should have been lauded as one of our absolute best red wine grapes - more so than the sour Baco Noir, which probably is best as a blending component.  So far, Malivoire is on the right path, although they, and others would also do well to offer a less expensive Foch so as to give the grape presence across the price points and increase its exposure.

I don't believe for a moment that wineries pulled their Foch because people didn't like it.  Lakeview Cellars, for example, made an amazing Foch up to the late 1990s, and it was a great value too.  Dark, inky, smoky, velvety wine ... all for about nine bucks.  D'Angelo winery in Amherstburg (near Windsor) probably made (still makes? I don't know) the very best Reserve Foch in the province.  Why is D'Angelo Foch not a household name in Ontario?

I think that what has done many of these varieties in is simply a form of dogmatism that is based on the perceived necessity of following international marketing; it is certainly not based on agricultural fact.  Farmers should run wineries, not marketers.  Quality starts not with grape name envy, but with what actually grows best in the region.  Then, you take quality winemaking, make the wine with imagination and tender loving care, and watch it move.

But, there has to be the imagination and the originality to want to do it.