Vieni Estates 2012 Foch Vintage Reserve (Ontario VQA)

Vieni 2012 Foch Vintage Reserve (Ontario VQA)

I was impressed to find this fine Ontario Foch at Vintages recently. Truth be told, it sort of flew over my radar, having been released this past summer.

The wine pours with a beautiful, and typical, saturated deep-garnet colour that fades to a "weathered sumac" black-mahogany hue at the meniscus. It opens up in the glass with wonderful, big, quality aromatic oak aromas. Mingling with that, there are tart black currant and blue plum aromas. Aromatically, this reminds me of the many reserve Fochs that graced the Ontario wine scene right up to Y2K.

On the palate, there is tart, lithe acidity and a clean, dry, palate-cleansing texture that carries the fruit and oak aromas right across it — with power, lightness, and elegance, all at the same time. This is classic Ontario Foch.

The finish is dry and elegant, with replays of the same aromatic compounds.

It is a shame that so many excellent examples of varietal Maréchal Foch have disappeared from the Ontario wine scene over the past decade. For this reason, it is a joy to find a winery producing a treat like this, from a grape that deserves much more respect in this part of the world for climatic suitability and innate quality characteristics.

The wine retails for less than $20 and is 14% alc./vol.

2012 Villa Nova Estate Aenigma

I recently visited Villa Nova Estate Winery, located in Ontario's Norfolk County. I had read about their wines online and wanted to try them - especially the Aenigma, which is a blend of Regent, Frontenac, and Cab Sauvignon.

Previous to this, I don't ever recall seeing a wine for sale in Ontario made using the Regent variety. Regent was created in Germany in 1967 by crossing Diana (Silvaner x Müller Thurgau) and Chambourcin (see here for more information). This is a very welcome addition to the wine scene in Ontario.

The 2012 Aenigma is interesting not just for the blend of grapes it consists of, but also for the fact that it is finished with Ontario white oak - something that is still a rarity here. I heartily applaud this decision to use locally sourced oak, both for the unique flavour profile and for the regional authenticity.

Aenigma pours with a beautiful, dense garnet colour that turns to deep magenta at the rim of the glass. Obviously, Regent has inherited the amazing pigmentation of other V. riparia-based hybrids. Fruity, spicy oak hints mingle with pepper-infused black cherry notes to create a very elegant bouquet. Moderate acidity leads the way, with a beautifully dry mid-palate on which superb puckery tannins flesh out broadly. Subtle oak-spice replays fan out at this point and linger prominently into the dry, tasty finish. The wine is 14% alc./vol. but everything is so well balanced that the finish displays just a gentle warmth.

This is a most excellent wine - one that I will be proud to serve on my dinner table in the future. An excellent blend with character, quality and structure. Once again - if you need a vinifera equivalent to gauge the style, think of the Chianti Classico style.

I would also add that this wine has clearly convinced me that Regent deserves a prominent place in Ontario's winescape: it produces an excellent red wine.

$14.50 per 750 ml bottle. Available at the winery only.

2011 Coffin Ridge "Back From the Dead Red" (Ontario VQA)

According to the back label, this Foch-based blend consists of 78.5% Foch, 12.3% Merlot and 9.2% Cabernet (type not specified). The bottle is closed with a high-quality natural cork. 

This Foch-based wine pours with a beautiful, inky beet-purple colour that is so typical of the grape. The nose of the wine is representative of Foch, with intense, spicy black-cherry, pinpoint blackcurrant and intriguing brackish aromas that speak to the V. riparia heritage of Foch.

There's zippy acidity on the entry, with expansive cherry and classic herbaceous flavours across the palate. On the mid-palate, a nice streak of tannin is noted, and this is likely provided by the Merlot and Cabernet component. The finish is zippy, but nicely balanced (12.5% alc./vol.). The wine has a superb blackcurrant bouquet, is quite dry, and is both flavourful and cleansing.

The blackcurrant aromas remind me of the Old Vines Foch that Inniskillin used to make in the 1990s: the very wine that turned me on to Ontario red hybrid wines.

A recommended, characterful red wine from Grey County.

The wine is available at Vintages at the time of writing (search for local availability via the LCBO Product ID: 260463). The wine sells for $17.

2012 Scotch Block Winery Halton Hills Blanc

The Scotch Block Halton Hills Blanc is a relatively new wine. It pours with a very clear, pale straw colour and some minor effervescence along the bottom of the glass. It has a very pretty hue in the glass.

Upon swirling the glass, aromas of pineapple, cantaloupe and honeydew emerge; some citrus-rind notes and pine needle can be picked up as well. It's a fresh, crisp, inviting nose.

There's excellent balance right on the entry, with crisp acidity and just a slight residual sweetness. The wine is crisp and balanced, with good flavour replay. It's a well structured and substantive white wine that goes with just about anything calling for a white dinner wine. The wine comes in at 11% alc./vol.

The citrus/lemon-rind notes continue along the palate and right into the finish. There is some slight warmth, and the finish is clean and cleansing.

Based on the Cayuga White grape variety, this is one of the best white wines I've had from Scotch Block to-date. Available at the winery only, and highly recommended.

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.

What Ontario needs is a good $7 local red

Imagine a really fine local red selling for about $7 a bottle, grown right here in Ontario.  It doesn't really seem to exist at the moment... but is there any reason why that should be?

Hybrid grapes like Baco, Foch and Dechaunac could easily fit the bill.

About ten years ago, it was still possible to buy varietal Foch of tremendous quality for about $8-9 a bottle.  These reds were oaked, and had a lot of personality.  They were amazing wines to serve with pizza and ribs, and in good years, had enough body to stand alone as sipping wines.

And then, as if in near unison, most of those wines disappeared.

Dechaunac is a one case in point.  Lakeview cellars made an amazing, straightforward varietal Dechaunac up until about 1999 that sold for under nine bucks a bottle.  It was the perfect Ontarian vin de table.  It went superbly with pizza, or wings.  It was versatile and flavourful.

Such wines should still be available.

Notes from the Outer Limits of Ontario Wine event

The Outer Limits of Ontario Wine tasting took place on Monday evening at the Savoy Bistro & Lounge in downtown Toronto, with a large number of Ontarian country wineries represented. The main focus was on wines made from varieties and/or grown in locations that are currently not recognized under the VQA (Vintners' Quality Alliance) system. There were some truly fabulous wines poured at this event - many fruit wines, but also a great many grape wines - and several very exciting wines made with entirely new hybrid varieties which I was fortunate to sample and take notes on.

First of all, I greatly applaud the idea behind this tasting: Ontarians need to learn more about the home-grown wine scene, its dynamism and especially its promising future. There are some talented winemakers out there who are truly playing a key part in the creation of a wine culture rooted in our province. Here are my notes on what I feel are several noteworthy wines at the evening's tasting.

2006 Georgian Hills Vineyards Seyval Blanc
This was easily my top white wine of the evening - and what an amazing wine it is. The fruit is 100% Seyval Blanc grown near Thornbury, Ontario, virtually adjacent to Georgian Bay (more specifically, Nottawasaga Bay). Wineries are scant in this part of Ontario, but a few new ones are on the verge of opening and I sense a strong future for wine in this part of the province. I was not sure what to expect when winemaker Lindsay Puddicombe poured me a sample, but I was immediately struck by its clarity and aromatic power. At 13.5% alc., the wine is a brilliant light straw colour; big fruity aromas of lemon, papaya, minerals and pineapple jump out of the glass. On the palate it is intensely focused, crisp and balanced with a most admirable minerality and structure. This is without a doubt the best Seyval Blanc I have ever tasted from Ontario - it is far better than any I've had from Niagara Peninsula, which suggests that something in the climate further up north and possibly very talented hands (most likely!) had to do with its success.

2006 Coffin Ridge "Back From The Dead Red"
Nearby, Coffin Ridge in Meaford, Ontario, has produced an inaugural blend consisting of Sabrevois, Dechaunac, Foch, Leon Millot and Chambourcin. Inky ruby-purple in colour, the nose of the wine is light and spicy yet complex with slight hints of bacon in the background, making for an appetizing aromatic profile. On the palate, the flavours follow through leading to a generally light-bodied yet clean and moderately tannic wine. A noteworthy and unique blend of hybrids grown in an area that doesn't see much viticulture but that could (and should) see more activity.

Black Prince Winery non-vintage First Crush Vidal
As the winery's website states, this wine is made "from a blend of Prince Edward County and Lake Erie North Shore fruit from 2 vintages". It is a lovely, crisp, fruity, well-structured and refreshing white wine showing aromas of apricot, peach and pineapple - very typical Vidal. The winery has also produced a 2006 vintage Vidal, but I didn't see this particular wine at the tasting.

Moving from the Georgian Bay area to Prince Edward County (eastern Lake Ontario area), we now move southwest - this time to Viewpointe Estate Winery, located on the north shore of Lake Erie in Essex County. I feel myself very fortunate to have stopped at this exhibit, since the experimental wines available for tasting were true eye-openers and, more than this, a source of immense and unforeseen inspiration for the future of hybrid reds in general. The grape varieties used to make the wines are completely new hybrids with Cabernet Sauvignon parentage created by Valentin Blattner, and are colloquially referred to as the "Blattner hybrids" - for now, the hybrids bear numbers rather than names. Notes follow on each of the samples.

2005 Viewpointe Estate Winery Blattner HG01
Inky purple, funky and tannic! What immense hybrid colour and feral aromas - yet at the same time, a fully vinifera-like mid-palate with a strong but balanced tannic structure and great balance of acidity, tannin and extract. Quite reminiscent of Norton/Cynthiana aromatically.

2005 Viewpointe Estate Winery Blattner HG03
Inky! Smoky, complex, meaty nose. Excellent balance, much like HG01; smoky and wild flavours that remind me of the very fine 1999 Blumenhof Cynthiana (Vitis aestivalis native American red wine) from Dutzow, Missouri, that I tasted some years ago. Fine, balanced (acidity and tannin) structure. Exemplary and promising - I really enjoyed it.

2005 Viewpointe Estate Winery Blattner HG04
This wine was more lifted and fruity on the nose than either the HG01 or the HG03, but it still had the same delightful wildness about it. It seemed more acidic and less tannic than the other two, however.

There was also a blend of all these Blattner varieties, and while I enjoyed it as well, I found myself preferring the individual wines made from hybrids HG01 and HG03. These fascinating grapes truly need to get better known; I can only imagine what they could do for our wine scene in Ontario, especially since they offer what so many winemakers have long searched for: grapes that produce red wine with structure and depth in our short seasons and that are climatically suitable given our winters. Based on what I tasted, I think that the Blattner varieties could hold a significant key in these areas.

Kawartha Country Winery 2006 Buckhorn Premier Vintage
This wine, a blend of Sabrevois and Frontenac (two extreme-cold-hardy hybrids more frequently seen in Minnesota and Quebec) was also featured at Fiesta Buckhorn on July 22nd (the winery is located near Buckhorn) and I tried it there for the first time. Light-to-medium ruby in colour, it is 12% alc./vol. and has a fruity light nose of cherries and apples - though it is of course made completely from grapes. Light-to-medium bodied with a slight fruity sweetness on the mid-palate and some tannic structure as well. I thought the wine was significant in that it was produced entirely from locally grown grapes and therefore represents a truly local wine in a region that historically has been deemed unsuitable for viticulture. Obviously, realities are changing and happily, courageous and forward-thinking winemakers are rendering that negative view obsolete. I applaud them for it.

There were many more wines at the Outer Limits tasting, but I only took notes on the ones that struck me either for their varietal makeup or for their novel locations within the province - and in some cases, both. I am truly glad to have been at the event, and especially to have tried the Blattner hybrids.

2006 Hart Cellars Vignoles (Lake Erie, NY)

Although the Vignoles grape is probably most frequently used for late-harvest and possibly cryogenic icewines, this is a grape that clearly makes a most enjoyable table wine too, as evidenced by the 2006 example produced by home winemaker Howie Hart in New York State. I have consistently picked up a strong, pin-point pineapple nose in Vignoles table wines – including those from Michigan – and that same aroma is there in all its glory in Howie's wine. Vignoles is all about fruit – and that's what makes it an interesting and versatile variety. We do not have any wineries producing commercial Vignoles in Ontario, and personally I think it is a pity since this could be yet another suitable grape for our climate.

2005 Presque Isle Wine Cellars Noiret™ (Pennsylvania)

The 2005 Presque Isle Wine Cellars Noiret™ from Pennsylvania was a revelation when I recently tasted it at the annual NiagaraCool wine picnic in North Tonawanda, New York. I fully concur with the official description of the wine: it is very peppery and meaty, and is genuinely a hybrid that makes a completely vinifera-like red wine. Had I not known what I was trying, my first guess would have been Blauer Zweigelt from Austria for the peppery spice and the deep, dark cherry-ruby colour (something that would have ruled out Blaufränkisch – also known as Lemberger – for me, since it doesn’t usually get that dark despite the similarity of aromas). My second guess would have been a locally produced Syrah from an exceptional vintage. Noiret™ has a fully vinifera-like aromatic and flavour profile and has vinifera-like tannin structure too; this is contrasted by the traditional hybrids, which produce wines with acid-defined structures and minimal tannin. I believe that this grape, once it becomes more widespread in the Northeast (and possibly in Canada, should wineries here take note of its potential) might finally bridge the wide divide between the vinifera and old-line hybrid schools of thought – simply because, although it is a hybrid and amenable to our terroir, it possesses the familiar flavours of classic Old World varieties that don’t require what is an uncomfortable paradigm shift for significant numbers of wine fanciers. Click on this link (it leads to a PDF file) to learn more about this new-generation hybrid grape.