Aboriginal Wine and Fine Dining Showcased During 2010 Winter Games
This press release seemed worth reporting here. I think the Nk’Mip Cellars project has been a perfect example of economic development gone right for an aboriginal community. And the event itself sounds fun, interesting, and tasty. Here’s the release:
In Short:
Nk’Mip Cellars is proud to announce that is has partnered with Kanata Cuisine and the BC Aboriginal Culinary Team to provide the world with gourmet Aboriginal dining experiences during the 2010 Winter Games. As North America’s first Aboriginal winery, the award-winning Osoyoos Indian Band venture winery is excited to share their passion for excellence in modern Aboriginal wine and cuisine.
More Information:
The event takes place at the Native Education College’s Longhouse, located at 285 East 5th Ave in Vancouver, near the trendy Main St. district. The Longhouse a place of positive energy, teaching and sharing is the perfect venue to host this unique opportunity highlighting Aboriginal cuisine. The 14 days of feasting will begin on February 14 and will run the duration of the Games. This intimate gathering has two seatings per evening, allowing 80 people per night to share in the experience.
The night will begin with a traditional welcome song that greets patrons in the longhouse’s firelit
gathering hall. Entertainment will be provided by Tzo’kam, an acclaimed family of performers
from the Lil’wat Nation. The songs of Tzo’Kam share their culture and heritage.
The entertainment will be followed by an authentic seven course aboriginal feast by Kanata Cuisine with wine pairings from Nk’Mip Cellars. The fine dining menu features delicious pairing such as braised bison short ribs with watercress and parsnip puree served with Nk’Mip’s 2006 Qwam Qwmt Meritage. Chef Ben Genaille, an instructor at Vancouver Community College’s Aboriginal Culinary program, and Theresa Contois of Kanata Cuisine explain that they “have developed a well balanced menu that showcases local and traditional ingredients prepared and plated for the gourmet palate.” This exclusive and unique event displays the best of Aboriginal pride and passion.
Partial proceeds from this venture will fund the Aboriginal Culinary Team’s journey to the IKA
Culinary Olympics being held in Erfurt, Germany in 2012. Kanata Cuisine’s goal is to demonstrate the elegance of Aboriginal food and wine as well as showcase our talented Culinary Team to the world.
Transform your taste buds and come taste all that Canada has to offer! Tickets for this event are
$245.00 excluding gratuities. Tickets can be purchased online through www.ticketweb.ca or
over the phone at 1.888.222.6608.
On the Path to BC: An Olympic Wine Relay
Posted by Shea in BC Wine, Canadian Wine, Spotlights, Vancouver 2010 Olympics - BC Wines on February 9th, 2010
Roots, origins – the great Odyssean questions. To compliment my recent article in Palate Press on BC’s wine industry, this article will look at the international influences of British Columbia’s wine styles. British Columbia does not have the same historical links to the European wine making tradition as many other regions in the “New World,” many of which saw grapes sailed over by European colonists from their “home” territory in Italy, Germany, and, mostly, France. The caché of French wine meant the potential for successful business endeavors for many colonists of the so-called “New World,” so these grape types have become the most important internationally.
However, BC’s wine experience with the famous vitis vinifera varieties from Europe began a lot later than most New World regions, with government sponsored replanting programs in the 1980’s responding to the new free trade agreements with the United States. BC’s relationship with European wine, therefore, is somewhat of a newly minted influence as winemakers in the province over the last 30 years have tried to discover what lessons are best learned from which Old World regions. This has been a diverse process and different wine makers have developed different philosophies in this respect. As a lead up to my Olympic themed articles profiling small BC wineries, this article will explore the most important international influences on BC wine production so we can start getting a sense of both the styles of wine that influence BC wine production and the unique directions that British Columbia may take its wine in the future. As much as the Olympics is a celebration of a kind of pre-discovered nationalism, BC’s wine growers are still in the process of trying to find a sense of place and a unique style of expression. To me, it’s these sorts of efforts to explore the meaning of place and tradition that gives our home significance. I’ll leave the dogmatic nationalism for the official sponsors.
Most of the regions that have been influential on British Columbia are cooler climate regions in Northern Europe, particularly those in Germany, Alsace, Burgundy and Friuli. Because of its worldwide brand dominance, Bordeaux has also been a significant influence in BC. In order to contextualize my future profiles of BC wineries, I will look at what it is about these regions that seems to be influencing winemakers here in British Columbia.
1. Germany
In some ways the most important “spiritual” influence on Canadian wine, with their famous dessert Eiswein (Icewine), which of course is what put Canada on the wine map to begin with. Now the connection extends much deeper with the importance of Riesling to BC’s now rising dry-wine star. While most of Germany’s exported Rieslings have been off-dry or sweet, the local appetite for Riesling is for the Trocken, or dry style of wine. Fermented longer and with higher alcohol, global appetite for these steely and mineral driven wines is now increasing.
While BC still predominantly produces Rieslings that are off-dry, some of the best producers are now emulating the Germans’ more palate challenging dry styles. These wines tend to focus on aromatics, clean lines, and a tremendous ability to pair with a diverse range of cuisines, from Thai to sushi. Riesling’s outstanding ability to pair with Asian and asian-influenced cuisines is particularly suited to British Columbia’s food scene, which, of course, is driven by massive pan-asian influence. In some ways, German Riesling is brought home in BC with its marriage to some of the best Asian food in the world.
2. France – Alsace
Alsace itself is a challenging place to sum up in a single style or movement. However, if we can focus on anything it is the fragrance of Alsatian wines, from Pinot Blanc to Pinot Gris and Gewurztraminer. Those intensely fragrant lychee-styled Gerwurztraminers have clearly influenced many wines in BC. While many in Alsace are making off-dry wines with considerable residual sugar, there are also those who produce very dry styles.
When it comes to BC, so far the predominating influence has been the success of the Alsatian off-dry style. Viscous and aromatic, these wines are easy to appreciate by those craving a little sweetness (as many new wine drinkers do). However, current market trends suggest that sweet-styled white wines are losing favour to the drier styles, so expect BC to start moving more towards the style of producers such as Trimbach and away from those of producers like Zind-Humbrecht or Weinbach.
Alsace is also the home to the most prolific use of biodynamics in France. While yet to catch on fully in BC, some of the better wineries here are starting to take notice of this practice and are adopting some of its techniques. While climate makes it extremely difficult to be fully biodynamic in BC, I have no doubt that many of the best wineries are going to start (if they haven’t already) paying more and more attention to the natural wine movement and what they can learn from it.
3. France – Burgundy
Burgundy is, of course, home to the world’s greatest Chardonnays and Pinot Noirs. While only a foolish winery in BC would try to recreate Burgundy, the importance of these two grapes to the British Columbia wine scene should not be underestimated. In some ways these wines have become both the holy grail and the great failure of many a BC wine maker, who seek to produce ‘noble’ wines of distinction, often without the terroir or experience to back it up.
However, while the best wineries won’t seek to emulate Burgundy, the spirit of expressing a sense of place in something delicate, noble, and ageworthy is (and will continue to be) an important motivator for BC wineries. Much emphasis here is put on the aromatic white wines that I discussed above, and for good reason. However, I now also believe that with the right philosophy, boldness, and spirit for experimentation, that some select sites in BC will be able to produce excellent Pinot Noir and Chardonnay with a unique sense of being from BC rather than elsewhere.
Forget the styles of Pinot Noir that try to emulate a California blockbuster wine, or the Chardonnays that taste like they’ve been drowned in coconut and vanilla custard – those are wines that are trying to be like somewhere else. The best BC Chardonnays and Pinot Noirs will not shy away from the challenges of our climate and soils. They will rarely, if ever, be perfect. And, they will never be Burgundy. But, such wines certainly have the potential to be high quality, local, artisanal products.
4. France – Bordeaux
Bordeaux’s influence on BC is a bit of a bug-bear for me. Most of the super-premium blends you see such as Oculus or Note Bene seek to reproduce a big Bordeaux blend. This is not easy to do in BC as most Cabernet and Merlot here cannot ripen the same way it can in Bordeaux, California, and even Washington. That said, it is possible to gather together enough ripe grapes to make the occasional super-cuvée. But, my question is, are they worth it?
To me the biggest influence Bordeaux has had on BC is in BC’s attempt to mimic the prestige market of Bordeaux. Lower your yields, sort your berries very carefully, slam on some glitzy name and packaging and out comes an $80 wine. Never mind that most of the vines in BC are still very young, or that BC just doesn’t have the length of ripening season to get proper aromatic complexity out of its Cabernet and Merlot based blends.
Undoubtedly, some of these wines do taste good; however, they also don’t tend to taste like anywhere. It is this lack of personality that tends not to excite me, even if a wine is decent.
Again, as with any claim I make, I remain open to be proven wrong.
5. Italy – Friuli
Friuli is probably an afterthought to many BC wine drinkers, and even wine makers. However, Friuli has been an influence on BC simply because not all Pinot Gris (or Grigios as the Italians say) have to be on the sweet side of things. Friuli, as opposed to Alsace, tends to make leaner, sharper, and cleaner Pinot Grigios, although the wines retain the intense aromatics.
While not a lot of wineries are emulating this style yet, as mentioned above, I think this will become a more important influence in the future and that, if it does, Pinot Gris in BC will start to get a lot more interesting.
I hope this little relay lends some context to the BC winery profiles that I will be writing in the next couple of weeks. I’m also curious to hear your comments – what wine regions and styles do you think are most influential in BC?
Spotlight on New World Pinot Noir: Le Vieux Pin “Belle” 2006
Posted by Shea in $40-$60, BC Wine, Canadian Wine, New World Pinot Noir, Pinot Noir, Spotlights, Very Good on February 6th, 2010
In the last post of my Spotlight on New World Pinot Noir I move, finally, to my home, British Columbia. I decided to approach this region last in order to reflect back on my experiences with the various New World regions as I searched for a BC Pinot Noir that could stand up in quality to these other regions. This is undoubtedly a tough task right now since the region is so young (at about 30 years) and the growing conditions for Pinot Noir not ideal.
In fact, British Columbia is one of the world’s most northerly wine growing regions, with an extremely short growing season and early frosts. However, on the other side of the spectrum, since it is the northernmost tip of the Sonora Desert, the inner Okanagan Valley also sees heat spikes up to 40 degrees centigrade in the summer. This sort of heat can shut the metabolic processes of wine grapes down completely, making for uneven ripening and unbalanced sugar levels. The large Lake Okanagan does produce a lake effect and so offers a cooling influence that can temper the impact of the severe temperatures (whether hot or cold), but there are still many challenges for growers in British Columbia.
Many believe that BC, and the Okanagan in particular, is best suited for high acid, fragrant white wines such as Riesling. I do not disagree; in fact, most of the best wines I’ve tried from BC are white. However, at the recent Taste BC tasting, I discovered that some producers are also having a very serious go at making high quality Pinot Noir; and, while not many producers are succeeding, some are pushing the boundaries of what I thought was possible in British Columbia. One such winery is Le Vieux Pin.
Le Vieux Pin started as a project to produce “terroir” based wines in the Okanagan, mimicking the style of French wines from cooler climates, such as Burgundy and Alsace. The winery is located on the East Bench of Oliver, in the South Okanagan Valley and produced its first vintage in 2005.
In order to achieve its goal, Le Vieux Pin crops at a very low yield level, dry farms (which must be a challenge in the low-precipitation Okanagan), and uses minimal fertilizer. They also claim to have distinct soil compositions in each of their vineyards, with soils ranging from sandy to high gravel, and heavy claim and loam. These distinct soil conditions are the basis for the variation in their wines rather than particular wine making techniques. Le Vieux Pin produces three single vineyard Pinot Noirs, each of which receives the same treatment in the cellar. While I only have had the opportunity to taste one of the wines from this range, I was impressed with its structure and personality, and I did feel it was expressing a particular place.
In fact, I could not place this wine anywhere in the spectrum of New World Pinot Noirs I had tasted so far. The nose was reminiscent of an Oregon Pinot Noir, but the body clearly derived from far less ripe fruit, even while it had greater tannin density than many of the Oregon Pinots I’ve had. In fact, the palate was distinctly earthy and driven by more herbal flavours than you would expect after smelling its nose of cherry cola, baking spice, and cassis. Le Vieux Pin calls this a Pinot Noir for Syrah lovers, and I can actually see what they are getting at. While less ripe than all of the other Pinot Noirs (save perhaps the Rippon from New Zealand), it was still fresh and fruity enough not to taste sour or underripe. My suspicion is that they may have had a difficult time ripening the tannins (skins) in the grapes for this wine as the grapes sugar levels are clearly sufficient. It’s not a perfect Pinot Noir, but it is a wine with personality, and I appreciate that achievement.
Given this uniqueness I would love the opportunity to do both a vertical tasting and a horizontal tasting across the various vineyards.
Very Good+
$45 at Viti, Sutton Wine Merchants, and other private stores
*Full disclosure: I received this bottle of wine as a sample.
To wrap up my Spotlight on New World Pinot Noir series, in my opinion there are distinct styles being made across the New World and Pinot Noir seems to have a far greater diversity of personality than Cabernet Sauvignon does in these regions. In particular, the flavour and style variations I experienced in Oregonian Pinot were exciting, and I think that while this region is young now and learning the ropes, it has the potential to evolve into a mature region producing singular wines with personality. It has a ways to go, but I’m excited at its potential.
New Zealand also continues to be a region for me to watch, although I think it has a considerable challenge with respect to its pricing. The quality is just not there to justify prices mostly above $60 for the higher quality wines. There are just too many Pinot Noirs from elsewhere that have a better quality to price ratio.
Despite my amazing experience with Sojourn Cellars, California continues not to excite me that much. Clearly there is potential here, as Sojourn proves, but too many of the wines are good but not great, and have a more fundamental sameness than the Pinot Noirs from further north. Chile, for me, is also not quite up to par overall with Oregon, even as I did enjoy the Matetic considerably. Again, Chile is a region with potential, but a long way to go. I would put Australia in this category as well. The great producers, such as Grosset, can make good Pinot Noir in the right regions. But, overall, Pinot Noir from Australia generally disappoints, and Grosset is making wines far above the norm.
Lastly, British Columbia is the youngest region in the spotlight, and it shows. That said, good producers are pushing the boundaries and I think it will be possible to produce some good Pinot Noir in the province. However, doing so will be expensive and will rely on the appropriate sites. Most of British Columbia still remains suited to aromatic whites. But, I appreciate that there are wineries out there to make wine with personality and ‘terroir’ rather than simply producing wine to achieve great commercial reviews and maximum extract and fruit.
In the end, this has been a fascinating journey and I hope that you have enjoyed reading it as much as I have writing it.
Up next is a special series for the Olympics that will focus on some of our best BC wineries – with particular emphasis on the small guys, who, in my opinion, are not getting fair or proper exposure in the Olympics (that’s the topic for another rant). I hope people will spread word of these profiles around a bit so that some visitors might happen upon some of the articles and wines and truly taste what BC has to offer.
Spotlight on New World Pinot Noir: Grosset Pinot Noir 2005
Posted by Shea in $60+, Australian Wine, Excellent, New World Pinot Noir, Pinot Noir, Spotlights on February 4th, 2010
Australia is not a land known for Pinot Noir. Notwithstanding its current market woes, with people turning away from its innocuous ‘critter’ wines in ever increasing droves, Australia just never built a reputation for this storied grape. Not that it didn’t try to. It’s just that Australian Pinot Noir never really produces wines so easy to consume as its jammy shirazes. There have been growers bucking this trend though, especially in the regions surrounding Melbourne, such as the Yarra Valley, which tends to be a lot cooler than the rest of Southern Australia. Also, Australia has quite strict quarantine provisions that, unlike New Zealand and Oregon, have prevented the newest Dijon clones from being planted. If Australia opens its borders, the potential for Pinot Noir will likely dramatically increase.
The Grosset Pinot Noir is actually from a region lesser known for its Pinot Noirs and more for its Sauvignon Blancs, the Adelaide Hills. Located in South Australia, just north of the McLaren Vale, the Adelaide Hills is a very sparsely planted region compared to Australia’s major regions. It is also right on the edge of the city of Adelaide, and so the region is being encroached upon by expanding suburbs. The region’s very high elevation and relative proximity to the ocean ensure a consistently cool and misty environment, which is fairly ideal for Pinot Noir, and also provides a stark contrast to nearby McLaren Vale, which is very dry and hot. The high altitude (400m above sea level) and very cool nights tends to produce wines with sharp acidity; but, I would add that in the right hands red wines from this region retain a freshness that eludes so many Australian wines, particularly those that we tend to find on our continent.
While Grosset is famous for its Clare Valley Rieslings, which are surely some of the best in Australia, this Pinot Noir is not made from estate fruit, but from fruit purchased from vineyards in the Adelaide Hills. That doesn’t seem to impact the quality of this wine negatively in any way however, and the master hand of Jeff Grosset is very evident here. Distinct in Australia, Jeff Grosset has always believed in making wines with a sense of place. While the rest of the industry was busy blending grapes from across the country to produce their innocuous shiraz and cabernet blends, Grosset remained true to his passion for producing ‘terroir’ driven wines that still spoke of Australia, but did so with more character than normal. I think it is thanks to people like Jeff Grosset that Australia has the stuffing to weather its current export crisis and reemerge as a region with distinct terroirs, passions, and diversity. When I attended a tasting of Victoria wines last year to help support victims of the bush fires, I experienced a plethora of cooler climate wines that were all doing different things and beating a completely different drum than what most people have come to associate with Australia. And, as I have discovered over the years, there are wines like this from all over Australia, if we are only lucky enough to find them, and have an importer choose to bring them on to this continent for us. We are on the cusp of a huge transformation in the Australian wine industry, and I think it will be for the better.
I wish I could have found some information on the site and soil conditions for this Pinot Noir, but alas could not. I would very much appreciate if anyone can leave some of this information in the comments as I (and I’m sure many readers) would love to know. The nose on this was spicy, earthy and leafy but with good richness and concentration to the cherry and strawberry fruit notes. In other words, the nose was classic richly styled Pinot Noir – but with grace. The palate had good fruit, but far less up front and concentrated than I was expecting. This allowed the other flavours to come through – earth, spice, and a tart crispness that kept this very fresh. I would actually never have guessed this was from Australia and personally found the wine to be absolutely outstanding – by far the best I’ve had from Aussie-land. I think the little bit of age on this bottle helped it to integrate and present itself perfectly when I opened it.
This wine starkly contrasts with my other favourite wine of this series – the Sojourn Pinot from Sonoma – instead focusing on fruit freshness, a clean palate, and bright robust spicyness. This is a true cool-climate New World Pinot Noir and is worth seeking out if you have the chance. I would not hesitate spending this much on the wine again.
Excellent
$70 at Marquis
Social Media, Social Process and the Content Delivery Dilemma
Posted by Shea in Musings, Wine Marketing on February 2nd, 2010
In this article I want to talk about something that is not just limited to the wine industry, but that will become an important factor for all businesses engaged in social media. This is: how are we to effectively engage in a technology that’s visibility is beginning to exceed its maturity. How are we to see through the morass of information to understand the underlying phenomenon that we are dealing with. And, most importantly, how can we predict what all of this new technology will mean in the future.
A common analogy to describe the creation and adoption of new technologies is known as the “hype cycle”, developed by the Garner Group. It looks something like this:
One of the big critiques of this model is that it hypothesizes a static cause-effect relationship between the creation of technology and its adoption. There are many examples, such as fuel cells, of technology that has never been adopted into the mainstream. Jim Bullock at the 2003 Aye Conference hypothesized that technology adoption actually derives from the confluence of two vectors: 1. the social process, and 2. the delivery process. The social process is about people and their expectations whereas the delivery process is about the availability of the technology itself. Most technologies rely on other technologies to be successful, just as, for instance, social media relies not just on computing, but also on portable computing and, increasingly, smart phones.
The dilemma I want to talk about in this article relates to the first vector of technology adoption hypothesized by Mr. Bullock: the social process. This relies on a few presuppositions.
Firstly, these days it is cheap to get content to people. The costs of entry are minimal with electronic publishing, whether in a blog, via twitter, facebook or other social media services, being mostly free. Second, there are two basic kinds of social networks: open networks and closed networks. Open networks do not limit access by filtering individuals based on specific interests or commonalities. Twitter is the de facto example of an open network. Closed networks limit access by focusing on commonalities or interest. Facebook is the most important example of this, but also consider social media sites that focus on wine, like Cork’d, which are explicitly designed to facilitate dialogue amongst a select group of people.
Here’s my thesis: the differentiation between content delivery in open and closed networks is about the social process. Closed networks provide a clear set of tools that guide user’s expectations, and provide them with an easily digestible means to connect and share content. No one is confused about the purpose of Facebook: upon signing up the website asks you to enter your email address to find your friends.
Open networks, on the other hand, provide a limited set of tools to guide the user. Twitter does not build in expectations into its functionality, but instead relies on the user to figure out how to use it and how to interact with others. Twitter requires a more sustained effort to understand than a service like Facebook, which is why so many businesses fail to utilize twitter effectively.
Now, when considering the differing social expectations created by Facebook and Twitter one can notice the fundamental impact these expectations have on the nature of content delivery in these two networks. Facebook, while setting expectations firmly and clearly, limits the diversity of its content delivery to what people expect to read and hear from their friends. Hence, advertising on Facebook is of the traditional non-interactive sort. Intrusive advertising, no matter how well targeted it is, is a necessary consequence of Facebook’s closed nature. People put up with this advertising because the Facebook network has reached such a critical mass that, to put it in economic terms, the costs of not participating are far higher for most people than the costs of viewing intrusive advertising.
Twitter does not operate this way. Because expectations are diffuse and unclear, twitter effectively has no rules for managing content delivery. Even if, over time, we begin to see Twitter using intrusive advertising, this is not the real future of content delivery on open networks. Instead, open networks such as Twitter’s true power is in allowing more diffuse and less intrusive content delivery for businesses. Twitter’s weakness is in scoping and channeling content into easily understandable chunks and in providing guidance for its users.
Thus, if we return to the “hype curve” above, it is only possible to understand social media’s place on this curve if we divide it into social process and delivery process. Right now, the delivery process is peaking, and, may in fact actually be maturing. As newspapers die, content becomes easier and easier to produce to such an extent that almost everyone knows how to and does produce content online, thus making the delivery process nearly ubiquitous.
On the other hand, the social process has yet to mature as fully as the delivery process. Social and personal expectations about social media are not cohesive. Additionally, the delivery processes have fragmented the social processes to such an extent that many Facebook users simply don’t understand or don’t find a use for services such as Twitter and many Twitter junkies are tired and bored of Facebook and its limitations.
If the “hype curve” is at all accurate in relation to social media, then it is only accurate if we increase the number of data points and the number of axes on which to plot the development of the technology. Thus, social media is not just about visibility and maturity; it is also about social expectations, the lost third axis. By plotting along these three axes we can get a better image of the future of social media.
My first thesis that the differentiation between content delivery in open and closed networks is about the social process leads me to the prediction that the future of social media will merge the guidance element of closed networks with the diffusion element of open networks. I believe that Foursquare is an early attempt to achieve this combination of factors, but that its interactive capabilities need to be enhanced.
Thus, the content delivery dilemma in social media is not about the cost of delivery any more. Rather, the dilemma is about the method of delivery. Content is so easy and cheap to produce that users need interfaces that guide them through the sheer volume of material and provide them with guideposts on not just how to manage content, but, more importantly, how to produce it.
A mature understanding of the social process that underlies the development of social media will allow a visionary firm to go beyond traditional monetization and intrusive advertising. In the future, the most successful networks will figure out how to leverage word of mouth marketing within a model of content guidance and signposting within an open network. This will allow for word of mouth marketing to become more important and more targeted than traditional marketing. It will also converge the benefits of visibility with the benefits of social expectations. It is only then that social media will reach the first stages of its maturity.
Beer Wars Keynote from Greg Koch of Stone Brewing Company
Last Sunday I attended the CAMRA BC screening of Beer Wars, a documentary about how the craft brewing industry in the United States has contintuously been shafted by the large beer corporations and their own government as they try to build market share in the United States. The highlight of the screening, other than the many tasty craft beers poured from the likes of Granville Island, Red Truck, R&B, Driftwood, Howe Sound, etc., was the attendance of Greg Koch, founder of Stone Brewing, one of California’s best and most important craft breweries.
Greg gave a short keynote to the audience, talking about his experiences and reliving some tasty moments he had with our local beers. I shot the video to share with all of you because I think Greg is both a great speaker and really gets across the passion that all craft brewers have for their art. This guy is an inspiration and I think craft brewers from across BC should try to follow his example and not compromise on the flavour and intensity of their beers to appease the mass market. Instead, as he says in the Beer Wars documentary, angry beers make for happy people. I agree – and if there is any greater need for liquor law reform it is to support our local craft brewers who have to battle the likes of behemoths like Molson and Coors who dominate the market with their crappy no-flavour lagers.
And, as a note I was extremely impressed with Red Truck’s new Porter and Howe Sound’s Three Beavers Imperial Red Ale – both were full of flavour and really well made. Seek them out. Here’s the video:
Winery Profile: Le Clos Jordanne
Posted by Shea in $30-$40, $40-$60, $60+, Canadian Wine, Chardonnay, Excellent, Pinot Noir, Tastings, Very Good on January 28th, 2010
My relationship to Canadian wine is both similar and dissimilar to most Canadians. It is similar because I have great pride for my country, as many Canadians do. It is dissimilar because for me pride translates into expectations. I would like my country to be famous for more than just ice hockey and doughnuts, and I demand excellence from Canada because I know we can live up to that standard. When we don’t, I feel disappointed but I never give up my search for the exceptional. While sitting at a table surrounded by other Vancouver bloggers and social media types and five glasses of wine I discovered excellence in Canadian wine, for the first time. Le Clos Jordanne has, for me, broken the threshold of quality that I have been searching for in Canadian wine for years. And, I am proud that we finally managed to do it. That Le Clos Jordanne is from Ontario does not bug me as a recently minted BC resident. I think our regionalism detracts from our nation, and I think that we should all be proud of what Canadians are doing no matter where they are from.
Le Clos Jordanne is a joint venture between Vincor and Domaine Boisset from Burgundy. The idea was to start a winery completely from scratch to capture the ‘terroir’ of a particular area of the Niagara Pininsula in Ontario around the village of Jordan. The Niagara Escarpment, on which the Niagara wine region of Ontario is located, has a limestone base deposited by the Glacier that carved out the Escarpment so many years ago. The Escarpment, combined with the cooling influence of Lake Ontario, provides the region with enough warm air to allow wine grapes to ripen properly, even given the extreme climate and, accordingly, frost and short growing season concerns.
Viticulture Manager Thomas Bachelder explained that the aim to produce wines with a sense of place was a decision to take the lessons of Burgundy seriously and to treat the terroir with respect rather than simply copying certain methods. Whereas California became giddy with malo-lactic fermentation and heavy French oak treatment despite the fact that their terroir was nothing like Mersault, Le Clos Jordanne aims to produce wines whose oak and fermentation process compliment the climate, soil, and growing conditions of the grapes. I think they have learned these lessons well (likely because Thomas spent time learning to make wine in Burgundy), and I am hugely impressed with the various wines’ ability to remain distinct from each other, despite very similar treatment in the cellar.
Recently in Montreal a group of wine experts set up a remake of the famous judgment of Paris tasting of 1976 that saw California wines beat French wines in a blind tasting. The idea was to pit France vs. America again, although this time with different wines. However, unbenknownst to the experts, a Le Clos Jordanne Claystone Chardonnay was snuck into the lineup and, amazingly, won top honours in the Chardonnay category. And, just so you have a sense which producers the wine was competing against, consider the likes of Jean-Claude Boisset, Joseph Drouhin, Mer Soleil, Sonoma-Cutrer, and Chateau Montelena, amongst others. These are serious competitors who are well respected and garner high scores from all sorts of media. As much as such tastings must be taken with a grain of salt, I think that this achievement is significant.
So, with that in mind, let’s take a look at the wines. In a non-traditional move we were encouraged to begin with the Pinot Noirs before moving on to the Chardonnays. The first wine was the basic ‘village wine’ Village Reserve Pinot Noir 2006, which retails here in BC for $30. This was very forward and fruity, with a nose of spice, and medium bodied cherry. While simple, the palate is also really enjoyable with its dense but grippy medium body, hint of caramel and spice, and fantastic density and delineation. Very Good+.
I next moved on to one of the single vineyard offerings, the Claystone Pinot Noir 2006, retailing at $45. This was a big step up in terms of structure from the basic village wine. It had a softer, stonier nose, with a decidedly twiggy element. The palate was again soft, but also fruit driven and very elegant. Its grippy dry texture is austere but also draws into a lengthy and wonderful mineral finish. Very Good+ to Excellent.
The last red, the Grand Clos Pinot Noir 2006, was a selection of the best parts of the vineyards, and is a big very complex wine that is still very young. The nose had fantastic layering even as it was difficult to derive all the aromas just yet. Its red berry fruit was, as Thomas said, distinct from many New World Pinot Noirs, which often tend towards darker, richer fruits. The palate had a touch of grapefruit, some eucalyptus, and a spicy mid-palate. The great mid-palate structure will allow this to sit a while and develop more significant separation of all the complex layers. This is very likeable, but also reserved. Excelent. $70.
And, now on to the whites, beginning with the Claystone Chardonnay 2006 (the winner of the Montreal tasting). These chardonnays are unlike anything else being done with the grape in Canada that I’ve tasted so far, and are certainly vastly superior to most every BC chardonnay I’ve tasted. In fact, these are almost dead ringers for very tasty Burgundy wines, even while still having a sense of place. Is it distinctly Ontarian? Well, that will probably take some time to tell, but this is a great start. The nose is rich and has pineapple, banana and licorice. But this is not a flabby or buttery chardonnay. No, this has great acidity, is very clean and highlights its citrus flavours while offering hints of opulence with its banana and caramel. The long, minerally finish brings the palate back down to earth and keeps the opulence in check. A very good chard. Very Good+.
The last wine, a Grand Clos Chardonnay 2006, was my wine of the tasting. It is still reserved and I can understand why some would prefer the Claystone right now, but for me this kind of chardonnay is what you would see in a young Premier or Grand Cru chablis – tightness, almost reticence, but with the promise of greatness. The palate doesn’t give a lot up yet, but is dense and very complex. The texture is rich and wonderful – very rounded and even more opulent than the Claystone – but the structure is outstanding. This is real chardonnay, built for food, and could one day rival an excellent wine from Burgundy. Excellent.
In conclusion, these are the first wines from Canada that I’ve given an excellent rating to, and they well deserved it. For me, they broke the quality threshold that I’ve been longing for all these years. My only hope is that as many of you as possible can get the chance to taste these. Right now they are in very limited supply (I believe some are at 39th and Cambie), but if you want to taste great Canadian wine, these are absolutely worth seeking out. Colour me extremely impressed.
Contest: Win Two Tickets to PS I Love You Petite Sirah Tasting
I love petite sirah. I first discovered the grape several years ago on a trip to Napa. It can sometimes be overblown, but it really has great potential. I’ve wanted to go to this tasting, put on by the Petite Sirah advocacy organization PS I love you, for some years but haven’t had the chance. If you are at all into big, tannic, and extracted wines, but wines that can also be rustic and brambly, Petite Sirah could be for you. So, whether you are new to the grape or already a convert I recommend entering this contest to get a chance to attend the tasting in Alameda (just outside Oakland). Oh, and this tasting is supposed to have some of the best food around for a wine tasting, with some top notch gourmet food purveyors and restaurants in attendance.
Event Details
PS I love you Petite Sirah Tasting
Friday February 19, 2010
6pm-9pm
Rock Wall Wine Company
Alameda, CA
$140 value
Contest
To have your name entered into the draw to win two free tickets, here’s what you have to do:
1. join the Just Grapes Wine Blog facebook fan page,
2. follow me on twitter (@justgrapeswine), and
3. tweet something about this contest with a link to the contest page and @justgrapeswine in the tweet,
then you are entered in a draw to win the tickets. The draw will take place on February 14th.
Good luck!
Spotlight On New World Pinot Noir: Matetic EQ Pinot Noir 2005
Posted by Shea in $40-$60, Chilean Wine, New World Pinot Noir, Pinot Noir, Spotlights, Very Good on January 26th, 2010
So my idea to have weekly spotlights seems to have been thrown for a loop. I still love the idea of spotlights, though, so I’m just going to continue a given spotlight for however long it takes me to complete, interspersed with other posts. The current spotlight on New World Pinot Noir has been fascinating for me, and while I originally did not plan to try a Chilean Pinot Noir, a reader convinced me otherwise. After tossing a few ideas around I settled on this, the 2005 Matetic Pinot Noir from the San Antonio Valley. Matetic is one of the most important producers in the region and is widely considered to make one of the best Pinot Noirs in Chile.
Chile has always been a particularly distinct region, being so isolated that it is one of the last remaining places on earth where the original vitis vinifera vines can be planted without grafting them onto Phylloxera resistant rootstock. While water is scarce, necessitating irregation in most regions, it is still extremely cheap to grow vines in Chile given the consistently even climate, almost total lack of rot, and cheap land. And, don’t forget that non-grafted vines are much cheaper to plant. Of course, with developing popularity comes increasing land prices and more and more foreign interest. In fact, many wineries in Chile have been started by jet-setting foreigners, one of the most important of which is the Spanish producer Torres who helped bring recognition to Chile in the first place.
While the Central Valley is by far the most famous and most important region in Chile, with its sub-regions such as Maipo and Colchagua, the San Antonio Valley (a subregion of Aconcagua) is one of Chile’s hot new regions. It is particularly interesting for white varieties and for Pinot Noir since it has one of the coolest climates in Chile, being so close to the coast. Casa Marin, for instance, makes my favourite Sauvignon Blanc in Chile with grapes grown in this region. This new region, first planted in 1997 and officially recognized in 2002, has infertile soils of of clay and granite that help add depth and complexity to the wines grown here.
Matetic is run by a Croatian family that immigrated to Chile over 100 years ago, made a fortune in ironworking, and bought the Matetic estate about 20 years ago. A massive 16 000 hectare property, the Matetic family started planting vines here in the 90’s and made their first wines in 1999. Matetic is unique in Chile not because it is organic, which is becoming increasingly popular, but because it has been a pioneer in taking up Biodynamics in the country – a form of vineyard management and winemaking that is becoming increasingly important as much as it is also controversial. The Matetic estate is only 20km from the sea, making it particularly exposed to the very cool Pacific breezes. Of course, this also makes the 120 hectares of planted property particularly well suited for growing cool climate grapes such as Pinot Noir. The diurnal temperature fluctuations make this property particularly good at maintaining natural acidity in their wines while also producing wines with big fruit flavours. If you are curious to view a bit of the estate, take a gander at this video shot by wineanorak writer Jamie Goode.
Now, to the wine! The nose is very Chilean with its distinctive funk, somewhat like an earthy and twiggy cassis bramble. Otherwise, underling the intense power of the funk on the nose are hints of cherry and earth. With air, the nose mellows and adds chocolate and more earth. The palate is both classic and unique: cherry twigs, and generally massive fruit. There is good depth to the mid-palate here with earth, twigs and a punch of spice. This is really flavourful, but also starts out with a hot chocolatey finish (it is 14.5% ABV). I found after a couple hours of air, however, the heat dissipated and the alcohol integrated well into the wine.
In the final analysis, this is unique wine, but it also doesn’t really taste like typical Pinot Noir. There is such a distinctive “Chilean funk” quality to it (similar to what you get w/ the cabs and the carmeneres down there), and I have to admit I am not a fan of that funk. I almost feel like it is a flaw, but I suppose it is something unique about Chilean terroir. That said, I do think this is elegant and tremendously structured and a very good value at $50. Also, many people actually like that distinct Chilean funk, and if you do you will probably love this wine. Most U.S. Pinots at the $50 price in Canada would not have this level of structure. I think this is a peculiar wine with aging potential and I think it’s an enticing hint at the possibilities of Chilean Pinot Noir. It doesn’t bowl me over, but it makes me think.
Very Good+
$50 at Kitsilano Wine Cellars
ZAP Contest Winners
Posted by Shea in ZAP Zinfandel Festival on January 25th, 2010
The draw is now complete, and the winners of a pair of tickets to San Francisco’s ZAP Zinfandel Festival are:
1. Craig Gummer [NB: original winner Steve Paulo from Walnut Creek, California was unable to attend]
and
2. Kevin Whitaker from Scottsdale, Arizona
Congrats to both! And thanks to all who participated in the contest. This year’s festival is sure to be an outstanding event.
