I was back in Prince Edward County this past weekend, mainly for celebratory reasons, as my partner Becky and I, have been dating for 5 years. We thought a great way to celebrate would be to head to the County for some relaxation and fun. We had an absolutely terrific time with highlights from the weekend abound from amazing winery tasting and tours to excellent food and accommodations. It was not only the experiences that made this trip so great, but also the tremendous amount we learned over the two days. Our structured tasting with Closson Chase's Keith Tyers and Lynn Carmichael along with our tasting, tour and talk with Keint-He's Geoff Heinricks were were so informative and interesting that we gained a much greater understanding of grape growing and winemaking in Prince Edward County.
We were able to fit quite a few activities in our visit from visiting County markets to delicious chocolate shops. However, this being a wine blog I will try to keep on the topic of wine, of which there is so much to be said. Since this will be a bit of a lengthy post I have decided to split it into 3 major sections. The first, which includes this introduction will outline our trip focusing in the wineries. The second section will be a spotlight on our visit to Closson Chase and our fantastic tasting and conversation with assistant winemaker Keith Tyers and retail sales manager Lynn Carmichael. The third section will then focus on our amazing tasting, tour and conversation with Keint-He winemaker Geoff Heinricks. I hope you enjoy reading my accounts as much as I did experiencing them. It must be said that all my tasting notes were done from memory after I visited the winery as I did not have a note pad with me while actually tasting the wine. Furthermore, I apologize for the lack of photographs it was a fairly rainy and overcast weekend so the camera did not make it out as often as it should have.
Our trip began with an 11am appointment on Saturday morning at Closson Chase. The second section of this blog will be focused on this visit so I do not want to give too much away. I will say that Closson Chase is making some of the best Chardonnay in the County and in the entire country for that matter. After the extremely informative and fascinating tasting at Closson Chase we made a quick stop at the Grange of Prince Edward. We stopped here to pick up a bottle of their newly released (since December) sparkling wine, a methode traditionelle made of 50% Pinot Noir and 50% Chardonnay from the 2007 vintage grown on their estate. This was for celebratory purposes on Saturday night I will post full tasting notes for this wine in a few days.
After picking up the bottle at the Grange we were off to a 1:30pm appointment at one of the County's newest wineries Casa Dea. The appointment was supposed to be with VP of Operations and General Manager Paul Marconi but when we arrived we found out that we had to step out and was not there. Our tasting was "semi" lead by one of their retail representatives who was more focused on a group of customers buying a fair bit of wine than us. Even more disappointing than the absence of Paul and the lack of help regarding any questions we had were the wines themselves. My tasting may have been biased by the strength of the Closson Chase wines we had prior, but I certainly did my best to do an objective job. I certainly did not come in with any negative preconceptions, in fact I was quite looking forward to trying their wines.
The tasting began with their 2008 Unoaked Chardonnay which offered up a fairly neutral tropical fruit nose and an off-putting sour note in the mouth. Overall this wine was quite poor and not even close to the quality of the Closson Chase Chardonnay's we tasted. The next wine we tasted was their 2008 CD Bianco which is a blend of Pinot Gris and Chardonnay. I did not find this wine to be very different from the Unoaked Chardonnay and it also had that off putting sour note that made it quite unpleasant. We then moved to the 2008 Riesling which was an improvement on the Chardonnay and Bianco, but was still very neutral on the nose not offering much at all. It did have some nice lemon/lime flavours in the mouth, but these were ruined by that same sour note that pervaded the previous two. I could understand one off bottle, but each different white had the same awful sour note, what is going on here?
The tasting then moved to reds and with it came their only wine of any sort of interest the 2008 CD Rosso, a blend of Gamay Noir and Zweigelt ( a cross between Blaufrankisch and St. Laurent). Although the wine was served much to warm (room temperature) for my liking it had an interesting pepper spice and smoke note on the nose and in the mouth. We bought a bottle at $12 as it may go quite nicely with grilled sausage or something like that. The tasting finished with their 2008 Cabernet Franc which was pretty much undrinkable, a very poor wine indeed.
Overall I was quite disappointed with the wines of Casa Dea. I understand that their business model is not to make expensive premium wine, but rather every day sipping and dinner wines, which is fine. The problem, however, is that quality is sacrificed for quantity (which drives bottle prices down) and reducing quality in a marginal climate such as Prince Edward County is very risky business. The County is not Italy, France or Spain where grapes grow in relative abundance due to the climate. These countries get quite a bit more ripe fruit at much higher yields, this is a fact due to climatic conditions. Thus, wineries can reduce the quality levels in exchange for higher volume and still make a fairly decent wine that is great for every day consumption. In the County, however, when you reduce the quality the wines really do suffer greatly. I think Casa Dea is a case in point of this and the contrast will become more apparent when juxtaposed to the tastings I had at Closson Chase and Keint-He who are both quality driven producers.
Our next stop was at the winery where we were spending the night, Huff Estates who also have an inn and art gallery. Everything here is very modern and 'feng shui' to borrow the term from Keith Tyers. The Inn itself is quite beautiful and during this time of year marks one of the best deals going. For $99 Becky and I stayed in a lovely room with a king size bed, faux fire place, club chairs and a patio as well as a complimentary breakfast and a tour/tasting. You could not stay in a scummy motel in Ottawa for that much. We were extremely pleased with the Inn and thought the service and atmosphere were excellent.
I was already familiar with some of Huff Estates wines namely their 2008 Off Dry Riesling which I think is quite tasty stuff. The tasting at the winery was lead by their sommelier named Brian along with some other inn guests and I fell that Huff's wines are rather hit and miss. I found all of their whites to be pretty solid with the stand out being their 2007 Pinot Gris which was nicely perfumed and a nice wine overall. Huff's line of red's were also solid, but hardly worth the mark-up. For whatever reason their whites range from about $12-$20 while the red's range from $17-$40 the majority being around $30. I found all of their reds to be decent wines, but hardly worth the $30+ price tag. It is one thing to pay that much for an interesting, nuanced, complex wine, but not for a solid just OK one. This was my biggest issue with Huff Estates I found the wines to be good but not outstanding. Overall the Inn is great the wine still needs some work.
After staying the night at Huff we headed to the County Cider Company for a tasting lead by winemaker Jenifer Dean. It was a nice casual tasting and the County Cider Company has one of the best views in all of PEC. I found their Waupoos Premium Cider to be a real classic with great apple and spice notes and a resoundingly dry refreshing finish. Their two fruit ciders a Peach Cider and Feral Cider (Cranberry-Raspberry) made from their own apples and fruit concentrate from Quebec were both very tasty and refreshing. I could imagine having cold glass of either one on a hot summers day on their patio overlooking Lake Ontario. We also tried their Ice Cider made from European varieties that do not fall off the trees as they are not indigenous to Canada. They let these apples freeze then press them into cider in a process not disimilar to making ice wine. I was pleasantly surprised by this cider as I thought it would be cloyingly sweet, but it was very well balanced and quite tasty. The County Cider Company also makes wine under their Fool on the Hill label. We tried their 2008 Unoaked Chardonnay and their 2008 Pinot Gris both of which displayed an interesting earthy funk nose and flavour profile. We purchased the Pinot Gris and I will put up full notes when we taste it.
We finished off out trip with an incredible tasting and conversation with Geoff Heinricks at his newly opened Keint-He winery. This was an absolutely stellar tasting of which Iwill go in-depth about in Spotlight #2. I will say that Geoff stands as one of the most important winemakers in the County and he is pushing the limits like few others. Again a great time in the County I can't wait to visit again.
No comments:
Post a Comment