This is Part 2 of 3 of my PEC posts. Tasting notes were made after I visited the winery.
The first spotlight from our trip to the County will be on Closson Chase. The tasting was lead by former winemakers assistant Keith Tyers and retail manager Lynn Carmichael. We arrived at 11am on Saturday and were greeted by Lynn who showed us around the winery which is a refinished 19th century barn. It is quite nice with a great rustic appeal and in the summer the barn doors open up to a lovely garden with the vines in the background, very picturesque (at least I imagine it to be, the day we visited it was raining and very windy). The wine used to be made and aged in the barn, but as of last year they have opened a new, larger facility (closed to the public) about 1km down the road, which can be seen from the main winery. I apologize that I did not take any pictures as the weather was so poor. When I am back in the County in the summer I will be sure to take as many as possible. After the tour with Lynn we were met by Keith who lead us into the wineries tasting room.
Once in the tasting room Keith began telling us all about the geological history of Prince Edward County and how it came to posses soils conducive to excellent wine making. I will not try and repeat what he said, but the lesson on rock formation, soil composition, and climate were extremely informative and very fascinating. If you ever get a chance to chat with Keith, who is extremely approachable, you should take full advantage as he is a wealth of winemaking and County information. After a quick lesson on what makes Prince Edward County such a great place to make wine he began to explain Closson Chase's approach.
Closson Chase is a quality driven producer where low yields, dense plantings, growing quality fruit and making terroir driven wines are the guiding principles. The fruit is grown organically with a move towards biodynamics currently underway. Yields are kept quite low at about 2.5 tons per acre which equals roughly 37.5 hl/ha and indigenous yeasts are used as much as possible, save for a case of stopped fermentation or the like. They do make one unoaked Chardonnay, but the rest spend roughly 18 months in French oak (medium toast) where the Chardonnay's are barrel fermented and also undergo natural malolactic fermentation. 25% of the oak is new to impart those rich caramel and butter aromas and flavors and the other 75% seasoned, which Keith says act mainly as excellent oxygenators to fully develop the wine. The wines are hand tended and harvested with a lot of personal care taken in the vineyards. All of Closson Chase wines are unfined and unfiltered.
The head winemaker at Closson Chase is Deborah Paskus one of Canada's most famous and respected winemakers. There has been quite a bit written about her so I will leave that to others and just say that she is a pioneer of Chardonnay in Ontario. She really proved that great Chardonnay can be made in Canada with her Temkin-Paskus wines from her small holding in Steve Kocsis' vineyard on the Beamsville Bench in Niagara. Chardonnay is certainly Closson Chase's specialty and they do an absolutely excellent job. I think the strength in their wines is the depth and expansiveness they posses. All of the Chardonnay's we tasted were complex, rich and serious wines all displaying considerable power and finesse. Here are the notes of the tasting lead by Keith. Again I did not make notes until after the tasting so these notes are based on memory.
1. 2007 Chardonnay VQA Prince Edward County
This wine is sourced from their two Prince Edward County vineyards on the north and south side of the winery from young vines (aged 3-6 years). It is considered a younger sibling to their South Clos vineyard bottling which is sourced from their southern vineyard from their oldest vines and best fruit. The South Clos is completely sold out, luckily I bought one a few months ago and have it in my cellar. If this wine is any indication of how good the South Clos will be I think we will be in for a real treat. This wine had a nice rich tropical fruit nose complicated by notes toast, toasted marshmallow, and PEC limestone minerality. In the mouth the wine had a great acidic backbone that cut right through the palate and displayed great stone fruit and pear flavours with hints of earthy depth. It was a solid wine without a doubt and very impressive for being such young vines. In fact this put many Ontario Chardonnay's I have had before to shame. I do not usually give numerical scores but, I think it may be helpful in this blog. I would probably give this wine an 89-90 out of 100.
2. 2006 Chardonnay VQA Beamsville Bench
This wine was sourced from Closson Chases two vineyard holdings in Niagara the Aberdeen vineyard and S. Kocsis vineyard which were bottled as single vineyard offerings in 2007 and were next in the tasting lineup. An interesting note about Closson Chase's Niagara fruit is that they pick gently there and then bring the fruit to their winery in Prince Edward County where they then press and began making the wine. The only exception are their red grapes in Niagara which they press in the vineyard then bring to the winery. This was a nice big, round and rich Chardonnay of definite quality, but it was unfortunately completely outdone and overshadowed by the other three wines. I imagine it would have stood up quite well to most other Ontario Chardonnay's out there, but being from a weaker year it just could not keep pace. What was interesting and I think this is why Keith put this bottle into the tasting is that this wines components were the two single vineyard bottlings we were trying next so it offered some interesting insight into the Aberdeen and Kocsis vineyards. Score 87-88
3. 2007 Chardonnay Aberdeen Vineyard VQA Beamsville Bench
Sourced from vines planted in 1996 this wine was just stellar. Nice golden yellow in colour the nose is just awesome with so much richness and depth, yet an incredible floral freshness that was like walking through a spring meadow. In the mouth this wine was absolutely mouthfilling and full bodied with multifaceted and interesting depths. At the same time this wine was full of finesse and beauty. A great wine one of the best Chardonnay's I have tried. Our favourite of the tasting we bought a bottle. Score 93+
4. 2007 Chardonnay S. Kocsis Vineyard VQA Beamsville Bench
Sourced from 23 year old vines planted in 1987 this fruit is coming from the vineyard that Deborah Paskus made her name on. I think that this is an important wine to both Deborah and winery if you look at it from a historical perspective. The wine was much darker deep yellow compared to the previous ones. The nose offered up a ton of earthy notes with stone and tropical fruits just lingering in the background. In the mouth there was a ton of richness and complex earthy depth in this soil inflicted wine. Purely terroir driven, it was a big rich earthen beauty of a wine. Really impressive stuff and, just as if not even more impressive, than the Aberdeen. It is of pure personal preference that we choose the Aberdeen over this one but both are stellar examples. Score 93+
Overall the tasting at Closson Chase was a fantastic experience the knowledge, approachability, and professionalism of both Keith and Lynn was just terrific. There is no doubt in my mind now that Closson Chase is currently making the best Chardonnay in Canada. Some may point to a few other wineries like Le Clos Jordanne which offer some stiff competition to this title, but I do not they can compare with these complex, rich, and fascinating Closson wines. If you are tired of bland, boring and uninspired Chardonnay please go to Closson Chase, their wines will prove to you why Chardonnay really is one of the greatest grapes on earth.
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