Three Niagara Pinot Noirs
by Anne Martin

Three 2007 Niagara Pinots: Inexpensive (Everyday Drinking), Spend and Splurge (Cellar Worthy)...

Inspired by a tasting that I went to a couple of weeks ago for local VQA wines at the AGO, I decided to try three 2007 Pinot Noirs from Niagara to find out if I could spot what differences the designation of sub-appellations and the oak treatment make in the wines and how this might be reflected in the quality. Also, I was curious to see if the different price points were warranted. As 2007 was a very good year in Niagara, it seemed like the perfect one to use for my experiment.

Thomas Bachelder, the famous and eloquent winemaker from Clos Jordanne claims that “we are five years away from making truly great wines” in Ontario and that “we have the glaciers to thank for our terroir” because of the limestone that they have deposited from different places around the province. This does not mean; however, that we are not making some excellent wines now and this trend to focus on grapes that do best in cool climate regions such as Pinot Noir is an admirable one.

The first wine that I tried was the Cave Spring 2007 Pinot Noir (LCBO# 417642) from the larger Niagara Peninsula sub-appellation. They do mostly use grapes from the Beamsville Bench with only 15% from other vineyards and Thomas Pennechetti, one of the owners of Cave Spring says that “they are moving towards having it become 100% Beamsville by the next year”. The idea is to preserve as much of the fruit character from the grapes as possible. All of this wine does spend eight months in oak (mostly French) – 25% new and 75% older. On the nose it has aromas of fresh raspberries, some rose petal, and mineral notes. It’s a pretty wine on the palate with elegant, lively fruit and cedar (a nod to the oak treatment) on the finish. At $16.95 it offers very good value. It was slightly over-powered by the lamb rack we ate with it. I recommend less strong tasting red meat like beef tenderloin with it or even roast chicken. It’s difficult to make a well made Pinot for under $20, but Cave Spring Cellars definitely succeeds with this one.

Next in the line-up was the Jackson-Triggs 2007 Delaine Vineyard Puncheon Pinot. This large winery has really put an effort into making more select smaller lots of high quality wines in the last few years and the results are showing. With grapes from the estates Delaine Vineyard, which is in the Niagara River sub-appellation, winemaker, Marco Picolli, used a technique that was traditionally employed in Old World winemaking and fermented the grapes in large (500 litre) Puncheon barrels which are 3-4 times the size of a regular barrique. (There is a growing trend in the wine world at present to experiment with different barrel sizes.) The grapes were then aged in 100% new French oak for 12 months. This wine has a deep colour for a Pinot. The nose was quite intense and evolved with ripe aromas of cooked raspberry jam and some smoked meat. It is a big wine with ripe black fruit on the palate and smoky notes. It went well with the BBQed lamb rack as it was able to handle the charred meat?. It’s a very pleasing red for those that like a more robust Pinot. The price of $32.95 is fair considering the amount of care that went into the production of it. There were only 150 cases of it made.

Tawse Winery has just won a large number of medals for their wines in the Wine Access 2009 Canadian Wine Awards and is the runner up for Winery of the Year in this competition. The owner, Moray Tawse, has invested heavily in both the vineyards and the winery. Clearly, they are dedicated to producing quality wines. The 17th Street 2007 Pinot Noir from the Twenty Mile Bench sub-appellation is also fermented in a large oak vessel and it spends 18 months in oak (what kind?). It was a more retrained than the other two Pinots on the nose with some dark cherry, mineral and vanilla notes. It’s a tightly knit on the palate with some cherry fruit showing through and it is generously rounded. I do think this wine needs time to show itself as the oak has wrapped itself around the fruit for now. This is a wine to buy and lie down for 3-7 years. The fact that it needs time is attests to its high quality. The price is $58.
Were the characteristics of the sub-appellations apparent in the taste of these 3 reds? It’s hard to say at this point as the specific terroirs have not become part of the language of describing Ontario wines yet. The length of time in oak was evident on all the wines and depending on which style of Pinot you prefer or what you are serving it with there is certainly terrific variety to be had in Niagara now. Which is really what make it all so exciting – we are beginning to produce a selection of price points and styles to suit every budget depending on the occasion. The next time you find yourself veering towards Burgundy or California for your Pinot Noir purchase, try one from closer to home.

Anne Martin is a Toronto-based sommelier, writer and wine consultant. Learn more about Anne, including her cellar and tasting services at www.annemartinwine.com.