This is a tale of two vineyards on Twenty Mile Bench on the Niagara Peninsula—Foxcroft and Wingfield. When I made my first visit to Canada in 2022 I was surprised to discover an unfolding story of terroir as I tasted my way across the Niagara Peninsula, but nowhere more so than on the bench. The limestone slopes are somewhat similar to Burgundy’s, albeit this hillside faces north and the vast expanse of Lake Ontario moderates the climate. 

My eye was caught by the wines made with Chardonnay from Foxcroft Vineyard, which have a distinctive density and richness. The fullish body is underscored with stony minerality which carries to a savory oyster-shell finish. It should combine richness with elegance, although it can swiftly over ripen and become heavy. Wine from Foxcroft, in the guise of various varieties, cropped up over a period of ten days while tasting with different producers.The wine business in Niagara is not unlike Burgundy in so much as some producers are estates with their own vineyards, while others are négociants buying fruit from growers and many combine the two. 

The Wismer family are among the principal growers in Niagara with seven farms and 300 acres (120ha). Other well known growers include Saunders and Laundry. The Wismers settled here three generations ago and moved into grape production when the bottom fell out of the tender fruit market. In the early 1990s they started planting in Jordan. Knowing nothing about grapes, Rick Wismer listened to Lloyd Schmidt who had experience in cool climate viticulture in Germany. He advised on which varieties to plant and where, although in retrospect this seems to be experimental and scatter-gun. Craig Wismer is now at the helm of the family business Wismer Vineyards and he sells fruit to around 70 producers.

Digging into the Foxcroft and Wingfield terroirs

On my last trip I wrote an overview of the whole region, so on this visit I wanted to dig into a specific terroir. Foxcroft offered the opportunity to taste wines from several winemakers in one sitting to see if there was a shared identity. Does Foxcroft have a vineyard expression or had I imagined it? 

Thomas Bachelder and Adam Lowy of Cloudsley Cellars produce Foxcroft Chardonnay from neighboring rows. They also make Chardonnay from Wingfield, another Wismer vineyard which lies 4.2 miles (6.8km) from the lake—0.6 miles (1km) south (ie inland) of Foxcroft, further up the slope and 160f (50m) higher in altitude. 

Twenty Mile Bench is actually a double bench and Wingfield is on the upper section with Foxcroft below. So I decided to include Wingfield in my research. It promised to be a good contrast with Foxcroft as I recall the wines being straighter, citrusy with clipped edges, more delicate than Foxcroft with a sharper, silvery mineral thread.  

Craig Wismer is a busy man. His company, Glen Elgin Vineyard Management, also looks after numerous other vineyards and wineries throughout the region making him notoriously difficult to get hold of, so I wasn’t sure if he would show up for our appointment in the vineyard. But he came and moreover surprised me with his keen interest in the expression of terroir in the final wine. 

“I can pick out Foxcroft blind for its salinity and minerality,” says Craig, who knows this vineyard better than anyone. “They are fuller, riper wines with an undertone of minerality.” I went for a walk in both vineyards with Craig, Thomas Bachelder, and Adam Lowy. This was followed by an extensive tasting of wine pulled in from different producers of Foxcroft with Thomas in his winery (aka the “bat cave”). 

Subsequently, in Prince Edward County (PEC), I came across several wines from Foxcroft and Wingfield. I had been unaware that Craig has customers in PEC where it is typical for producers to import some fruit from the Niagara Peninsula. However the producers here don’t customarily declare either the vineyard or grower on the label as those on the peninsula are wont to do. This seems to be a missed opportunity for PEC producers to show tighter provenance in their Niagara wines and there’s added kudos where a vineyard, such as Foxcroft, is fast gaining a reputation for quality and terroir expression.   

A description of the Fox

Let’s start with a description of Foxcroft, which is affectionately referred to as “Fox” by those who grow and make it. It’s a 45 acre (18ha) parcel on the Vineland side of the Twenty Mile Bench appellation. It is 360ft (110m) above sea level at the top of the vineyard and lies 3.4 miles (5.5km) from Lake Ontario, which moderates the temperature. On summer afternoons, as the hot air rises off the land, cool air is drawn in from the lake, then hits the escarpment and tumbles back. This windy turbulence is quite noticeable in some vineyards and while it is not as cool on the bench as Lincoln Lakeshore and Creek Shores, there is certainly some lake effect. In October and November the proximity to the lake makes it slightly warmer than those vineyards on the lake shore, permitting a longer hang time if the weather is fine and the fruit healthy. The dolomitic limestone makes the bench special. The topsoil is a glacial till, a degradation of the escarpment washed down over thousands of years—limestone mixed with shale, clay, silt, and stones with various depths and compositions. 

Foxcroft was planted in two phases. In 1996 with Chardonnay (15 acres [6ha] of clone 96 largely grafted onto 101.14 rootstock) and 10 acres (4ha) each of Gamay and Cabernet Franc, while another 10 acres of Riesling followed in 1997. The vineyard is a contiguous parcel accounting for most of the land on this Wismer 50-acre (10ha) farm. 

“We originally identified Foxcroft for large scale management and machine picking, but began to feel this didn't do the vineyard justice,” explains Craig. “In the early to mid 2000s, I was approached by producers, people like Norm Hardie and Thomas Bachelder, who were looking for ultra-premium fruit which helped drive the shift for us. Fruit like that didn’t exist back then or at least not for sale by growers. This began the focus on quality, changing the trellis to VSP instead of Scott Henry and Niffen, reducing buds, manual leaf removal, crop management, and so on.” 

Craig prefers to work with numerous small producers focused on terroir-driven wines rather than with fewer large companies looking for a large volume of fruit. He sold Foxcroft fruit to 26 producers in 2023, eight of them making Chardonnay. “It helps that everyone is pushing for quality so I can manage the whole vineyard pretty much the same way,” he tells me. It is all hard harvested with the exception of some Riesling. “It’s a really special site, large and efficient to work, not shaded by trees and bushes so it makes fuller, riper wines, and the quality and expression now shows from the relationships we have forged with these producers.”

Maybe the best section for Chardonnay is the southwest quadrant—top right if you stand with your back to the lake. Thomas Bachelder and Adam Lowy both have full-length rows running top to bottom in this upper quadrant, which also contains some rows of Riesling on the far right/west. 

As we walked along these rows Thomas remarked on the whiter color of the soil when compared with the lower section of Foxcroft where the soil has a reddish tint. “There’s more magnesium oxide in the soil,” says Thomas, who had Chardonnay rows here, but swapped to the quadrant above. He points out this lower section of Foxcroft forms a band which continues eastwards along the bench into Hank and Wismer Park, which are good vineyards for Pinot Noir. 

In the upper quadrant he has found the lower two thirds of his rows produce wine with a more mineral feel. Analysis of the top soil in this specific band has confirmed a higher level of calcium carbonate. Craig tells me there is no difference in the vine growth or yields along the full stretch of the rows. “The vines reached a natural satisfaction at around 20 years and now they are 30 years old there is purity [in the expression]. We don’t manipulate the vines, but help them show a sense of place.” So it seems there is a difference in the soil. Crag points out the top third of the rows is flat, while the lower section is on a marginal incline. I suppose this effectively makes it the belly of the slope, while two lower quadrants where the soil is deeper and definitely a little redder form the lower slope. It’s intriguing to get to this level of focus within one vineyard. Proper terroir stuff.

Whereas many estates have researched the soil structure of their vineyards, it is understandable that growers managing a large acreage and focused on producing fruit would not feel the same imperative. However the next step lies in discovering what lies below the surface of specific vineyards to explain why they display a strong and qualitative identity. It might also substantiate the reputation of specific parcels within these large vineyards becoming the “premier cru.” 

I wondered whether there had been any research into the soil strata. “I’d like to do this, but digging pits is an expensive exercise,” said Thomas with a sidelong glance to Craig, who sportingly took the bait and offered to share the cost. “When will this happen?” This winter they agreed. So hopefully we will soon discover more accurately what lies beneath the surface of Foxcroft and Wingfield.

Tasting Foxcroft

In Thomas’s cellar we tasted the 2023 vintage in barrel from both sections of his rows. The “haut” part of Thomas’s rows, which seems less mineral, is harvested separately and declassified into Bachelder Twenty Mile Bench, basically his village blend, while the lower part showcases Foxcroft and is labeled as such. 

At Cloudsley Cellars Adam Lowy takes a slightly different approach by harvesting the full length of the rows in three passes moving from east to west. This, he feels, gives a good cross-section expression of this quadrant of Fox. He subsequently makes a selection of the best barrels for Foxcroft while declassifying the remainder to his “village wine” Twenty Mile Bench Chardonnay, which actually has a very Fox feel.

So both of them are effectively making a premier cru chardonnay from Fox, while declassifying the less intense and characterful wine into a village blend. This cascade system is employed by many of the top estates on the Niagara Peninsula for their single vineyard wines to ensure the best expression of the vineyard, but is less likely to happen when the fruit is purchased.

The three producers whose wines showed the strongest expression of Fox—that combo of density and body with minerality and elegance—were Bachelder, Adam Lowy, and Ilya Senchuk at Leaning Post who sadly made his last Foxcroft wines in 2019. There are other skilful producers making wine from Fox, but I think these producers snaffle the best fruit. (No one would sell anything less than the best to Thomas Bachelder who is the unofficial global ambassador for the wines of Ontario).

The secret to getting the best fruit? Stay close to your grower for a start, and you can’t get much closer than Adam Lowy whose winery lies across the street from Fox on Wismer’s land. It’s a smart move to declare the grower’s name on the label. It gives them a vested interest. On one hand a gracious gesture to acknowledge their significant contribution, on the other a tactical maneuver to ensure top quality fruit. 

Secondly, select your rows and pay for haute couture management—shoot positioning, careful leaf thinning, hand picking—the whole shebang—which will be significantly more expensive (30-90%) than the official price per kilo of fruit set by the Grape Growers of Ontario.  

Micro-négociant and Burgundy lover Adam Lowy is a relative newcomer. 2017 was his first vintage. “I am not a seventh-generation producer of Foxcroft, but I can tell the wines have the structure to age.” He chose not to make any single-vineyard wine in 2018 or 2021. “Conscientious winemaking will showcase the potential of this region,” he explains. 

I tried Riesling from Adamo Estate Winery (2022 and 2023) Leaning Post 2019, and “2027 Cellars” 2020 which shared a firm and flinty, straight and vigorous feel. While a flight of four Rieslings from Trail Estate Winery on PEC seemed more driven by winemaking technique rather than an expression of Foxcroft which may be a stylistic decision and/or the location of the rows in the lower section of the vineyard on the red tinted soil.

Cabernet Franc, which is planted in the southeast quadrant (top left) is always happy on limestone, which here is mixed with clay in a heavier soil. I tasted well-structured Cabernet Franc in which the Foxcroft expression came through in substance, vigor, and graphite minerality. There was a complex, structured 2019 from Leaning Post which will continue to evolve, and a rich, sleek 2020 vintage from 2027 Cellars with oyster-shell freshness. However, three vintages of Cabernet Franc from Adamo Estate didn’t express the vineyard, and only 2015 and 2016 from a flight of six vintages from Trail Estate had a Fox feel. 

There is a hollow, towards the end of the lower left (northeast) quadrant. From vines before the dropoff, Norm Hardie has Chardonnay and Bachelder makes a charming, silky Gamay—all four vintages I tried had a Fox feel—lighter in substance, but with a smoky reductive graphite note. Malivoire Wine Co draws Gamay from the lower deeper soil. This Gamay is attractively dark, brooding, and gutsy, but not very Fox in character. Maybe it’s the clone, which is different, but probably also the terroir. But in any event, the reds in Foxcroft are not as consistent in terroir expression as the white wines. Only if Foxcroft were planted wholly in Chardonnay would it be truly possible to assess the differences. 

In any large vineyard there are likely to be disparities—Clos Vougeot and Charmes Chambertin are among the world’s most extreme examples where grand cru terroir can sink to a good village wine, so we must forgive Foxcroft for some variation in soil and expression. Maybe it’s an argument for tighter delimitation and labeling within the vineyard. 

But all credit to the growers and producers who have come a long way in a relatively short time in figuring out the best pairings of varieties and clonal material to soil type and microclimate. Many varieties do well on the Niagara Peninsula and Chardonnay is particularly accommodating, but identifying the best Chardonnay vineyards is another thing. Foxcroft is certainly one of them—but it needs watching.

Everyone I spoke with emphasized the importance of picking dates as Chardonnay in Fox ripens swiftly and can turn on a sixpence into over-ripe. Adam Lowy finds that picking a day early (seemingly) often proves to be the best time. Catching the moment in the hot and dry 2020 vintage was key. Foxcroft’s 2020 Chardonnays are rich and a touch tropical. A sleek, fat Foxcroft vintage, but those I tasted have the potential to refine, if harvested in good time, and what they lack in acidity can be compensated by sapidity. 

Even in 2022, a warmish, but not hot, low-yielding vintage, Foxcroft Chardonnay can have a hint of exoticism. The issue is partly due to vine material (clone 96 can easily over-ripen) and partly due to terroir. Craig points out that Foxcroft vineyard is large, open, and exposed on the slope with no influence of trees or bushes. The 2021 vintage has less mouthfeel, so the minerality is more exposed while 2019 is spot on: power and energy with salinity. Good examples all round, including a vigorous 2021 Adamo Estate and a whiplash mineral wine from Leaning Post.

Wingfield: In the nape of the escarpment

While Foxcroft rides the line between richness and weight and “bench” elegance and minerality where it’s necessary to keep an eagle eye on the pH, Wingfield is the opposite. This vineyard can struggle for full phenolic ripeness with the result that in colder vintages, such as 2021, it can taste a touch lean and green. Chardonnay here ripens well after Foxcroft, from nine days to four weeks in 2019.

The 20 acres (8ha) of Wingfield Chardonnay are further from the lake than Foxcroft, so logically it could be warmer, but it is clearly a cooler place. It’s 165ft (50m) higher and Adam Lowy describes it as being in “a nape” of the escarpment, and, unlike Foxcroft, it is small and shaded in part. It shows well in 2022. Nowhere had much crop in 2022 because of the polar vortex and the season stretched into a nice September, perfect for Wingfield to show its delicate profile—slim, streamlined, and precise with a pure treble note. 

I wondered why Wingfield hadn’t been planted with Riesling in 1993. “It was experimental, and people said Chardonnay was risky,” "Craig admits. We stood on the “Hill of Wingfield’ (550ft [168m] and 4.2miles [6.8 km] distant from the lake), a sloping parcel, about 10ft (3m) higher at the top, where the first few vines are shaded by tall trees. Sometimes the fruit under the trees is underripe and goes into sparkling wine. 

The 4 acres (1.6ha) “Hill of Wingfield” is divided between Cloudsley Cellars and Bachelder who pioneered Wingfield ten years ago. The soil is clay loam with gravel and limestone “calcium carbonate is everywhere here in powder form,” says Thomas as we walk into the Wingfield North parcel. This 4-acre section, planted in 2016 with Chardonnay clones 95, 96, and 76 on 3309 rootstock, is sloping, although everywhere has a very marginal slope to the lake. 

Bachelder makes two Chardonnay cuvées, Wingfield and Hill of Wingfield, while Cloudsley only makes Wingfield but it comes from the hill section—the fruit from below goes into a traditional-method sparkling wine. So for now at least these are the only two Wingfield Chardonnays you can find on the market.

Norm Hardie has Wingfield Chardonnay, but it is usually blended with fruit from Fox and Cuesta. The 2022, still in barrel, is zippy-tense and super-citrus. I believe it will be bottled separately as Cuvée L (touchingly named after Norm’s late sister). But if it were labeled Wingfield this would certainly help promote the identity of this vineyard which, as Norm (who has been making wine from it off and on since 2012), observes, is “always the most mineral and freshest site". In 2016 Bachelder made a Hill of Wingfield, the freshest and brightest example of Chardonnay in this hot, dry vintage from which many wines are now well past their best. 

While the Chardonnay parcels cover a total of 8 acres (3.2ha) in two neighboring parcels, Wingfield is a much larger farm—80 acres (32ha) of mixed crops including 16 acres (6.5ha) of vines. Craig pointed out a vineyard of Cabernet Franc across some fields and tells me the decision to plant Cabernet Franc there in 1993 may have been Lloyd Schmidt’s sage advice or a wild guess. “However it was a correct one to have the more hardy Cabernet Franc on the lower elevation and the slightly less hardy Chardonnay on the higher part for our winter temperature.” 

“The entire Wingfield vineyard was considered unfit for growing vinifera in the 90s,” Craig adds. “The ‘upper bench’ of the two-tiered Vineland bench was considered too far from the lake and we were told we were wasting our time. Thirty-one years later we affectionately refer to our ‘upper’ bench as we discuss the quality we can produce on such a focused site.”  

I tried three versions of Cabernet Franc from Trial Estate which is pursuing a rich, bitter- chocolate, oaky feel. It’s good, but it doesn’t relate to the expression of terroir in Wingfield Chardonnay. Trail’s Cabernet Franc is called Hedonism, not Wingfield, and in this case maybe that’s a good thing. Unlike Foxcroft, Wingfield is not a contiguous vineyard, which makes the terroir message more difficult to pin down and communicate. 

Chardonnay is the hero variety for both Wingfield and Foxcroft and each vineyard has its peculiarities. Wingfield shows best when a fine autumn and healthy fruit permit a long hang time. Foxcroft Chardonnay is more likely to hit the mark in a cooler vintage. 

When Wingfield is spot on it’s super stylish with a shimmery stretch across the palate, but it won’t show the density and gravitas of a Fox on form. 

In Foxcroft it pays to know your producer, the vintage, and the specific parcel within the vineyard. That’s proper terroir wine. That’s exciting. And I applaud it. 

Go find your Fox. Tally ho! 

The post Foxcroft and Wingfield: A tale of two vineyards appeared first on World Of Fine Wine.

Recent columns in this series have lamented how appellations, in the name of provenance—enshrining place as fine wine’s prime distinguishing feature—almost ineluctably overstep, demanding decoding beyond the patience of most of the consumers they were ostensibly meant to protect, who thus end up confused and underinformed (WFW 79, p.38). Terroir gets conflated with typicity, which turns tyrannical (WFW 62, p.44). Spurious regulatory details proliferate (WFW 75, p.54). Inherent inertia inhibits response to changing circumstances (WFW 80, p.97), while wrangling over appellations (and their offspring, vineyard classification) diverts attention and energy from such urgent changes of circumstance as a warming planet (WFW 73, p.36).

The foremost concern of all appellations is intimated by the EU-sanctioned designation for the genre—“protected designation of origin”: to inform consumers with some desired degree of specificity where the grapes grew. Additionally, systems of appellations are intended to guarantee some level of sheer quality. Lastly, there are what’s promised by the name of that most famous system, France’s appellation contrôlée: further controls on which wines may be labeled for their place of origin, controls whose aim is for consumers to associate with a given place name some readily recognizable type of wine, as determined inter alia by the sorts of grapes and vinificatory methods that are permitted. Tension—indeed, conflict—is inevitable between the first and last of these desiderata, since any wine failing to meet appellation standards cannot proclaim its origin within the surface area delimited by that appellation. 

Austria's DACs

Such tension is reflected in Austria’s system of DACs, which this year reached its goal of covering every growing region (with a single exception). The inaugural (2002) DAC, Weinviertel—by far the country’s largest growing region—is limited to wines from Grüner Veltliner, making up half the regional vine area. Yet today, only 15 percent of Weinviertel production is labeled “Weinviertel,” and among estates that utilize the DAC at all, many do for only one among many Grüner Veltliner bottlings. The most recently recognized DACs, by contrast, authorize virtually all of those varieties that are planted in any significant numbers. Depending on one’s perspective, these latecomers either failed to grasp the point of DAC—officially, to inform consumers that a wine is “particularly typical” of its region—or came to recognize the own-goal nature of disqualifying a large share of wine from calling-card function.

Proponents of DAC often testify to success in marketing wines that lack this imprimatur. “I determined that [such] wines would sell just as well regardless; and they had their own justification,” relates Michael Moosbrugger, proprietor of the Kamptal’s prestigious Schloss Gobelsburg and longtime chairman of Austria’s influential Traditionsweingüter. “So, the appellation Kamptal DAC will definitely not lead to our making no sparkling wines, red wines, or sweet wines.” For non-DAC Kamptal wines, the designation of origin is Niederösterreich, an Austrian state unfamiliar abroad.

As for less orthodox genres, such as products of skin-fermented white grapes, those tasked with Austrian wine marketing are grappling with a dilemma, now that the average bottle price of a Qualitätswein in export has been surpassed by that of non-Qualitätsweine. A proposal has been floated to create a category of Qualitätswein mit alternativer Stilistik. But integration into Austria’s DACs has not been broached. Moosbrugger isn’t even averse to imagining how wines labeled “Zöbinger Heiligenstein,” his foremost cru, might one day come to be “orange”—if, as he puts it, such wines become “so successful […] that [they] command twice the price of any others from the Heiligenstein.” But for him, typicity demands that what is understood as “Heiligenstein”—or, by extension, “Kamptal”—does not reflect disparate concurrent styles.

VQAs: Canada’s inclusive appellations

Imagine, though, appellations minus the criterion of typicity. Actually, one needn’t imagine. Some already exist: Canada’s VQAs. When, for example, Dean Stoyka of Stratus Wines vinified two 2021 Rieslings, one conventionally and one “skin-fermented,” both could carry the same designation of origin: Niagara-on-the-Lake. And arguably, it would be peculiar were that not the case, since the two wines came from the same vineyard block. Ann Sperling, an Ontario and British Columbia winemaker who was the prime mover behind 2017 integration of orange wine into Ontario’s VQAs, could point to their existing inclusivity, embracing sparklers and a range of sweet wines, including icewine (long an Ontario signature).

There’s no dearth of requirements in VQA regulations. Ontario’s currently run to 12,453 words. But most concern the authorization and definition of stylistic descriptors—something unneeded if your appellation is designed to conjure a discrete style of wine. An averred guarantee of quality is conferred via sensory analysis for freedom from “defects or faults.” To be sure, even these can be on the palate of the beholder (see WFW 17, p.74). But Ontario’s guidelines are well designed to promote felicitous inclusiveness, while weeding out what would find disfavor with most drinkers. 

”The tasting panels have evolved,” observes Sperling, “and are tolerant of style variations [and] trends as long as there are no obvious flaws. For example, wild-fermented Rieslings with malolactic were rejected consistently ten years ago but are now routinely accepted.” The panelists—vintners, sommeliers, and wine educators scrutinized for expertise—aren’t asked to rule on regional typicity. Provenance and quality suffice. 

The post Appellational aspirations appeared first on World Of Fine Wine.

Sarah Marsh MW concludes her Canadian adventure in the southern part of the Okanagan Valley, where she is excited by the potential of red wines, notably Cabernet Franc and Syrah.

Now we enter the southern section of the Okanagan Valley which runs down to meet the US border. As we pass McIntyre Bluff, the valley becomes wider. There is more sunlight, and the soils are sandy. This is rugged desert country and were it not for irrigation nothing would grow but brush. Rattlesnakes shelter in the shade of the rocks and the smell of black sage scents the air.  

When the ice dam burst, the lake of water behind it gushed into the land below bringing with it glacial outwash, lots of sediment with a high proportion of sandstone, and this settled along the lower part of the valley. A huge river formed and in time, when this receded, it left sandy benches along the former sides of the lake. In the southern part of the Okanagan Valley, the influence of water is is far less significant than in the north where deep waters moderate the climate. The lake which narrows to a river through the Okanagan Falls, all but disappears, before widening into a shallow lake in Osoyoos. However, the nights are cold and it is this extreme diurnal which makes the wines super fresh, despite the searing heat of the day. 

East side: Black Sage Bench and Osoyoos

On the east side of the valley the landscape is more open and there is a gentle ripple effect from a series of small shallow benches which are predominantly composed of sand. The vineyards here are west-facing and bask in sunshine through long summer days when the sun doesn’t set until 9pm. Midway down the valley is Black Sage Bench, where the sandy soil is deep with only minor variation where it includes some stone and loam. This is where such well known estates as Phantom Creek, Black Hills, and Le Vieux Pin are to be found. The fine-gained sand didn’t settle, but blew down to the neighboring area of Osoyoos. Mission Hill’s Buena Vista Vineyard is on the border with the USA, as is Moon Curser, a tiny 6ha (15 acres) vineyard where Chris Tolley has planted an eclectic collection of varieties in the desert terroir. The Arneis and Syrah are the most digestible. 

As you might expect this area produces full-bodied, rich wine. Bordeaux varieties and Syrah thrive here and big red blends—among them Black Hills Estate’s Notabene, first produced in 1999—became cult wines. This style of “seat belt” wine, heady and laden in America oak, is a profile many producers are pulling back from. 

A Canadian terroir story part I: Niagara and Prince Edward County

If you stand on the west side of the valley it’s possible to see how the topography has been shaped by glacial activity on the east side. Behind the sandy bench of Black Sage, in the foothills of the Okanagan Highland, the hillside range is broken—smooth on the north side and jagged on the south, shaped by the receding ice. This is where Anthony von Mandl’s Jagged Rock Vineyard is located.

Wherever I visited, the conversation would turn, sooner or later, to the prevailing change in winemaking approach, with every winemaker explaining how they have adapted techniques to produce more elegant wine. The style of wine, particularly on this hotter side of the valley, will always be rich and full. There is no disguising that. But they do not have to be heavily extracted or heavily oaked. I think the narrative should change to wines with a sense of place. 

West side: Golden Mile Bench

On the west side of the valley, it is both a little cooler and the soil is more diverse. Admittedly it’s all hot and sandy here, but there are terroir differences. The lake shore area is narrower, steeper, and hemmed by a low mountain range. These east-facing vineyards receive the morning sun, but Mount Kobau casts a shadow cutting the day shorter and the vines lose the sun by 6pm. The topography of this side was not only shaped by glacial activity, but by water running down from the hills which formed creeks and five gravelly alluvial fans. Hence the soil is a mix of sand, rock, and alluvial matter. 

This side of the valley naturally produces slightly more elegant, fresher, more restrained wines than those of the eastern side. The most important area along the west side is Golden Mile Bench, which lies opposite to Black Sage Bench and was the first sub-GI to be created in 2015. Four of the five creeks run down through Golden Mile Bench, which is about 8km (5 miles) long and concentrated on the lower slopes, where you will find the well-known estates of CheckMate Winery and Culmina Family Estate Winery, while Ossoyos Larose lies just across the southern boundary. 

Whites

The beating heart of the southern Okanagan Valley is its red wine, but there is some white of merit, notably the ever-adaptable Chardonnay, and any report would be incomplete without mentioning them.

CheckMate Artisanal Winery makes seven Chardonnays including five single-vineyard cuvées. Capture Chardonnay, from the Buena Vista vineyard in Osoyoos, is undeniably tropical, full, and spicy but balanced with firm acidity as a result of the cold nights. Knight’s Challenge, a rich and honeyed, but lively single-vineyard Chardonnay from Black Sage Bench, is picked early to retain freshness to cut through the candied citrus fruit. 

But most of all I enjoyed tasting two Chardonnays from adjacent vineyards on Golden Mile made in the same way with full malolactic fermentation and 50 percent new oak. The energetic, intense, and citrusy Queen Taken, contrasted with the broader more savory, stony, and fuller-bodied Queen’s Advantage. These cuvées, made from very old vines planted in the mid-1970s and probably the oldest Chardonnay vines in the Okanagan Valley, are an eloquent example of site-specific wine.

It became apparent that some winemakers across the valley avoid malolactic fermentation, concerned their Chardonnay will be flabby, but those I tasted didn’t. Since the malic acidity is fairly low, malolactic will only marginally alter the total acidity, but it can add complexity.  

Golden Mile Bench GI is confined to the mid and lower slopes, but there are higher altitude sites along this western side of the valley which are great locations for Chardonnay and aromatic whites. In 2011 Culmina planted Chardonnay on the high-altitude Margaret’s Terrace. The richness in Dilemma Chardonnay 2017 is balanced with tension and freshness.

Several producers in the southern part of the valley draw Chardonnay from vineyards just south of the Okanagan Falls, which are cooler. LaStella Winery, located in Osoyoos, makes Chardonnay from a coolish site with sandy/stony soil below Eagle Bluff just south of the Okanagan Falls. The 2021 Leggiero Chardonnay is lightly creamy and bright with a fresh line on the finish. I tasted vibrant and zesty Chardonnay grown in the cooler Hidden Terraces Vineyard, a 330m (1,083ft) elevation, 300-acre (121ha) vineyard with a slightly east-facing incline near McIntyre Bluff. Ross Wise MW from Black Hills Winery makes a lively example. 

Wise uses an exceptionally long, gentle press cycle with few tumbles and full oxidation. Fermentation and MLF go through with indigenous yeast and bacteria and the wine is aged on lees in concrete with no bâtonnage. These are techniques for building texture and complexity in savory rather than fruit-driven wine, which Wise practiced while working with Riesling at neighboring Phantom Creek—an approach which was introduced by Olivier Humbrecht MW. 

I am not terribly keen on big rich Chardonnays, so I prefer those from cooler pockets in the southern section of the Okanagan Valley, while other white varieties make more distinctive wines from the hotter sites. Le Vieux Pin have an inviting Roussanne with a touch of Viognier from the sandy soils and warm exposure of Black Sage Bench. 2020 Cuvee Dorée is more elegant than expected with orange flower and lychee, while Le Vieux Pin Ava is fatter and creamier, suggests that Marsanne is not so well adapted to the sandy soil. 

What’s most surprising is Phantom Creek’s Estate Riesling 2020 from Black Sage Bench. This is the wine to which Humbrecht brought his expertise. In the appetizingly dry Riesling, he uses textural richness and glycerol from extended lees ageing to balance the high acidity rather than sugar. It goes though full malolactic fermentation and is aged in Stockinger foudres for nineteen months to produce a full, rich, 13.9% Riesling with creamy notes of crème pat’ and a fresh line of acidity.   

Enough about the white varieties. They are almost a distraction. The southern section of the Okanagan Valley is better suited to red, and I was bent on finding out which varieties most eloquently express the terroir on either side of the valley. It is a challenge for producers to make a wine with a sense of place when the market has pushed for a certain style. It requires a change of approach in the vineyard and the winery. Most fundamental is planting the grape varieties which are best adapted to express the specific terroir. 

Merlot

Merlot is the most widely planted grape in BC and in the Okanagan Valley. In British Columbia, there are 654ha (1,616 acres). It was planted indiscriminately since it is easy to grow and winter-hardy, which is a significant consideration where temperatures can plummet to -25°C (-13°F). The variety also yields well and delivers the style of wine the home market has been looking for with ease. But from a quality standpoint I can’t help but feel it does the Okanagan Valley few favors. Most of the Merlot I tasted had, to a greater or lesser extent, jammy, cooked fruit, rough tannins, and high acidity coupled with high alcohol. And usually exacerbated by too much new oak.

So why are the tannins rough? Merlot, and Pinot Noir for that matter, are thin-skinned varieties renowned for their smooth textural characters, both of which seem to have firmer tannin than expected in the Okanagan Valley. After days of listening to the producers explain their approach to viticulture and winemaking, while walking in their vineyards and tasting their wine, it became apparent that the issue with tannin is not limited to winemaking, but is as much an issue of viticulture. There is widespread enthusiasm for hanging the fruit as long as possible in pursuit of phenolic ripeness and for plucking the leaves around the fruit. This was evident as I visited just before harvest. But maybe the extended hang time is not softening but rather toughening the skins. I could see shrivelled berries, particularly where the vines had been leaf-plucked to expose the grapes. It’s possible the combined effect of hang time and leaf plucking promotes thicker skins, greater skin-to-juice ratio, higher sugar level, and jammy flavors. The tartaric acidity from the cold nights may reduce a little, but it remains pretty high and this itself will exacerbate the tannin. It is easy to say but maybe more producers should just pick on taste.

A Canadian terroir story part II: Northern Okanagan Valley

Micheal Kullmann, a young English winemaker who cut his teeth making wine in Bordeaux, is convinced that Merlot in particular, is being left too long before harvest. As winemaker for Osoyoos Larose, where the Grand Vin is made of 65% Merlot, he is introducing many interesting changes. It takes a cultural shift to accept a leaner, slightly more herbal flavor profile, for Merlot and Pinot Noir, but maybe this is the way forward. The picking date is key. Following on from this, a gentle, less extractive approach with less new oak and careful finishing will create the elegant, fresher, and finer-textured wine he is aiming for. I am looking forward to tasing the 2022, the first vintage for which he will be fully responsible.

It’s smart newcomers like Kullmann who recognize that it’s not possible to produce wine the way it was done 20 or even 10 years ago. In 2022, there was a cold spring and delayed flowering with a hot peak in summer. When the temperature reaches 35°C (95°F) the vines shut down. With a compressed season it is challenging to achieve physiological ripeness, although the 2022 is looking much more promising than 2021. The Okanagan Valley is classified as a cool climate, but the southern section is a desert. The vines are kept alive with drip irrigation, but Kullmann is experimenting with a MaxiJet system that cools down a wider surface area keeping the vines functioning, while composting and cover crops retain moisture in the sandy soils. 

Osoyoos Larose is located on the west side of the valley, just off the Golden Mile Bench. I think it’s generally too hot for Merlot in the Southern Okanagan, except in coolest sites on the west side. 

Where the Merlot has been planted in the wrong place there are options, less dramatic than replanting. It was encouraging to see examples of producers changing the variety to one more suited to the site, by grafting over.

Syrah 

Syrah may be the most suitable and reliable conduit for the terroir in the southern Okanagan. It can produce beautifully balanced, intense, supple-textured wine with cooler or warmer expressions depending on the side of the valley where it is grown. It probably makes the finest wines of the southern Okanagan valley. 

But Syrah is dying. Vines fall into degenerative condition at around 15 years. This seems to be linked to clonal material, so producers are ripping out old vines and replacing them with Clone 7 or another variety altogether. I tasted a rich, satin-textured, vibrant 2018 Syrah from Phantom Creek Becker Vineyard Block 1A at a Visa Infinite dinner hosted in the winery, only to be told the vines have been removed. Becker vineyard is on Black Sage Bench. When Syrah bathes in the long sunlight hours here it makes rich, full, smooth, and sleek wine.

Across the road from Phantom Creek, Ross Wise is nursing his Syrah Clone 99 which he tells me is much finer than Clone 7, more savory and complex with violet aromatics. I enjoyed Black Hills Estate Syrah 2019 a rich wine which combines floral aromas with savory and gamey notes. Staying on Black Sage Bench Severine Pinte at Le Vieux Pin makes three cuvées of Syrah, each with distinct personalities from different terroir. The fullest, most balanced, and most intense is the inky, rich Equinox, which seems to absorb the heat into a molten black chocolate.  

Moving to the west side of the valley, Syrah channels the terroir, producing fragrant, slimmer, well structured, lively wines with a taffeta crunch to the texture. Marcus Ansems MW picks his Syrah from Golden Mile Bench at the same time as Viognier in Naramata and co-ferments. Daydreamer Amelia with a 10% shot of Viognier, has floral aromas and ages well. I tried 2020 and 2013. The young wine is fresh, floral and fruity; the older is smooth with silky soft tannins and notes of roasted coriander seed and biltong. Phantom Creek’s Kobau Vineyard, also on Golden Mile Bench, is fresh and spicy with vibrant blackberry fruit, taffeta tannins, and crunchy spiciness. With two to three hours less sunlight, the west-side Syrah wines are elegant, spicy, and fresh, while those from the east side are fuller and more savory with richer tannins. 

Cabernet Franc

As good as it can be, Syrah has a rival for the position of southern Okanagan’s signature grape: Cabernet Franc. The deep sandy soils on the east side help control Cabernet Franc’s natural vigor. Black Hills Winery Per Se was possibly my favorite wine here. This pioneering estate was originally planted in the 1990s, before it was bought in 2017 by Andrew Peller Estates. It has a following for Bordeaux blends in the seatbelt style, but Ross Wise has been left to evolve the estate in a more retrained direction. While he has kept the style of Notabene, the other reds are being refined. 2019 Per Se is a Cabernet Franc-led blend (60% Cabernet Franc, 40% Merlot). In the cooler 2019 vintage it is a richly floral, black-satin wine with a delicious ribbon of fruit that finishes on a fresh note.

Maybe Cabernet Franc will claim the east bank and Syrah the west, but both are adaptable to warmer and cooler areas of the valley.

Cabernet Franc can ripen successfully in Oliver, which is a relatively cooler region of at the top of the southern section, just below the Okanagan Falls. In sight of McIntyre Bluff, Riverstone Winery producers a rather silky Cabernet Franc. The small stones in the vineyard are coated with calcium carbonate and I had already seen in Niagara how well Cabernet Franc responds to limestone. The surrounding bowl of hills creates a warmer mesoclimate than in the Okanagan Falls and so it is possible to ripen Cabernet Franc.

At Mission Hill my favorite red was the Cabernet Franc Vista Vineyard from Vista Edge vineyard in Oliver. Winemaker Corrie Krehbiel explains that she has started to make it like Pinot Noir. It has a dark cocoa powder intensity. Aromatic, floral, and fresh, it has a fine talcy texture. 

The profile of Cabernet Franc has far fewer of the pyrazine characters when it is ripe and low-cropped. In the southern Okanagan Valley, the focus on sweet fruit and freshness, floral aromatics, and smooth textures is very appealing. It could have a future replacing some Merlot vineyards, but there is a distinct drawback to Cabernet Franc. I’m told it is most susceptible to smoke taint from summer wildfires, which is a serious consideration in the Okanagan Valley. Some producers spray the fruit with clay in the hope that it may protect from sunburn and smoke taint. All the same, 2021 was a vintage of forest fires that led to smoke taint on some wines.

Cabernet Sauvignon

Whereas Syrah and Cabernet Franc seem a good fit for the southern Okanagan, Cabernet Sauvignon is more of a struggle. Cabernet Sauvignon has a long growing season, while the valley’s season is short. In 2022 it had time to reach full phenolic maturity, but 2021’s heat dome, which reached over 45°C (113°F), cut the season short.  It’s not a vintage I enjoyed so much in the Okanagan Valley. In the right vintage, in the right hands, Cabernet Sauvignon makes a deliciously sleek and urbane wine, but with ever-more extreme weather it can only become more unreliable. 

In any event, a good result with Cabernet Sauvignon is very site specific, and the suitable sites are already planted. It will inevitably remain a minor variety, usually becoming part of a blend. I particularly liked Expressivo from LaStella, which is a three-way split between Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, and Merlot made by Severine Pinte. She was engaged as winemaker for LaStella and Le Vieux Pin for her technical skill in blending and her more restrained approach. She is among a growing cohort winemaking to a more European palate.

Pinte sensibly doesn’t include stems in her wines, since the season is too short for stems to properly lignify. Moreover, stems increase pH and Pinte explains that the soil here delivers juice with high pH, irrespective of high TA. There seems to be a move to lighter extraction on the bigger reds with an emphasis on the early stages when the alcohol is lower. It seems concrete is the fermentation vessel of choice for big reds as well as whites. Bubbles of CO₂, which are reductive stick to the rough interior walls and help retain freshness. Concrete vat producer Nico Velo is doing a roaring trade in the Okanagan Valley. I don’t think I visited a winery that wasn’t either using them in their mainstream production or experimenting with them. 

Nonetheless, there is still too much oak for me from winemakers relying on its sweetness to balance the high acidity, while too many winemakers seem to believe that a warmer vintage can absorb more new oak, when the contrary is true. However, Wise is among those moving to using 500-liter puncheons and neutral oak, which helps calm the 14% alcohol. Pinte has decided that the tight grain of French oak is too strong and is using Hungarian instead. I would like to see more experiments with oak. François Frères seems to have cornered the market and while they are an excellent cooper, the low-toast barrels are strong and can easily mark the wine. 

Tasting wines the length and breadth of the Okanagan Valley, I was captivated by their diversity and by the energy and talent of the winemakers. It has taken time for the initial enthusiasm in the Okanagan Valley to settle down to a more measured approach matching variety to site, but this has been happening for more than a decade now. Tasting back through vintages has revealed an evolution after the hot 2015 and 2016 vintages at which point many wines were still style-led. With measures taken in the vineyard and winery there has been a shift in focus to produce wines with a sense of place and the finest examples certainly have a tighter refection of their terroir. 

Before I embarked on my epic journey across Canada, I was led to believe the Okanagan Valley had “arrived.” I’d say it is certainly pulling into the station, but it’s quite a long train. It is a relatively young and unquestionably dynamic region exploring its potential as its producers work out how best to express their terroir. No one is sitting on their laurels. There is certainly some excellent wine and I sense things will only get better. 

The post A Canadian terroir story part III: Southern Okanagan Valley appeared first on World Of Fine Wine.

Sarah Marsh MW’s odyssey through the wine regions of Canada continues in the northern part of British Columbia’s Okanagan Valley, where she finds a rapidly developing scene that is beginning to reach its full potential.

When the ice dam burst 12,000 years ago at the place known today as Okanagan Falls, it carved the wide valley of the southern section of the Okanagan Valley, flooding it with the silty outwash from the lake behind the glacier. The 180km (112-mile) valley, through which there is a snake of lakes and rivers, is not the easiest place to get your head around. I spent ten days working my way from north to south visiting 40 wineries, and like to consider the valley in two or even three parts: the cooler northern part where the hot summers and cold winters are moderated by deep lakes; the wide desert-like southern part with its sandy soils and lightly sloping benches, and the 3km (1.86 miles) short, narrow, nipped-in waist of the Okanagan Falls—which has kettle holes, whistling wind, and multiple aspects—plonked firmly between the two.

The Okanagan Valley is a dynamic, swiftly evolving region on the cusp of expressing its full potential. It has taken a mere three decades to get to this point. The pioneers planted Vitis vinifera in the 1980s and many followed in the 1990s incentivized by government grants to rip out hybrids. There are plenty of well-established vines, but the varieties were not always well matched to the sites. Since then an influx of investment has seen more planting, but style has come before substance and it wasn’t until recently, most noticeably in the past five years, that the true identity of Okanagan Valley has begun to establish itself. I was able to assess this change for myself as I tasted through previous vintages at many of the wineries I visited.  

For most of its short history Okanagan wine conformed to the style demanded by the local market which favours rich, sweet, and high-alcohol wines, which is cloaked in new oak, some of it American. All but a tiny fraction of Okanagan wines are sold in British Columbia with many going through cellar doors. Anxious to please the local palate, and maybe unsure of finding their own expression, the producers imitated California and created Napa-style wines. 

More recently, however, many producers have seen a growing demand for more elegant styles. That’s not to say the chest-beating, overly oaky, over-extracted wines have disappeared, far from it, but they are often reserved for winery club members. More restrained wines can be found further down the pecking order at a slightly lower price point. There is also a sense that producers would like a place on the international stage and this has steered them to a more European approach in their winemaking. 

The region is bristling with talented winemakers. Among my favorites are Severine Pinte (La Stella and Le Vieux Pin Wineries) who impressed me with her elegant touch and blending; Shane Munn (Martin’s Lane Winery) for tannin management; and Darryl Brooker (Haywire and Okanagan Crush Pad) for his bloody-minded, experimental approach. And there are many more heading in the right direction.

Many of the middle-aged and younger winemakers trained or worked abroad and quickly realised it was not possible to apply the same principals they had used in Bordeaux, California, Burgundy, or New Zealand to the Okanagan Valley. Most significantly they had to adapt to producing wine in a much shorter growing season. 

In the Okanagan Valley, the daylight hours are long, but the season is truncated. Bud break starts in early May and the first frost often arrives by mid-October. Research into how to manage the vines, particularly the canopy, to produce less sugar while shading the fruit from sunburn is ongoing. It’s clear the producers are thinking more about the picking date and modifying the approach of their predecessors. 

In the winery new oak and hearty extraction are being dialled back. In their place more interesting experiments are afoot with techniques to build texture. It was very exciting to see how style is giving way to substance, as the focus shifts to terroir and how best to express it.

A Canadian terroir story part I: Niagara Peninsula and Prince Edward County

So there are several strands that must be woven into this Okanagan Valley story, including the people who are driving this change. 

There are the seriously monied individuals who are fulfilling grandiose ambitions for family legacies. Former stockbroker John Skinner, a passionate ambassador for all Canadian wine, created a pristine clifftop vineyard with the help of Alan Suter’s expertise and has his newly minted Skaha sub-GI to validate this section of the valley. 

At Phantom Creek Estate, which has some of the valley’s original Vitis vinifera vines, Chinese owner Richter Bai has parachuted Californian wine maker Mark Beringer into the $100 million winery and art gallery, itself a glamorous work of architecture, to make the 2022 vintage. The Rieslings made by Olivier Humbrecht MW have already made waves, while some of the reds could be refined. It will be interesting to see how Beringer manages this. 

At the other extreme there are those of modest means and rudimentary equipment. I admire my fellow MWs pushing the boundaries in expressing their terroir; Marcus Ansems (Daydreamer) with his shack on a steeply sloped vineyard on Naramata Bench and Rhys Pender at Little Farm in the neighbouring Similkameen Valley who is making some of the most engaging wine I tasted on the trip with not much more than a large shed and a collection of old barrels. 

Of course there are companies too. I was impressed with the approach of billionaire Anthony von Mandl, who made his money with White Claw, a flavoured hard seltzer in a can, and is best known in the wine world for the Mission Hill brand which owns 20 percent of the vineyard area in the Okanagan Valley. Mission Hill’s portfolio of top-end wines is still transitioning from the Californian model, but von Mandl has also invested in several excellent independent wineries which are producing some of the most impressive wines in the Okanagan Valley. 

I particularly liked the wines from Martin’s Lane Winery, Cedar Creek Estate, and the recently acquired (in 2020) Liquidity. It seems von Mandl has the cash and motivation to invest in producing wines at the top level, as well as spearheading the organic movement. All his vineyards are managed organically, which is good news for BC, and more should follow suit.

The jury is out on other big players. I had high expectations of the boutique winery Laughing Stock, established by David and Cynthia Enns in 2003. This was acquired by Arterra Wines Canada (formerly Constellation Brands) in 2017, but I was disappointed with the wines currently produced there. Arterra has also hoovered up Culmina, but for the moment the French winemaker Jean-Marc Enixon has been left alone to figure out the potential of this interesting vineyard site on Golden Mile Bench. The other big player, Peller Estates, has bought Black Hills Estate Winery which was a pioneer of Bordeaux varieties back in the day. Here the wines are changing for the better, under the ministrations of Ross Wise MW.  

A few facts and figures about the Okanagan Valley 

With 86 percent of the total vineyards in British Columbia, the Okanagan Valley is by far the most important region. There are 186 wineries along the 180km (112 miles) and approximately 9,617 acres (3,892ha) of vines. The climate is one of extremes with hot summers, freezing winters, and spring frosts. Summer can hit 40°C (104°F) and in the winter -25°C (-13°F). A series of lakes moderates the temperature, but at the Okanagan Falls the lake dwindles and disappears. South of this point there is no lake influence in Oliver and Golden Mile Bench, until we reach the lake of Osoyoos. The east side of the valley is warmer than the west for it is bathed in afternoon and evening sunshine.  

Merlot is the most widely planted red variety, with 1,616 acres (654ha0 in BC, but Pinot Noir is just behind and catching up fast. Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, and Syrah each represent about half that of Merlot, with Syrah the smallest at 551 acres (223ha) in BC. There were no figures available specifically for the Okanagan Valley.

The most planted white variety in British Columbia is Pinot Gris with 1,164 acres 9471ha), which comes in a variety of styles. Most are sweet to some degree, but very few provide much interest, so this is the only time I will mention them. It fulfils an entry level role and is not the variety for Okanagan Valley vintners to hang their hat on. 

Chardonnay is nearly as widely planted and much more interesting. With about half the acreage of the front runners, Gewürztraminer and Riesling are almost level pegging. I don’t think I tasted one Gewürztraminer, for which I am grateful. Riesling is a very different matter, but I tasted only one completely dry Riesling from Phantom Creek courtesy of Olivier Humbrecht MW. If only more producers would dare to go dry.

There is one general appellation the GI (Geographical Indication) of Okanagan Valley and several sub-GIs. The most recently designated in 2022 are also the most northerly: East and South Kelowna Slopes. Summerland Valleys, Summerland Lakefront, Summerland Bench, and Lake Country, also became sub-GIs in 2022. They join the sub-GIs of Naramata Bench, Skaha Bench, Okanagan Falls, Golden Mile Bench, and Golden Mile Slopes. The other areas to which I will refer, are acknowledged sub-regions, but not yet official GIs.       

From north to south

The calling card of the Okanagan Valley should be freshness. Even in the southern section, strange as this may seem given it is Canada’s pocket desert, but the nights are cool and the acidity is pronounced. 

Northern Okanagan Valley 

Lake Country 

Lake Country is pioneering territory in the furthest northern reaches of the Okanagan Valley, among the most northerly vineyards in Canada and for that matter the world. No surprise that it’s difficult to ripen fruit every vintage. At best, the wines from Lake Country should be light, crisp, and elegant. It is a good place for Riesling and quite feasible for Chardonnay, but skating on the edge for Pinot Noir.

It’s among the few places left to venture where land is available. In the Okanagan Valley, land prices have rocketed not least as the super-wealthy compete for land to create their legacy projects. On Skaha Bench, former stockbroker John Skinner was outbid for a 10-acre (4ha0 parcel of plantable land neighboring his vineyard Painted Rock, which went to Phantom Creek Estates for $400,000 an acre. There has been a land grab in the Similkameen Valley, where the going price is $200,000 and the big wine companies have been acquiring multiple parcels.  

There is serous money awash in the Okanagan Valley and high investment is accompanied by high prices. Inevitably many wines sail well ahead of a reasonable price-quality ratio. 

The first winery I visited was O’Rourke Family Estate where construction magnet Dennis O’Rouke blasted a multimillion-dollar crater from a hillside in the Lake Country for his amorphous winery, complete with multiple restaurants, entertainment spaces, and 314m (1,030ft) of tunnels to mature the annual production of a mere 72,000 bottles of wine. 

The surrounding 105 acres (42.5ha) of vines are young, some in fifth leaf, and the wines, which are very nicely made by experienced winemaker Nikki Callaway, reflect this in their modest intensity, while their $40-50 price tag does not. Money doesn’t buy you happiness or indeed the guarantee of producing quality wine and thank goodness lack of it does not preclude it. 

The most northerly of the wineries I visited is 50th Parallel. It produces Riesling, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and fizz. I quite liked the citrusy 2020 Estate Chardonnay, but the Unparalleled Pinot Noir didn’t live up to its name. Owners Curtis Krouzel and Sheri-Lee Turner-Krouzel, a vibrantly engaging couple wearing leopard skin, tight leather trousers, and dark glasses, are as interested in fashion as wine. Wine is seen differently in the Okanagan Valley. For some it is part of a bling lifestyle. In the winery there were well-heeled ladies trying and buying equally well-heeled Louis Vuitton shoes, semi-concealed behind silky red drapes at an exclusive event among the vats. 

Frankly I was loving the change of scene from Burgundy. It may be marginal territory for quality Pinot Noir, but for a Pinot/Chardonnay traditional method sparkling, it’s rather good. I enjoyed 50th Parallel 2018 Blanc de Noir and Pinot Noir contributes a red berry note to O’Rouke’s Peak Cellar light and fruity NV Brut.  

Kelowna GIs

Moving southwards along the valley to the Kelowna Slopes, an area which has recently been bestowed with two sub-GIs, South Kelowna and East Kelowna, I was on the lookout for Pinot Noir, but was more impressed with Riesling.

Riesling is resilient to the Okanagan Valley’s cold winters and hot summers, both of which are moderated by the deep lakes in the northern section from Lake Country down to the Okanagan Falls where it thrives on the higher side of the lakes in vineyards that are planted at 350-600m (1,150-1,970ft). The best examples have glacial freshness and a shimmering quality. The acidity is high—typically 9g/l total acidity with a pH of 2.9 or less. However, too many producers are playing it safe, balancing high acidity with too much residual sugar. There are some exceptions, among them Tantalus Vineyards, which has some of the area’s oldest Riesling vines, planted in 1978. 

Tantalus Vineyards is situated in East Kelowna. Riesling gets fully ripe in East Kelowna as the best facing slopes are warm. Tantalus Old Vines Riesling, in the cooler 2019 vintage, is a focused and intense wine with 8 g/l residual sugar and 13.5% alcohol. This is a classically made Riesling while at Cedar Creek Estate winemaker Taylor Whelan takes a more innovative approach with his Block B Riesling from a high altitude vineyard also on the East Kelowna side. The bunches are trodden by foot to moderate the cutting acidity and contribute some phenolic bite and with this approach a snappy bitter character offsets the almost candid citrus fruit. 

In the vineyards around the town of West Kelowna, on the other side of the lake, the vineyards are protected from the hotter afternoon sun. At Martin’s Lane, a sleek, glass-and-steel, six-level, gravity-operated winery neatly carved into the hillside, the approach is haute couture. Many millions have been invested to make an annual production of 6,000 cases with a focus on Pinot Noir and Riesling. Winemaker Shane Munn makes a standout Riesling from Fritz’s vineyard, which is slightly unusual in having some clay. There are pockets of clay deposited in the northern section of the Okanagan Valley, where the soil is predominantly gravelly and silty loam. There is no limestone in the Okanagan Valley. Fritz is a cooler site and turned out a floral, racy, and linear Riesling in the warmish 2018 vintage.  

Kelowna, in contrast to the Lake Country, has well established vineyards, not only of Riesling, but Pinot Noir. Quails’ Gate Winery was among the first to plant Pinot Noir in 1975. Pinot Noir is the second most widely planted variety in the Okanagan Valley, and in BC in general where it covers 538ha (1,329 acres), not far short of the 654ha (1,616 acres) of Merlot and catching up fast. It would seem to be the ideal red partner for Riesling, in the northern section of the valley, but few have mastered this capricious variety. Decades were lost in pursuing a Californian style of rich and oaky wines favored by the local market.

I was looking for Pinot Noir’s trademark fine texture and finesse, but often encountered rather robust tannin and jammy fruit which can mask terroir and undermine the subtly of Pinot Noir. It’s a challenge to obtain phenolic ripeness while controlling rising sugar levels and the fashion for including stems, which are rarely lignified, does not help. It became apparent that Okanagan Pinot Noir currently lags behind Ontario in terms of finesse. 

However, there are exceptions which show that elegant, terroir-driven Pinot Noir is quite achievable. Among my favourites is Martin’s Lane Simes Vineyard which has intense, supple, black chocolate fluidity. This vineyard is located on the east side of Lake Okanagan, just at the point where it bends, which means the vineyard turns slightly north, which allows for a long, slow maturation. Cedar Creek Winery also pulls fruits from this vineyard and it was my favourite Pinot Noir in their portfolio. Shane Munn is one of the few winemakers using stalks successfully and 70 percent to boot. However, he barely touches the grapes, so extraction is minimal. The fermenting wine is run over over a racking plate to lightly sprinkle the cap. Pinot Noir here is finely tailored, with a notable shift to a more refined style after the 2016 vintage. 

There is a good deal of talk in Okanagan Valley about the changing approach to winemaking so whenever possible I took the opportunity to taste flights of older vintages stretching back over the past decade. This revealed an evolution in style following the robustly textured 2015 and 2016, both of which were hot vintages. Certainly from the cooler 2019, recent vintages of Pinot Noir are more elegant and restrained with a focus on terroir over style. They have greater sense of place, but many are still struggling to nail the delicacy of tannin and texture.

And this seems to be more difficult to achieve in the cooler West Kelowna, where the style can be more awkward, although Tantalus Vineyard makes an easygoing, fruity, foot-trodden Pinot Noir. Quails’ Gate Winery have several appealing Pinot Noir, but need to finesse the tannin a touch. I found the most supple-textured came from Richard’s Block which was planted in the 1990s. 

It is surprising there is not more massal selection from older vineyards which will have mutated. Canada is still planting the Dijon clones I studied in Burgundy 20 years ago. A restricted palate of seven clones limits complexity. 

And, for my taste, there is still too much new oak used in the Okanagan Valley. Too many wines I tried, from Chardonnay to Cabernet, suffer from the misconceived notion that hotter vintages can handle more new oak, when the contrary is true. In West Kelowna, high in the hills, Joanna and James Schlosser have a tiny vineyard, home territory for James who grew up on this farm. They were just painting their new and appealingly modest winery when I visited. I liked their pretty, neatly edged, and lightly mineral Farm House Series Pinot Noir (2018 and 2020), but the oak on the Single Barrel Pinot Noir 2020 steamrollered all expression of terroir.

Naramata Bench GI

Moving a little further south, Naramata Bench is the sweet spot for Pinot Noir, where I found a more widely spread impression of quality and consistency. The profile is a little fuller. The vineyards are west-facing at altitudes from 400-700m (1,310-2,300ft). This warmer aspect is still too cool for most reds, although Poplar Grove Winery has a particularly warm and sheltered west-facing vineyard from which Tony Holler produces a delicious, rich, and energetic Cabernet Franc, among the best I tasted in the Okanagan. Holler admits he has tried to ripen Cabernet Franc on other sites on the Naramata Bench and failed. It’s another good spot for Riesling, and there’s Merlot here too, but Pinot Noir has found its niche. 

Near the town of Penticton, where the cliff falls dramatically to Lake Okanagan, there is a concentration of wineries and vineyards. I prefer the vineyards on the slope above the road, where the bedrock is granite and the top soil glacial till. Below this, in the looser silty soils, the wines lack some definition. I liked Foxtrot Vineyards Estate Pinot Noir, which comes from above the road, while their single-vineyards from below were not quite as good. The soil is generally glacial till and silt with pockets of clay.

On the Naramata Bench, land prices, bumped up by minted retirees (some of whom are giving winemaking a shot) are now four times those of the Bench in Niagara. Von Mandl can afford to have a foothold. The 2020 Pinot Noir Reserve made by Liquidity Winery (part of the von Mandl stable) from a vineyard at the north end of Naramata Bench has a slippery chalk texture and balances vibrancy with richness, while Martin’s Lane Zenith, from a high-altitude, warm-aspect vineyard, is succulent, svelte, and has a racy finish. 

So much for mega-buck projects. It’s possible to make delightful Pinot Noir on a much tighter budget, especially for those producers who got in early to buy or rent vineyards. Among them are Toronto-born Dylan Roche and his wife Pénélope, the sixth generation of a Bordelais winemaking family. They met in New Zealand and make pretty Pinot Noir from a rented parcel on the Naramata Bench above the road, while continuing to consult and to teach viticulture at Okanagan College.

Some of my favorite wines are made in simple, functional spaces. My eye was caught by a sophisticated and silk-textured Pinot Noir made in a storage facility. The tiny winery is 1 Mill Road, named after a small vineyard perched on a clay terrace. Formerly a pear orchard this gorgeous spot was bought and planted by David and Cynthia Enns, pioneers in the Okanagan wine trade who established Laughing Stock Vineyards. They made just two vintages of 1 Mill Road before handing the reins to talented Australian Winemaker Ben Bryant and his wife Katie. This is a couple to watch. Byrant is prospecting for other small parcels to make terroir-driven wine and he knows where to find them. He was VP of the von Mandl winemaking group.

Pinot Noir in Canada: A patchwork of styles and successes

Another talented Australian is Marcus Ansems MW, a flying winemaker and consultant who established Daydreamer winery in 2013. Marcus bagged himself a perilously steep slope where he planted Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. It was no easy task to establish this vineyard, which required Ansems to drill into solid rock for the trellising posts. The vines survive in the top soil of glacial till. It’s an exposed site which catches the sun. In hot vineyards like 2021, it is quite warm for Pinot Noir, but in the more moderate 2020 vintage Daydreamer Tay Pinot Noir has enticing austerity and clip.

Many wineries in the Okanagan Valley sell directly from the cellar door. Don’t expect any bargains, some prices might leave you speechless, but others, including Daydreamer wines, which are sold from a rather hip shack beside Ansems’ vineyard, are fairly priced.  

At the risk of over publicizing von Mandl, I can’t leave the Naramata Bench without mentioning one of the more captivating Rieslings I tasted in the Okanagan Valley. Martin’s Lane Naramata Ranch vineyard was planted with Riesling  in 1976. Winemaker Shaun Munn targets ripe golden skins, although less so in the hot 2021 vintage. The lightly crushed grapes had 24 hours skin contact in 2018. It is fermented with indigenous yeast in neutral foudres at ambient temperature and has extended lees contact. It’s not fined. Munn wants the phenolics. The 2018 expresses the warmer, fuller character of the Naramata Bench with savory richness from the winemaking and a smoky graphite note. It has 10 g of residual sugar.

Summerland GIs

With climate change the cooler Summerland area, which lies directly across the lake from Naramata Bench, may well come into its own. It’s showing good potential for whites and Pinot Noir. Christine Coletta and Steve Lornie, owners of the Okanagan Crush Pad (a custom winemaking facility) and the Haywire brand, are banking on Summerland’s long-term potential having planted an extensive and ambitious vineyard in Garnet Valley in 2013. 

At 550-700m Garnet Valley is the highest vineyard in The Okanagan Valley and 75 percent is planted with Pinot Noir. Given the freezing winters, this is a risky venture, but the results are promising and the wines have a real sense of place. Haywire Vintage Bub 2014 is a taut, mineral, and steely traditional-method sparkling wine from Garnet Valley’s young vines, aged five years on lees, while the 2021 Pinot Noir from Garnet Valley is light, crisp, and delicate. The proximity of the lake together with the cool aspect combine to give a pure and fruit-forward character and vibrant freshness to Summerland’s wines. In hotter vintages Summerland may emerge as a region to rival Nararmata with wines that have a lighter, more restrained style and the Garnet Valley vineyard will undoubtedly shape the profile and future of this appellation.  

Winemaker Matt Dumayne, who lives in a cabin in the wilderness of Garnet Valley with coyotes and bears as neighbors, typifies the energy and resourcefulness of Canadian winemakers. Dunmayne uses an extended 14-21-day post-ferment maceration on the Haywire Pinot Noir, a blend of grapes from Summerland, Naramata, Kelowna, and Oliver, to polymerize the tannins and the result is nice and silky. 

In the process of making the Okanagan Crush Pad and Haywire labels Dumayne has fermented wine in every vessel conceivable and has cultivated a yeast soon to be commercialized. Okanagan Crush Pad Free Form Riesling 2019, from a high-altitude 670m (2,200ft) parcel on rocky granite and clay, is pure as a whistle with a singing silver finish while Free Form Sauvignon Blanc, a wacky wine aged for nine months on skins in amphorae and stainless steel, was unexpectedly moreish.

Skaha Bench GI

Driving down the east side of Skaha Lake south of Penticton you arrive at the small sub-GI of Skaha Bench. This doesn’t really fit into the profile of the northern section of The Okanagan Valley, both in the varieties it can ripen and the rich style of wine it produces. Not that there’s a lot of wine. There are a couple of small farms here, but John Skinner has 56ha (138 acres) of Skaha’s total 75ha (185 acres). This is the spot where Skinner realized his winemaking dream after three yeas of searching for the right site. From 2005 he planted 27ha (67 acres) with Bordeaux varieties, Syrah, and Chardonnay.

Painted Rock Estate Winery has a striking clifftop vineyard, sitting in a natural amphitheater. The west-facing, sun-baked slope can happily ripen Bordeaux reds and Syrah. The east-to-west-orientated rows are  unusual, a neat approach which allows the cool air from the hill above to flow down through the vineyard.  Painted Rock’s elegant 2020 Syrah hit the mark with violet, floral, and peppery notes, finely textured tannins, and lively acidity. I also enjoyed the intense, smooth and energetic Cabernet Franc. In the northern Okanagan Valley, ripening Cabernet Franc is very site specific. The two standout examples come from Painted Rock and Poplar Grove. Skinner says his Cabernet Franc only became interesting when the roots had grown down through the glacial till and clay and entered the gravel beneath. 

It was Lauren Skinner, John’s daughter, who presented and won the case for a sub-GI in 2019 and with this the Skinner family have put Skaha Bench firmly on the map.

Okanagan Falls GI

So what about Chardonnay? Of course it is planted from tip to toe of the Okanagan Valley, but only some grabbed my attention. Many are over-oaky and lack distinction. Chardonnay is a trooper. Plant it anywhere and it should deliver something palatable. Plant it on limestone and clay and in the right conditions and it can be riveting, but on warm sites in silty, sandy soils it can feel dumbed down. Moreover there was a prevalent flavor profile which seemed to originate from the most widely used cultured yeasts.

However, in and around the short and narrow Okanagan Falls, Chardonnay picks up the pace. This was the second region in 2015 to become a sub-GI. On the west side looms the distinctive McIntyre Bluff, while Peach Bluff guards the eastern flank. It is characterized by kettle holes where buried ice blocks, fallen from glaciers, later melted and left deep dimples in the space between the cliffs. The result is a charming roly poly landscape with 360 degrees of growing slopes and a wide range of soil types. There is more glacial till here in contrast to the lake bed deposits of Kelowna. The small 150ha (370 acres) appellation is located on the east side of the valley with most of the vineyards at 400-500m (1,310-1,640ft). There is no lake to moderate the heat of summer, but cool air flows down from the higher elevation at night and a cool wind whips up around 2pm, funnelling through the valley, which is so much narrower at this point. It was bang on time and whistled crisply through the vines when I visited. 

Chardonnay from the Okanagan Falls expresses a sense of place. It has tension, super freshness, and focus with vibrant examples from Noble Ridge, Stags Hollow (Reserve Chardonnay), and Meyer Family Vineyards. At Liquidity the Chardonnay could be taken up a notch with a few tweaks—exchange barriques for older puncheons, put it through malolactic fermentation, cut out bâtonnage and it could be something quite special. With new winemaker Amy Paynter at the helm I have expectations for the 2021. She was busy on the crush pad receiving fruit for sparkling wine when I was tasting, but a sample from tank was promising.  

The profile of Chardonnay from the Okanagan valley is just the ticket as a base wine for sparkling. I tasted plenty of delicious traditional-method wines from the northern Okanagan valley, but the Okanagan Falls is a sweet spot. There were fine examples from Liquidity and Noble Ridge Vineyards.

However, I was a little disappointed with the Pinot Noir from the Okanagan Falls which were generally overly oaky and a little on the robust side, although the Old Block Pinot Noir from Meyer Family Vineyards illustrates the quality which can be achieved. Old Block, which is planted in the gravelly soil of a dried-up creek bed has a specific microclimate, created in a bowl under Peach Cliff. The result is a rich velvety Pinot Noir, with some noticeable oak, but the depth to carry it. Meyer Family has a soft touch with Pinot, which also shows in their Naramata Bench Pinot. There are multiple aspects and the most diverse soils in the Okanagan Valley, giving the potential for captivating Pinot Noir.  

So to recap, the more marginal areas of Lake Country and Summerland are exciting regions where some of the most adventurous producers are exploring the potential, but yet to fully express it. The terroir of Kelowna, with some of the oldest planting in the valley, is neatly shown through crisp and crunchy Pinot Noir and vibrant Riesling. Moving southwards, the west facing warmer Naramata Bench has the most consistent Pinot Noir, fuller bodied with denser and riper tannins than Kelowna. While in the windy Okanagan Falls, Chardonnay takes the lead, acting as a conduit to the terroir with a racy, intense and fresh profile, and this area produces some high quality sparking wine.  

The post A Canadian terroir story part II: Northern Okanagan Valley appeared first on World Of Fine Wine.

Despite its reputation as a difficult grape to grow, Pinot Noir has proved remarkably versatile in Canada, with good quality examples emerging from contrasting conditions in each of the country’s regions, says Rod Phillips.

Pinot Noir is one of the few grape varieties that is grown in all of Canada’s wine regions, with their vastly diverse climatic conditions. It is planted in British Columbia’s warm, dry southern Okanagan Valley and in the province’s cooler, wetter, coastal areas; in cool-climate Ontario, including a somewhat warmer island sub-appellation lying on the same latitude as northern California; in cold-climate Quebec, where vines must be buried in winter; and in the cool, maritime conditions of Nova Scotia on the Atlantic coast. 

Pinot Noir is also gaining ground, literally, in emerging wine regions that were long considered too cold for quality vinifera viticulture but are now becoming viable, largely because of climate change. They include newly minted northern appellations in British Columbia; around Ottawa, the national capital, and in areas 125 miles (200km) north of Niagara Peninsula, in Ontario; and in all of Quebec.

But if climate change opens up possibilities for wine production in some regions, it creates new problems in others. At Stag’s Hollow Winery, in the Okanagan Falls sub-appellation of Okanagan Valley, one clone of Pinot Noir is being ripped out because temperatures have become too warm for it. It is being replaced with Tempranillo. At Martin’s Lane, also in Okanagan Valley, extreme leaf-removal has been abandoned, says winemaker Shane Munn, because of the “harsh summer light.”

Along with such adaptations, plantings of Pinot Noir are increasing everywhere. Its presence across Canada’s wine regions is largely shared only with Chardonnay, while other vinifera varieties tend to be associated with specific regions. The most planted other varieties in British Columbia are Merlot and Pinot Gris, while in Ontario, Riesling and Cabernet Franc are to the fore. In Quebec, hybrid varieties are hugely dominant, while in Nova Scotia there is more of a balance between hybrids and vinifera.

It’s not that all the plantings of Pinot Noir across Canada necessarily produce high-quality or even good-quality wine. But the great majority of the more than 200 varietal Pinot Noirs tasted for this story were very good, and a creditable proportion were excellent, as the list of notable Pinot Noirs shows. (Pinot Noir is widely used for making rosé and traditional-method sparkling wines, but the focus here is on the varietal still red wine.) Needless to say, the character and style of individual wines reflect climatic and vintage conditions, together with vineyard and cellar decisions, but it is noteworthy that all Canada’s regions contributed some excellent Pinot Noirs. There was no region where one thought, “Why on earth are they growing Pinot Noir there?” 

That might seem to undermine Pinot Noir’s reputation as “the heartbreak grape” because of the putative difficulty of growing it. To be sure, some vineyard managers and winemakers do draw attention to the challenges of growing Pinot Noir in their regions. Amélie Boury, the winemaker at Château des Charmes in Niagara Peninsula, says, “It is no secret that Pinot Noir is a tough grape to grow in Ontario. It just waits for you to turn your back for a day and starts being trouble. But it is also very rewarding wine.” Others use words such as difficult, fickle, and challenging.

Perhaps, then, the heartbreak descriptor is entirely accurate. Or perhaps it was coined in order to generate admiration for successful Pinot Noirs and sympathetic understanding for underachievers. Then again, if Pinot Noir really has broken many producers’ hearts, perhaps the issue is simply, as a Hawkes Bay (New Zealand) viticulturist once told me: “If you’re having problems growing a particular variety, you’ve planted it in the wrong bloody place.” 

Matching site and variety in Ontario 

Finding the right bloody place for specific grape varieties is the work that Canada’s wine producers have undertaken over the past three or four decades. Ontario has led the way from the early 1990s, when thousands of acres of hybrid varieties were pulled out and replanted with vinifera. But while task number one was to match variety and site, many producers also had one eye firmly fixed on matching variety to the Ontario wine market, which was beginning to embrace wines from Australia, Argentina, Chile, South Africa, and California. 

Red wines from these regions were fruit-forward and flavorful, and some Ontario producers aspired to make similar styles in the cool-climate conditions of Niagara Peninsula. But the Cabernet Sauvignons and Merlots seldom ripened fully, and often the wines had weedy, green flavors. For some producers, it didn’t matter. One told me, years ago, that he wanted to have as many varieties as possible in his winery store to maximize the likelihood that “everyone will leave with at least one bottle.”

But as the Ontario wine industry began its drive for quality, bringing grapes to maturity (however defined) mattered more, and it was clear that some varieties performed much better than others. Ed Madronich Jr, president of Niagara’s Flat Rock Cellars (which grows Chardonnay, Riesling, and Pinot Noir), says that in Niagara Peninsula, Chardonnay and Riesling ripen every year, and Pinot Noir nine years out of ten, but that Cabernet Franc (Niagara’s most planted red vinifera variety) ripens only seven out of ten years, and Cabernet Sauvignon only two out of ten. Some would argue with Madronich’s numbers, but few would contest his general point.

It took time for some Ontario producers to embrace the fact that they make wine in a decidedly cool climate and that it wasn’t feasible to make anything like the full-bodied, full-flavored red wines from California and the southern hemisphere. At the same time, there was a shift in consumer preferences—perhaps better described as the emergence of a new consumer sub-market that began to appreciate Ontario’s cool-climate styles. 

Bryan Rogers and Connor Van Tol, winemaker and assistant winemaker at Keint-he Vineyards in Prince Edward County, capture this shift: “Fifteen years ago, Ontario consumers weren’t interested in Pinot Noir. They wanted Cabs, Merlots, Shiraz—big wines with a big mouthfeel and heavy-handed flavoring. It was difficult to sell Pinot Noir, but that’s no longer the case.”

A Canadian terroir story: Niagara Peninsula and Prince Edward County

A 2010 report on the future of the Ontario wine industry argued that producers needed to forget about making “New World” wines and to embrace the cool climate and its “Old World” wine styles. Strikingly, it failed to mention Cabernet Franc—12 years later, the province’s most planted red vinifera variety—at all, and identified only Merlot and Pinot Noir as red varieties having “good market potential in the future.” Because of the cachet of Burgundy, Pinot Noir was considered the prize, and it has for a long time been the star that Ontario producers followed when looking for a prestigious wine that would put them on the world wine map. Icewine had led the way, of course, and it is still an important export wine in terms of value, but it has a very narrow market and limited potential for growth. It is, arguably, the world’s most regifted wine.

For table wines, Riesling and, to a lesser extent, Chardonnay did it for white wine, and Pinot Noir seemed right for a signature red in Ontario. Two of the province’s three appellations are decidedly cool: the all-important Niagara Peninsula (the country’s most productive wine region) and Prince Edward County on the north shore of Lake Ontario. The third, Lake Erie North Shore, is somewhat warmer than the other two, and its South Islands sub-appellation is even warmer. Pinot Noir is grown in all. What was also influential to many producers was that limestone underlies much of the vineyard land in Niagara Peninsula and Prince Edward County. To those who believe that soil has an important influence on wine character and quality, this composition spoke Burgundy—and therefore Pinot Noir and Chardonnay.

Over time, Pinot Noir has remained important in Ontario, but its vineyard profile is difficult to quantify because of the limited statistics made public by the Ontario grape and wine industry. No acreage-by-variety information is available, but there are wine-production data. In 2021, Pinot Noir contributed 7 percent to the volume of all red wines certified by the VQA (Vintner’s Quality Alliance, Ontario’s wine certification authority)—behind Merlot and Cabernet Franc, which each contributed 11 percent. But Pinot Noir was the second-most important variety in terms of liters bottled as a varietal red wine certified by the VQA—a distant second to Baco Noir, a VQA-approved hybrid variety that has become remarkably popular.

In British Columbia, Pinot Noir was the second most-planted variety in 2019, the latest year for which figures are publicly available. Its 1,332 acres (538ha) lay not far behind Merlot, which occupied 1,618 acres (654ha). Moreover, Pinot Noir was gaining on Merlot, with a 67 percent increase in the area of Pinot Noir vineyards since 2008, compared to a mere 2 percent for Merlot. (The area planted in Cabernet Franc grew faster, at 84 percent, but from a much smaller base.) If those trends have continued, Pinot Noir will be the most-planted grape variety of all in British Columbia by 2024.

Pinot Noir is grown throughout British Columbia’s varied growing conditions. It is widely planted in the all-important Okanagan Valley—which ranges from warm and dry in the south, to cool and quite wet in its northern areas—and it is also planted in many of the province’s other appellations. They include the cool, wet conditions of Vancouver Island and the cool-climate northern appellations (such as Lillooet and Shuswap) that have been created in the past few years.

In Quebec, Pinot Noir is by definition very much an outlier because plantings of vinifera varieties are far outnumbered by hybrids. Pinot Noir is grown by only 20 percent of producers, and it occupies a mere 4 percent of total vineyard area. For comparison, the most widely planted red variety is the hybrid Frontenac Noir, which is grown by 70 percent of producers and occupies 10 percent of land planted to grapes. But things are changing rapidly in Quebec, where climate change is making southern regions viable for vinifera vines. A 2017 report predicted that, within 20 years, some regions would regularly successfully ripen varieties such as Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, or Gamay.

Finally, in Nova Scotia, an Atlantic province with about 20 wine producers, Pinot Noir plays a significant role in the production of sparkling wine, which has become a regional specialty. Several wineries also make varietal Pinot Noirs, but they are still marginal, and many of these wines are made only in good vintages.

Producers are keenly aware of the need to plant Pinot Noir in the best conditions. At Tightrope winery on Okanagan Valley’s Naramata Bench, Pinot Noir vines planted on north-facing slopes and cooler sites “tend to do well here, where they avoid all-day sun exposure, allowing them to retain excellent acidity. The constant breeze from the lake helps mitigate disease pressure.”

In Ontario’s Prince Edward County, Colin Stanners highlights the challenges of his growing conditions. Having to bury his vines before each winter means that they don’t develop a tall permanent trunk and the fruiting wire tends to be lower to the ground. “Having the fruit (and leaves) closer to the ground makes the airflow through the vineyard worse, which in turn is worse for molds and mildews.” These conditions limit his yields to one ton per acre or less, much lower than the 1.5–2.5 tons per acre that Harald Thiel, at Hidden Bench Winery in Niagara Peninsula, considers “optimal.”

Out east, in Nova Scotia, Blomidon Estate winemaker Simon Rafuse is blunt: “It can really be a challenge to grow Pinot for still red. Getting the grapes to a good level of phenolic development without too much rot setting in is tricky. We often have to pick just after the sparkling wines to ensure any decent commercial level of yield.”

The different growing conditions across Canada are broadly—but not perfectly—reflected in the styles of Pinot Noir they produce. There is a clear distinction between British Columbia and Ontario Pinot Noirs, with the former showing more assertive fruit, but both tend to have well-developed and well-calibrated acidity. In the cooler regions of both these provinces, the emphasis is on acid rather than fruit, and the wines tend to be lighter in body and color, though rarely as light as the Pinot Noirs from Quebec and Nova Scotia.

As for the clones of Pinot Noir planted across Canada, most growers have opted for several, in order to increase the complexity of their wines. The Dijon clones 667 and 777 are universally popular, and most wineries appear to co-ferment the clones. But at Stag’s Hollow winery in Okanagan Falls, where nine clones are planted in two vineyards, winemaker Keira LeFranc vinifies the clones separately. “We feel each clone offers distinct aromatic, structural, textural, and flavor components, and by having multiple clones that are vinified and barrel-aged separately, we give ourselves a lot of options in terms of blending and building layered complexity when the time comes.”

Not all clones are suitable for some districts. As noted earlier, Stag’s Hollow is planting Tempranillo to replace one clone (Ritter) of Pinot Noir that has underperformed in warming conditions. Meanwhile, Blomidon Estate, on the shores of the Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia, has chosen to focus on clone 115, which has proved hardier than 667 or 777 in its rigorously cool growing conditions.

A growing sense of their own place 

Winemaking techniques vary from winery to winery, of course. Many ferment whole clusters and some ferment whole berries. Almost all age Pinot Noir in French barrels, but many are adopting formats larger than barriques and are reducing the proportion of new oak. Most use between 10 and 30 percent new oak barrels in their mix, but Thomas Bachelder, who makes a series of impressive single-vineyard Pinot Noirs in Niagara Peninsula (“I’m trying to map Niagara, one vineyard at a time”) has foresworn new oak entirely; he relies only on second-use barrels. 

As for the style of Pinot Noir producers aim for, some declare that they make their wines in “a Burgundian style.” Perhaps Keint-he Winery & Vineyards, an excellent producer in Ontario’s Prince Edward County, is most explicit; its website refers to it as “a Burgundian winery right here in Ontario.” In Niagara Peninsula, Le Clos Jordanne began life in 2000 as a partnership between Vincor, a big Canadian wine company no longer in existence, and Burgundy’s Boisset company. Le Clos Jordanne went out of business for a few years but has been revived and retains a resolutely and explicitly Burgundian approach to viticulture, winemaking, and even labeling.

Some winemakers refer to Burgundy and other Pinot Noir-producing regions as guides. Simon Rafuse of Blomidon Estate says he likes “pretty, floral, and fruit-driven Pinot,” and adds, “I think back to the early 2000s Burgundian Hautes-Côtes wines or the Coteaux Champenois I was introduced to at school, as inspirations for what we’re trying to achieve.” Bachelder, in Niagara Peninsula, has also made wine in Burgundy and Oregon, and his discussion of his Niagara Pinot Noirs is occasionally punctuated with references to Burgundy villages, such as Chambolle-Musigny and Volnay, as similarities occur to him.

But there seem to be many fewer references to Burgundy than there used to be. Instead, winemakers acknowledge their own unique growing conditions and winemaking styles. Many now declare that their wines have “a sense of place,” and if that notion doesn’t bear much scrutiny either, at least “the place” is their own vineyard and not a wine region in another country. 

Asked if they try to make their Pinot Noir in a specific style, most winemakers reply—fairly predictably—that they work with the grapes each vintage gives them and try to intervene as little as possible. Typical is Colin Stanners, co-owner and winemaker at Stanners Vineyard in Prince Edward County. “We are in a very cool wine region,” he says, “so that is the style we make. I’m not trying to make it into something it isn’t.”

Burgundy also crops up in other contexts. A number of principals who discussed Canadian Pinot Noir for this article cited the high prices of red Burgundy as a partial explanation for the popularity of Canadian Pinot Noir. It is an open question how many consumers consider Burgundy and Canadian Pinot Noir interchangeable, but most very good Canadian Pinot Noirs sell for less than C$60 a bottle—far lower than village-level Burgundies. But it is also possible to pay a lot more for Canadian Pinot Noir, such as C$150 a bottle for Martin’s Lane Winery Fritzi’s Vineyard Pinot Noir 2019.

Harald Thiel, owner of Hidden Bench Winery in the Beamsville Bench sub-appellation of Niagara Peninsula, puts pricing in a broader context. “There is a very good price:quality ratio with our wines, even though they are at premium price points,” he says. “The large price increases for Pinot Noir in Burgundy, Oregon, and California have permitted us to increase pricing to absorb some recent cost increases with labor and packaging.”

From outlier to highflier

There is plenty of enthusiasm for Canadian Pinot Noir, and many producers plan to extend their plantings. Almost all talk of the ease with which they sell Pinot Noir—even though it tends to fetch higher prices than other varieties. Ben Bryant, winemaker at 1 Mill Road Winery in Okanagan Valley, says, “I think the world’s palate is evolving to a lighter and more moderated wine style, and Pinot Noir fits nicely in that category.”

But some point to Pinot Noir consumers’ being more discriminating. Lindsay O’Rourke (the winemaker) and Graham O’Rourke (the viticulturist), wife-and-husband owners of Naramata Bench’s Tightrope Winery, say, “Pinot Noir drinkers tend to be well versed and can easily distinguish between good and poor quality. They can be stylistically picky.” Overall, though, it seems that no one is stuck with volumes of unsold Pinot Noir.

The place of Pinot Noir in Canada’s vineyards and in Canadian wine consumers’ shopping baskets has changed rapidly over the past two decades. From being an outlier variety, albeit with the cachet that Burgundy gave it, Pinot Noir is now important in both major wine regions—more so in British Columbia than in Ontario—and it has been embraced by consumers. There’s no reason to think that this will continue forever, of course, but at this moment, Pinot Noir is in a good place in Canada.

The post Pinot Noir in Canada: A patchwork of styles and successes appeared first on World Of Fine Wine.

After being struck by the quality of the wines at a tasting in London, Sarah Marsh MW set out to explore the wine regions of Canada. Her three-week tour begins in Ontario, with a hop around the varied terroirs and stylish wines of the Niagara Peninsula and Prince Edward County. 

I envisaged Canada’s wild and rugged beauty, but the night drive from Toronto to the Niagara Peninsula traversed a desolate land of amorphous industry and fire-belching steelworks. Arriving near the tragically over-developed Niagara Falls, I was dismayed. Where were the clean and green vineyards? 

They were reached by schlepping up and down the highway which scars the edge of Lake Ontario. It was not an auspicious start to my Canadian odyssey, but things greatly improved once I had started tasting. 

The Niagara Peninsula was the first leg of my tasting tour, which would take me on to Prince Edward County (also in Ontario), before a five-hour flight across Canada to the Okanagan valley in British Columbia on the west coast. 

I expected the Niagara Peninsula to present some impressive Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. It was such wines, tasted at Canada House in London, which had prompted my three-week road trip across Canada to visit 70 producers. 

What I had not envisaged was the unfolding story of terroir. Terroir which is keenly articulated through Chardonnay and Pinot Noir with Riesling, Cabernet Franc, and even Gamay playing their part. Nor had I expected such innovation with so many talented winemakers pushing the boundaries to produce intriguing, textural Chardonnays and  savory, dry Rieslings. 

The wine trade in Ontario’s Niagara Peninsula has made great strides in the past 20 years and is surprisingly mature. Plantings of Vitis vinifera began in earnest in the 1990s following government incentives to replace the existing Vitis labrusca. Over that decade the most suitable places for specific varieties were identified and planted. At first the vines were over-cropped to make cheap, mass market wine, but by the late 1990s a concerted drive for quality had kicked in.

I was intrigued by the versatility of this relatively new wine trade. For example, many producers produce delicious traditional-method sparkling wine and some established their sparkling programs a decade ago. I was fortunate to taste back through older vintages which revealed how some wines, not only late-disgorged sparkling wines, but Chardonnay and Riesling in particular, have the capacity to evolve beneficially over a period of ten years or more. 

Terroir in Ontario

But let’s begin with terroir. The soils of Ontario’s Great Lakes Basin are derived from an ancient seabed, which has been exposed to millions of years of glacial activity. There is sand, clay, rock, and a high percentage of Dolomitic limestone. As a Burgundian specialist, it was the limestone slope on the Niagara Peninsula which riveted my attention. This slope is a geological bench, at times a double bench like a children’s playground slide, carved from the escarpment by glacial moments. 

Suspend your disbelief for a jiffy to envisage a topography not dissimilar to the Côte d’Or, although this slope faces north. North-facing vineyards in Canada I hear you ask, that’s a chilly ask of any vineyard. Actually the vineyards share a 43-degree latitude with Tuscany. Summers are hot. However, it’s the air flow from Lake Ontario which defines the climate, cooling the vineyards in the summer and moderating the freezing winters. In summer, as the hot air rises from the land, the cool lake air is drawn in to replace it. And this gives Niagara’s wines their trademark acidity and glacial elegance.

The vineyards closest to the lake are the coolest. The overarching appellation of Niagara Peninsula is subdivided into a set of Lake Shore and Bench appellations. On the Lake Shore the land is flat and the soil is loam, sand, and gravel and they are quite distinct from the sub-appellations above them on the Bench. For my palate, the most distinctive wines come from the Bench. The sweet spot is found in the contiguous sub-appellations of Twenty Mile Bench and Beamsville Bench, below which a road, King Street runs, marking the division between Bench and Lake Shore vineyards.

Twenty Mile and Beamsville Bench share a gentle limestone slope, which rises just 100ft (30.5m). The top soils are mixed with clays, stones, and glacial till. Dried up creek beds and live creeks running down from the escarpment influence the soil composition and airflow, while the microclimate is affected by the subtle change in altitude, but largely by the distance from the lake. 

The Bench backs into an escarpment, which you might consider a little like the Hautes-Côtes, and where the Vinemount Ridge vineyards are to be found. It’s easy to envisage the topography of this section of the peninsula with the Côte d’Or in mind. 

On my first day on the Niagara Peninsula I was given a bootcamp initiation to the Bench, courtesy of the inspirational consultant and micro-négociant Thomas Bachelder. Bachelder makes wine from along the Bench and is a passionate advocate of its terroir.

He would like to see Twenty Mile Bench divided into Jordan and Vineland, to tie them geographically to the villages above which they lie. This sounds logical since the wines seem subtly different. It would help to further define the terroir and make it easier to understand, in the same way it does on the Côte d’Or. 

I hope the comparisons with Burgundy are useful. Those who will be captivated by Bench wines will readily relate to the similarities in topography, cool climate, and limestone bedrock. Such comparisons are helpful for a region trying to establish itself in the global context. 

However, in terms of the wine, it is important for everyone to step firmly away from Burgundy in order to establish a unique identity for Niagara Peninsula. Pinot Noir and Chardonnay from the sub-appellations have a very distinctive wine style which is exciting and can stand alone. I’ll not be making any stylistic comparisons. 

The Bench: Elegantly expressed

The Bench terroir is most eloquently and elegantly expressed by Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. Both reflect the limestone in their precision, tension, and mineral freshness. Jordan (on the east side of Twenty Mile Bench) has refined wines with slightly sumptuous, satin smooth elegance typified by the Chardonnay and Pinot Noir from Clos de Jordanne and by Domaine Queylus Reserve Pinot Noir from the domaine’s Jordan vineyard. 

This is also evident at neighboring Flat Rock Cellars, where I met with founder Ed Madronich. In the 1990s, Madronich was involved in the Inniskillin/Jafflin collaboration in Niagara. Recognizing the potential of lower-cropped Pinot Noir, Madronich was among the first to take the plunge into quality Pinot production. 

In 2000 he planted a large vineyard, which has a small but significant elevation, with Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. At the top, hard Dolomitc limestone breaks through the surface, while at the bottom the yellow-colored limestone is soft and flaky. The plushest wines (Rusty Shed) come from the mid-slope, where there is more slope wash. Gravity Series Pinot Noir shows the hard limestone in the slight austerity of the Pinot Noir, while HEXA Pinot, a range reserved for one-offs and experiments, is floral with satin-smooth tannins and most adroitly captures the silky elegance of Jordan. 

Moving West along Twenty Mile Bench into the section above the village of Vineland, the wines have freshness, tension, intention, and minerality with plenty of energy. They can seem a bit wilder and more mineral than the sleek wines of Jordan. 

Here the terroir story becomes even more interesting. After a week of tasting, certain vineyards began to emerge for a recognizable style and quality. Possibly the most important of these is Foxcroft Vineyard on the Vineland side of Twenty Mile Bench. Foxcroft Vineyard soon became a firm favourite for its stony Chardonnays, which have firm structure and definition. They are dense, salty, and savory with smoky graphite aromatics. Riesling and even Gamay from Foxcroft have a similar profile. 

A significant percentage of the vineyards on the Niagara Peninsula are cultivated by grape growers who supply the larger wineries. However, their fruit is also purchased by an increasing band of small terroir-focused micro-négociants, among them Kelly Mason and Adam Lowy, who had been selling Louis Jadot wines in Toronto for 20 years before he established Cloudsley Cellars in 2015.

In Niagara these micro-négoce recognize the grower’s contribution on the label. Not something I can see catching on in Burgundy. Foxcroft vineyard is owned by the Wismer family, who are second-generation growers, farming 300ha (740 acres) of vines in Twenty Mile Bench. The vineyard is generally acknowledged as Wismer Foxcroft. Because many producers draw fruit from these single vineyards, a common tread is discernible and a vineyard identity is revealed. Some vineyards, like Foxcroft, are quite large, so not all is equal, and the négociants are quick to reserve their rows within the vineyards.

Other well-known grower families include Saunders and Laundry. Heather Laundry is among the few producers working organically and sells to Tawse. Another notable Wismer vineyard is Wingfield, further from the lake, but higher on the slope with less clay than Foxcroft (169m [554ft] elevation and 6.8km [4.2 miles] from the lake; versus 110m [360ft] and 5.4km [3.4 miles] according to Bachelder). It’s colder, shaded by trees, and ripens around two weeks later than the more open and exposed Foxcroft. 

Bachelder and Cloudsley make very good examples of wine from both vineyards. Wingfield Chardonnay has a racy, finer-boned structure than Foxcroft. I’m told it’s necessary to hang the fruit late, waiting for sufficient ripeness. Maybe this is why some samples seemed to have slightly tropical aromas, indicating it can be left too long. Bachelder goes one step further and separates out the section of Wingfield on a steeper hill.

Beamsville is the next-sub appellation to the west along the Bench. It is somewhat nearer the lake than Twenty Mile Bench and the collective wisdom suggests the top soil may be a little deeper. The glacial moraine with limestone, clay, and silt can produce a slightly richer style of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, but possibly this is more attributable to the warm air drawn in from the lake in the autumn, which extends the seaso,  permitting the growers to hang the fruit longer. As the air hits the escapement, which is steepest and most defined here, it creates constant turbulence. 

At Hidden Bench Estate Winery, Harald Thiel plays up to the richer profile of Beamsville Bench, while making wines of distinct terroir definition from three separate vineyards. The clays of his Locust Lane Vineyard produce Pinot Noir of brooding, full, and dark expression, while my favorite, Felseck Vineyard, turns out a strict and tense Pinot Noir from a high level of active limestone. 

Most vines on the Niagara Peninsula are planted in a north-south direction giving sun exposure in the morning on one side, and on the other in the afternoon, but Felseck Vineyard is unusual in being planted east-west, which probably accentuates the edgy profile. 

Keeping the flow

Staying in the vineyard for a moment, growers pay particular attention to leaf-picking and airflow on the Niagara Peninsula, where downy mildew is usually a problem (although in 2022 powdery mildew was the issue). It’s tough going working organically, and only five producers, including Hidden Bench and Tawse Winery, are certified.

Moving west we fall off the Bench, but Grimsby is “Bench” in terroir, style, and spirit. In 2005, when the Ontario Wine Appellation Authority defined the sub-appellations, the production of Grimsby was too small and probably not up to snuff. The escarpment is just 1.5km (0.93 miles) from the lake at this point, which explains the current application for a Grimsby Narrows sub-appellation. 

The Grimsby hillside slope has more clay towards the bottom and limestone at the top. The terroir of the slope, expressed through Chardonnay and Pinot Noir is light, swift, high-wired, and bright with a salty tang. Some 80 acres (32ha) on the hillside belongs to Paul Franciosa who sells to Kelly Mason, Bachelder, and Ilya Senchuk. Franciosa must be a modest chap for he’s not keen to see his name on the label.

Ilya Senchuk has a small estate at the foot of the hill in Grimsby called Leaning Post. Beside the winery is a flat vineyard of silty clay loam, in what is currently defined as Lincoln Lakeshore. Senshuk makes separate wines from the two sites. Irrespective of the clay, Leaning Post’s hillside Chardonnay and Pinot are delicate and with slivers of minerality; while the Lincoln Lakeshore Senchuk Vineyard wines are fruitier and smoother. 

Senchuk is among several producers to make a fulsome, earthy Pinot Noir from the red clay of historic Lowrey vineyard. This was planted in 1984 with suitcase vine stock and is owned by the fifth generation of the Lowrey family, although these days Wes Lowrey makes his own wine from five historic rows. Part of Lowrey is planted in the dried-up riverbed of the old Niagara River. 

Lowrey Vineyard is located on St David’s Bench, which is way back Eastwards past the urban sprawl of St Catherine’s and close to the newer coarse of Niagara river which flows over the colorfully illuminated Niagara Falls. The stretch of the Bench from St David’s in the east to Beamsville in the west is about 37km (23 miles).

St David’s Bench is 13km (8 miles) inland from the lake and thus relatively hot for Niagara. It produces full-bodied Pinot Noir and is not really well-suited for this finicky variety. Chardonnay is more adaptable and will happily assume a different personality across the various sub-appellations on the Peninsula. And Cabernet Franc is almost as accommodating. 

I enjoyed the Cabernet Franc from Ravine Vineyard Estate on St David’s Bench. There are two adjacent Cabernet Franc vineyards. Lorna Vineyard’s’s sandy soil makes structural wines which age well. The 2012 still has loads of energy. While Nancy, on clay soils, is more fruit-driven.

St David Bench’s is corralled into a broader nonsensical appellation of Niagara-on-the-Lake. Although situated farthest from the lake, St David’s benefits from the cooling influence of the Niagara river, while the sub-appellation of Four Mile Creek is the really hot spot. It’s possible to make big reds here and Icellars Estate Winery certainly do that, using Bordeaux varietals, hung for a long time and aged in 100 percent new oak. If that rocks your boat, Wiyana Wanda 2020 is my pick of their high-octane range. When I visited, the fruit was clearly irresistible to the local racoons, which attempted nightly raids on the vineyards, kept at bay only by loud rock music. 

Staying in the broad appellation of Nigara-on-the-Lake, the vineyards on the flat land of Niagara Lakeshore, near the the town of Niagara on the lake, benefit from the lake’s influence and are cooler than Four Mile Creek. From these flat vineyards, I tasted pleasant, rounded, and fruity Chardonnays, but it was Cabernet Franc which caught my eye. It seems there is under-exploited potential here for this variety. 

Cabernet Franc: No longer the workhorse

Cabernet Franc has traditionally been a workhorse for the Niagara Peninsula, over-cropped and blended to produce cheap and easy drinking wine. The popular Cab/Merlot blends are largely Cabernet Franc, for it’s difficult to ripen Cabernet Sauvignon, while Cabernet Franc ripens routinely and will churn out generous volume. However, limiting the crop of Cabernet Franc and harvesting it later yields fruit with greater intensity, riper tannin, richer texture, and fewer green pyrazine characters. Good quality single-varietal Cabernet Franc has been emerging in the Niagara Peninsula over the past six or seven years, but is taking time to gather a following. 

At Stratus Vineyards, best known for its blends, young winemaker and viticulturist Dean Stoyka is branching out into single-varietal wines and making an inviting, dark, and spicy Cabernet Franc, while Nick Gizuk, winemaker at Inniskillin, tells me Cabernet Franc is his passion. He makes a svelte version with dark chocolate-accented fruit. This comes from a vineyard planted about 30 years ago with wide spacing and high canopy, so he’s really careful to keep the yields low. I would like to see a Cabernet Franc from a selection of his best fruit, but Inniskillin is owned by the large Arterra Wine brand so that’s unlikely any time soon.

Cabernet Franc has also proved to be a winner at Pearl Morissette. When François Morissette, who trained in Burgundy, bought land in the gravely Creek Shores sub-appellation, he planted Pinot Noir, but reluctantly acknowledged that Cabernet Franc is better suited to lakeshore soils and replanted. In 2021 the young vines appeared under the label Racines du Ciel, a delicate, soft, and lightly herbal wine. I also liked Ressac 2019: generous, ripe and juicy Cabernet Franc from the loamy, red clay soils in neighbouring Lincoln Lakeshore.

However, you will not be surprised that I found the finest Cabernet Franc on the Bench. I tried several vintages of Pearl Moissette, Cuvée Madeline from clay over limestone on Twenty Mile Bench. This is a pretty dynamic Cabernet Franc. I was also impressed with Twenty Mile Bench Cabernet Franc from Leaning Post, Wismer Foxcroft, and Tawse, David’s Vineyard. 

At Thirty Bench Winery, (the names do get a bit confusing; this winery is in Beamsville) winemaker Emma Garner emphasized the point that Cabernet Franc from the Bench tend to be naturally lower vigor than on the lakeside. Thirty Mile Bench 2019 Small Lot Cabernet Franc is among the best I tasted. It was harvested in late October just before snow fell. Garner leaves the fruit as long as possible to get full phenolic ripeness. 

The Niagrara Peninsula Cabernet Franc has a strong varietal character with the typical herbal, bell-pepper, grassy notes, and fresh acidity of a cool-climate Cabernet Franc, but with smoothly textured ripe tannin. Only the Loire Valley has staked a claim to world class, terroir driven, single varietal Cabernet Franc, but Canada has the potential to rival this. 

Just to return for a moment to Lincoln Lakeshore to re-cap on terroir. The shale and sandstone soils of the vineyards near the lake are friable and soft, and often quite fertile so yields need to be contained. They generally produce open-knit, fruity, and accessible wine, whatever the variety from Cabernet Franc to Riesling. This differs from the Bench where the hard dolomitic limestone and heavier clays deliver more structure and tension. 

This was keenly illustrated in a tasting of Riesling at Cave Spring Vineyard. Cave Spring, which was established in 1975, is among the pioneering estates in Ontario, renowned for its benchmark Riesling. It produces forward, open-textured, and accessible Riesling from the friable clay, sandy loam, lighter shales, and sandstones of Lincoln Lakeshore. While above this, on Beamsville Bench, the Dolomitic limestone and heavier clay deliver tight knit and intense Rieslings that require longer maturation. Winemaker Gabriel Demarco matures the Rieslings in concrete tanks. In a bid for greater sustainability these stackable cubes are manufactured using a local company and materials. 

Niagara Riesling: Growing up and going dry

Riesling, like Cabernet Franc, was traditionally used as a workhorse in Niagara Peninsula, but these days there are numerous top-end Rieslings, which show terroir definition and distinct vintage variation. I tried excellent examples from Thirty Bench Winery and Tawse’s Carly’s Block.

Riesling’s high natural acidity is accentuated on the Niagara Peninsula (pH typically 2.9), and the local market has demanded residual sugar to balance it. Flat Rock Naja Vineyard Riesling (9-12g of residual sugar) is one of the finest. But there is a trend for dry Riesling which is spearheaded by Demarco. 

Demarco is one of the most innovative young winemakers working in Niagara. Among his exciting range of wine is the CVS Riesling, which is  savory, richly textured, and dry. Beamsville’s extended season allows de Marco to wait for full ripeness. It is initially treated oxidatively with up to 16 hours’ skin contact before fermentation with a touch, just 5%,of skin. It’s matured on lees in concrete and barrels for ten months “skin contact and lees ageing are much more important than varietal character,” Demarco says. 

Ilya Senchuk is another winemaker pushing the boundaries with Riesling. His Riesling comes from the south facing part of Wismer Foxcroft Vineyard. It is richly  savory with a smoky, flinty note. Like Demarco, Senchuk uses lees to balance the high acidity and this results in a textured, complex style. 

In 2014 Senchuk transferred the lees from all his whites into a tank of Riesling, which he aged for 22 months. When he racked it off lees for bottling, he transferred them to the next vintage. This became The Geek Rielsing, a solera-system wine, which is now composed of 50 percent lees. Never stirred and bottled unfiltered, the result is  savory, intense and nutty with salty freshness. What’s not to like? 

From the Jordan side of Twenty-Mile Bench, I also liked Flat Rock Cellar’s Amplify, a dry Riesling which goes through MLF. There is a lot more to say about intriguing Niagara Peninsula Riesling, but for now I will just add how well it ages.

Ageworthy Chardonnay

On the point of aging capacity, Chardonnay must be mentioned. Flat Rock Cellar’s 2009 Rusty Shed barrel-fermented Chardonnay, from young nine-year-old vines, is super fresh, vibrant, and mineral after 13 years of aging. No doubt the screwcap closure plays a significant role, but that’s not bad. Bench Chardonnays, which are ripe at just 12.5%, have the structure, intensity, and acidity to benefit from bottle aging. 

Pearl Moisette has made 21 vintages of Cuvée Dix-Neuvième, another impressive Chardonnay from Twenty Mile Bench. Winemaker Sveltlana Atcheva’s approach has evolved and become more interesting. Thirteen years ago she made Cuvée Dix-Neuvième in a buttery, oaky style. The 2009, which and not released for ten years, has the matter and vibrant acidity to continue to evolve, but since then she has developed a more textural restrained and savory profile for this cuvée, which was aged in foudres with long lees contact to balance the high acidity. There is no bâtonnage. Twenty-Mile and Beamsville Bench Chardonnays have plenty of density and need no bulking up with lees stirring, and there is so much fruitiness, it makes no sense in sweetening the sensation with new oak. 

There seems to be a trend for using 500-liter puncheon to age Chardonnay, which works a treat in showcasing the terroir. I love the Twenty-Mile and Beamsville Bench Chardonnays for their elegance, depth and freshness. The best are truly world class. 

I can’t leave Niagara Peninsula without mentioning Vinemount Ridge, which can be found above the point where The Bench slopes up to meet an escarpment. It is an expansive appellation. The best vineyards snake along the top of the escapement. Pinot Noir can do well up here, but it’s not easy. Carolyn Hurst and Grant Westcott, a former tech industry couple from Toronto, are among those planting Pinot Noir. Their home parcel at Westcott Vineyards slopes slightly south but requires geo-thermal blankets to prevent the vines from dying in the midwinter freeze. The 2019 Vinemount Ridge Reserve Pinot is spicy with lemongrass; tight, straight, and taut with crisp tannin. 

Tawse Winery, located in the Vineland part of Twenty-Mile Bench, also has some vineyards on the escarpment, including Tintern. This was planted in 2010 and struggles to ripen Pinot Noir every year. I liked the vibrant crunchy and mineral Tintern Pinot Noir in 2020, but less so the colder 2019. Even in the warm 2020, an optical sorting machine was used to take out the unripe Pinot fruit. It’s easy to warm to the young and enthusiastic team here. Winemaker Jessica Otting and vineyard manager Augusta Vanmuyen are women in their early 30s, graduates from Niagara College Viti-Vini program and part of a cohort of younger people taking on the mantle of wine production on the Niagara Peninsula. Vanmuyen is working the vineyards organically. 

Chardonnay, ever the reliable friend, will ripen more easily on Vinemount Ridge. Tawse Quarry Road Chardonnay 2020, aged in puncheons, has white peach intensity and pushes on very well. At Westcott, Hurst describes herself as a Meursault girl, but has happily converted to Vinemount Chardonnay. Her 2019 Block 76 Chardonnay is a tense, lean and mineral wine aged for a second winter in puncheons. 

It’s difficult making wine on Vinemount Ridge, but this pales beside the icy challenges of Prince Edward County (PEC). I was fired up for the next leg of my trip. Back to Toronto Union Station to take a train up country for a couple of days of tasting. 

Prince Edward County: Extreme viticulture

In Prince Edward County the producers tackle the winter freeze with a low tech, laborious technique, banking up the crown of the vine with earth every winter. The viticulture is extreme on this relatively flat peninsula, almost surrounded by water. And the wine trade is less mature. 

PEC is scattered with tiny producers following an alternative, granola lifestyle with many pursuing a second career. Most are making wine for cellar door sales and local restaurants. With fewer professional winemakers and much experimental winemaking the quality of wine on PEC is hit and miss. I spent a fascinating evening at The Royal in Picton, savoring chef Albert Ponzo’s food while tasting wine from an assortment of local producers. Exultet Estates Mysterium falls into the trend for blanc de noir. A tart and funky wine, like several more innovative wines I tried, it was more curious than enjoyable. But there’s some eye-catching wine from PEC with Hubbs Creek showing that some amateurs can hit the mark even with Pinot Noir. 

Prince Edward County’s cool climate and porous, fractured, and fossil-rich limestone produces Pinot Noir in a light-bodied, swift, and crisp style with plenty of salinity. Grapes achieve physiological ripeness with 12% alcohol and less in the colder vintages of 2017 and 2019. These are cuttingly fresh wines with flavors of thyme and mint. 

The vineyards of Pinot Noir are generally quite young and the grape skins are thin, but producer Norm Hardie who produces the finest Pinot Noir in Prince Edward County, among the most stylish in Canada, shows that careful extraction will yield delicate tannins. His Pinot Noirs have llight, fine textures, but Hardie has noticed increasing tannin structure with each vintage. He has planted Pinot Noir where there is some friable clay above the limestone. “We have meeker soil and a cooler climate (than Niagara) giving us the opportunity to make pure and elegant wines. We could hang the fruit longer and get something darker and richer, but it would not respect our terroir.” 

The layer of clay is useful for water retention, enabling the vineyards to be dry farmed, but it is pretty infertile. Rosehall Run vineyards are planted on Hungry Point, named by the early settlers for their difficulty in getting any crop to grow.

Hardie also makes Pinot Noir from Niagara Peninsula using purchased grapes. Tasting his PEC and Niagara Peninsula wines side by side, it is clear that Prince Edward wines are lighter, intense, and more ethereal, and maybe even brisker. Pinot Noir here hasn’t the depth of the best of Niagara Peninsula Bench wines, but I feel it has yet to reach its full potential. 

Tasting vertical flights at Norm Hardie, Rosehall Run Vineyards, and Stanners Winery illustrates that even wine from young vines will evolve nicely over six years or so. Maybe not quite as long as the best Niagara Bench Pinots, which can reliably develop over at least eight years. But there is much to be enjoyed in these delicate and precise Pinot Noirs when they are young. 

The light and lacy Pinot Noir from Stanners Winery captures the PEC profile. Colin Stanners and his wife left jobs as research scientists in California to plant 8ha (19.8 acres) of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, in the Hillier area of PEC where several wineries cluster in the chilly temperature just a mile from the lake (he also makes a good Cabernet Franc from the limestone of Devil’s Wishbone Vineyard). 

A distance of 5 miles (8km) inland and up to five degrees warmer is Closson Ridge. Here, Closson Chase Vineyards Chardonnay and Point Noir are a little richer and fuller. Winemaker Keith Tyers has adjacent parcels of Churchside and South Clos, which have distinctly different characters. The vines on the deeper, warmer soil of the Churchside slope have a sunnier exposition and produce perfumed, fruity wines, while from the thinner soils of flat South Clos the style is stricter and straighter. There is no lack of terroir expression in PEC. Hardie has three Chardonnay vineyards making subtly different flinty and reductive wine, not from sulphur but as a result of the high pH soils. 

I went to Prince Edward County looking for Pinot Noir, but Chardonnay also thrives in the cool limestone terroir and produces wines of charismatic tension. The best are possibly a cut above the Pinot Noir. Whether it’s Chardonnay or Pinot Noir, I really like the racy, stylish, terroir-driven wine here and admire the intrepid spirit of the wine producers.

The wines of Ontario exceeded my expectations. It is producing some world class wines which express the terroir from village level to single vineyard sites. But it was time to move on. British Columbia beckoned. In the Okanagan Valley there would be no limestone. A dramatically different terroir and wine culture lay on the West Side of Canada. I jumped on a five-hour flight, keen to explore. 

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January 2014, it was; -4°F (-20°C) in the depths of the Ontario night; not much warmer by day. I’ve just been looking through the photographs I took back then: everyone zipped up to their chins, pale skins drenched in gray light, steely smiles for the camera before we hurry back inside.

The vineyards look dead, buried in slate light. Slender black trunks sway up from the drifts, softly contorted, while the brown canes above form a threadbare hessian, clinging to the trellis.

The tin-blue snow echoes the featureless sky above; a distant huddle of dark trees and white roofs separates the two. Everything is hunched. The clouds (a couple of shots tell me) cleared, once or twice, over the lake; I can see the ice-thickened water reaching for the sky’s shy rose and lilac.

All of this was little cheer, evidently, for the geese, locked into their winter misery. How did they survive the darkness? I tossed and turned in my warm bed, fretting over their ordeal.

Come day, we tasted in clean white rooms with flowers and big windows. Roaring stoves assured our own survival, which in turn intensified the pleasure of tasting summer’s wine with the jaws of winter clamped about us. Then came the visit to Thomas and Mary.

Change of scene: an old industrial warehouse. They’ve driven the car right in: it’s over there. A table with candles on—was that where Mary was sitting? Barrels everywhere; it’s chill; we can see the snow banked up through the warehouse windows. Someone is hitting a pipe in the background. A maintenance worker? A poltergeist? No one comments.

No one comments because Thomas is talking, and it’s a blizzard. Was it the mixture of French and English that made me think of Stephen Dedalus? Or was it the cascade of consideration and intrigue and involvement, the stream of winemaking consciousness?

That’s what I find in my notes, scrawled out with cold hands. Few winemakers anywhere are as much in love with his vineyards as this tall, scruffy, endearing Québecois, nor ask so many questions of them.

Does he get everything right? Perhaps not; it doesn’t matter. “A man of genius makes no mistakes,” claimed the fictional Dedalus. “His errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery.”

Photography by iStock / Getty Images Plus

Pacing the Niagara Escarpment

We’re pacing the throat of land that lies between the southwestern end of Lake Ontario and the northeastern end of Lake Erie, and specifically the vine-draped benches, slopes and creek-drained flats that upholster the Niagara Escarpment.

“The Falls fall,” says Thomas, “from a limestone bench, and where there are no Falls, there are vines.”

It’s dangerous and vulnerable viticulture: gigantic, violent weather systems can plow imperiously in and ruin everything.

Vines survive only because of the vast, abyssal masses of water that lie to each side, great gouges in the skin of our planet just 14,000 years old: a tangible legacy of the Ice Ages (which we survived, and which made us).

Past and present feel very boreal here, even though Niagara lies at the same latitude as Languedoc. Summer steams and swelters.

Tripping on allusions

In the wine world, nuance is easiest to discern at the limits. Thomas, nourished on Burgundy (where he worked and made wine for some years), is obsessed with these nuances.

We went chasing through the barrels that day, I recall, searching for the land’s gestures. I happened to mention, about the 2013 Chardonnay barrel sample he was calling “Wismer Bas” at the time, a tight, crunchy style, a salty, citrussy zest, a sense of the sandy shore to it; it seemed different to the hillside sample from the same Wismer-Foxcroft vineyard.

I thought no more about it and indeed forgot our exchange. Most winemakers would have done the same.

Eight years later, a Canadian friend arrived to stay for a few days with us. She put this bottle down on the table. Thomas had kept tasting, kept thinking; Wismer Bas had grown into “Nord.”

Now, he says, he “trips” every year “on the heavenly marine smells of crushed oyster shells, the savory texture, lemon oil and sea-mineral tang finish that only the northern slope of this vineyard imbues to the wines produced thereof.”

All that I leave to him, though I hope to have the fortune one day to taste through the little world his craft has uncovered with enough time to go tripping on allusions.

I love Niagara Chardonnay for the chance it gives to taste the idea of north in white wine: the fugue-like play of themes and variations you can hear in its quiet voices; and its restrained echo of another cool, continental zone where this variety feels at ease enough to cease being itself, being Chardonnay, and to be the place instead.

Silvered green-gray in the glass: cold winter light. Restrained aromas—so you look all the harder. When you look harder, anything that shouldn’t be there or that disappoints will be evident.

But nothing does disappoint; it’s pristine, pure, peeled. Orchard fruits and cream? Perhaps. Then comes the crisp cascade of the palate.

We went to the big Falls back in January ’14, and what did we see? A cauldron of ice and mist, with movement on its lip, churning in its heart.

This cascade is different: brighter, whistling, fresh, sunlit. The acids are cheerfully raw, almost Jura-like (limey, silty clay soils); it’s vinous, poised. And it drinks well: fine, supportive, graceful.

A cool space—but space to move nonetheless, to develop, to be.  

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