April 28, 2009

Flat Rock 2004 Gravity Pinot Noir



(Re-Tasted April 2009) ... I have heard it said that Pinot Noir is one of those weird grapes that has an ebb and flow to its aging process. Here's what I mean: Let's say you open a bottle of 2004 in early January of 2008 and the wine is beautiful and succulent with lots of berries and cherries - the kind of wine you are happy to own, your experience tells you that the wine can age another 4 to 5 years with ease. Wanting to capture that wine moment again you open a bottle of the same wine 6 months later, it's lackluster, no sign of fruit and little indicatiojn that this is even wine. Ready to pitch your case of 2004 you get unexpectedly sidetracked and the wine remains in your cellar another year. You come across it and remember the nasty stuff you tried - curious you pop the cork and try it again ... this time the wine is sublime. And that's Pinot Noir, not just a heartbreaker but a head-scratcher as well. Today, I opened up my last remaining bottle of Flat Rock's 2004 Gravity Pinot - one of my favourites from that vintage - and I found myself disappointed. Sure there are Pinot smells here, earthy, anise seed, forest floor, and fruits that aren't exactly fresh but not dried out either. The taste is another mystery of sorts: earthy forest floor, dried cranberry, slightly raisiny, touch of anise but quite smooth. We call this a "dumb phase", for Pinto Noir - not showing great, but not showing all that well either - if I had another bottle I would keep it in the corner for another 6 months to a year and try it again.

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April 25, 2009

Featherstone Estate Winery 2005 Riesling


(Re-Tasted April 2009) ... As I continue to experiment with ageing wine and vintage years I draw some rather interesting conclusions. One of which is that 2005 was not a good year for Riesling. Allow me to qualify that statement a little better: 2005 Riesling aren't aging very well. Riesling, one of the most ageable whites, with its high acidity and slight residual sugar, can age beautifully, developing flavours that are out of this world sublime. One of the signature smells and tastes of a well aged Riesling is petrol/gas/kerosene - a Riesling with 10 years-plus on it has this smell in spades, but they should materialize slowly over time. My findings so far, about 2005, is that those Rieslings have developed over-the-top petrol notes prematurely; and when I am talking petrol I mean sticking your head into a gas tank and breathing deep. Only 4 years from vintage date they should not have the level of gas that many of them do ... thus I can make the conclusion that the hot years (which '05 was) are unkind to the cool weather loving Riesling. This Featherstone offering follows that theory right down to the conclusion. The nose is fairly complex, adding spice and floral notes to that big petrol smell. The flavours fall off sharply with no fruit, no spice, no floral - a hit of something sweet mid-palate almost tries to redeem this wine, but it concludes with a bitter petrol aftertaste. These tastings of the '05s is a bell-weather for the 2007 Rieslings of Ontario - so unless you dig on petrol, early drinking is the key for these wines ... you can hold your 03s, 04s, 06s and the coming 08s.

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April 7, 2009

Huff Estates 2003 Cabernet Sauvignon / Cabernet Franc


(Re-Tasted April 2009) ... On this Tuesday night I opened two bottles of Prince Edward County wine - this Huff Cab Sauv/Franc and a 2004 Grange blend. These were two different, yet difficult vintages for Ontario winemakers, and the grapes, and both these wines are from an up-and-coming wine region ... so how did the Huff wine fare:

This wine offered up more than the Grange wine and it was a year older - but, did what it offer up appeal? That is the big question. The nose was big on green pepper and quite stemmy (smelled like plant stem). The colour had definitely gone from red to brick and there was lots of wine diamonds on the cork and plenty of sediment in the bottle (and in my initial glass). So I decided to decant and wait.

The initial tasting, before decanting, was not as bad as maybe the nose would have indicated. The tannins had soften over the years, the taste was soft green pepper mixed with smoky-woody flavours - think green pepper cooked over an overly smoky wood fire. The decanting did its job, and an hour later the wood had soften to a palatable level, and there were even hints of fruit, of summer's past mind you, but there was an indication of dried by-gone fruit. I thought this wine showed a lot of character - but the question still remains: do you like that kind of character?

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The Grange of Prince Edward County 2004 Cabernet-Merlot


(Re-Tasted April 2009) ... On this Tuesday night I opened two bottles of Prince Edward County wine - this Grange Cabernet-Merlot and a 2003 Huff blend. These were two different, yet difficult vintages for Ontario winemakers, and the grapes, and both these wines are from an up-and-coming wine region ... so how did the Grange wine fare:

The nose from start to finish was a little funky. When I say start to finish I mean I like to give these old wines some time to breathe, get accustomed to being outside the bottle after all these years. But the nose never did come around to anything - no fruit, no wood, nothing.

The taste was something altogether different. It started off smooth and sweet, almost port-like, no tannins were present at all, for it's first hour is was a straight forward nondescript grapey wine; meaning it tasted like grapes or juice juice - then it slowly started to develop a burnt sugar and caramel note in the sweet finish. If I were a betting man I would have to say that in this tough vintage, where proper ripening was hard to get and the alcohol making sugars were not naturally present in the grapes, they must have chaptalized the wine (added sugar) to bring the alcohol up to a respectable level (13%). But now a few years down the road the added sugar is really coming through as the only characteristic of this wine. If you like boozy grape juice then this is your wine but as far as agein any further ... how old do you like your boozy grape juice?

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April 3, 2009

Rosehall Run 2004 St. Cindy Pinot Noir


(Re-Tasted April 2009) ... Before I start telling you about this wine let me say this: I really wish Dan Sullivan would ditch the plastic corks and put the real stuff (or even a screwcap) into his bottles. These plastic things are impossible to remove and yet through all the struggle they give such a piss poor seal. There I have said it and I am happy to get it off my chest ... Dan, you're making too good a wine to be messing with this plastic crap ... okay enough, on to the wine. Tonight I was of two minds, a Primitivo from Italy or a Pinot Noir from Dan Sullivan's Rosehall Run - the Pinot won out and I would have to say it was a pretty good choice. The nose was very muted, even hours after opening ... yes I nursed this one from 6:30 to about 9:30 in the hopes it would open up ... it never did. I got a touch of earthiness right from the beginning and strawberry emerged at the end (at about 9pm). - but nothing much else showed up to the nose party. The taste showed signs of cranberry and sour cherry but it too was a little on the muted side. The finish was the best part, it actually showed some character and flavour with black licorice, leather and sour cherry. They say that Pinot matures in waves ... I was certainly not at the crest of this wine, but I certainly wasn't at the bottom either - I think I caught this one on it's way up, or down.

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