Maleta Vineyards 2001 Meritage

Found October 2013

Shhh, don't tell my wife, but I kinda enjoy when she leaves town to visit her family for a few days.  I have nothing to hide but if she saw the amount of time I spend in my wine cellar that weekend she would have flipped (why was I not cleaning other parts of the house?)  Now, I did not spend 24 hours or anything silly like that, I just took a few hours to re-arrange and move stuff around and also make some discoveries, like this 2001 Maleta Meritage.  I was really looking forward to this one as it had been a silver medal winner (as the sticker on the bottle proudly proclaimed) and 2001 was a pretty good year for reds in Ontario.  Except for one little spotted creature it would have been a perfect year ... and alas the Asian Lady Beetle had infected this wine as well.  Back when this wine won its award I am sure it was not as pronounced, but today it's all rancid peanut on the nose that just keeps getting stronger the longer it stays open ... sadly, you could make out that lovely fruit that would have been there if not for that off putting nose (especially on the palate) - flavours were muted, but another surprise was that the fruit and acidity still seem to be very much intact ... it's really just the off-putting nose, and the muting of the fruit that stands in its way.  Lost & Found Rating:  Trash

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Jackson Triggs 2001 Proprietors’ Reserve Pinot Noir

Found October 2010

Whoa Nelly, I wish I had something good to say about this wine upfront – the smell is absolutely horrible, no fruit with lots and lots of stink.  On the backend, we’ll call that the taste, it’s earthy and woody with no signs of fruit, so there is little in the way of a pleasant taste here … the good news is that what is here is smooth and it tastes much better than the smell indicates, though that is not saying much.  Interesting colour to the wine, it is a blood orange hue.  Sorry to say this one did not stand the test of time.  Lost & Found Rating:  Trash

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Southbrook Winery 2001 Cabernet Sauvignon - Lailey Vineyard

Found December 2009

New Year's Eve 2009 ... as we move from 2009 to 2010 I decided to open quite a few wines (well actually 3), the others can be found here ... as for the Ontario component of my evening it was this well aged Cabernet Sauvignon from Southbrook. Those who read my entries to this blog know that Southbrook used to be my local winery and I seem to have quite a few bottles of theirs that go back a few years. This wine would have been made from fruit sourced at Lailey Vineyard down in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Southbrook at this time, did not own their own vines. I drank this one after a much younger, more alcoholly, richer fruited Malbec from Argentina, but it still held it's own. The smells were that of an older wine with cranberry, dried raspberries and blackberries with the mildest whiff of green pepper (an Ontario signature smell around this time period). The palate was smooth (though a tad gritty from the unfiltered floaties - but it is this element that has allowed the wine to age so gracefully so no use complaining), there was also a touch of white pepper and a bit of woodsiness to mix with the dried fruit base. Paired well with the New Year's Eve pizza. Lost & Found Rating: Treasure

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Thomas & Vaughan 2001 Cabernet Sauvignon

Found March 2009

Doomed from the start ... that is the best way to describe this wine. Now don't get me wrong, this wine had such great potential, if not for the ladybugs that spoiled the party. Tonight, I decided to open a bottle of Thomas and Vaughan and see how the wine from this now-troubled winery have aged. At first I was not sure of the smell I was getting, then it became clear: pyrazine. That peanut smell that hit Ontario in 2001 from so many scared ladybugs with no where to go - some got it big time while others were spared. This one was only slightly buggy, but it made a difference both on the nose and on the palate. Let's push through it for a moment and see what else this wine could have been. There were signs of green pepper on the nose; the palate shed the bug and delved into the realm of cedar, cinnamon and blackberries. There was even hints of tannin still there. But in the end the bug took over with a bitter finish and as it opened it gained more of "those smells" - too bad, this wine was definitely going places. Lost & Found: Trash - but barely.

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Hillebrand 2001 Trius Red

Found August 2008

Some moons ago, when I was deciding what to write about in the field of wine, my brother presented me with a bottle of Hillebrand 2001 Trius Red that he had found at his local liquor store – I think it was a thank you for looking after his dog for a week. I have held on to this lone bottle like gold; but for my mother’s 70th birthday I decided it was time to let loose the cork and see where this wine had gone. 2001 lives in infamy in Ontario as the year of the Ladybug, and so any bottle you open has the potential to be “buggy”. Thankfully I can say this bottle was not. Upon openings smells of dried fruit with some spices and a good whiff of cinnamon greeted the nose. The palate pretty much kept up with the nose: signs of dried fruit, dried leaves, a touch of oakiness with some spices and very little in the way of tannin. The age is showing on this wine but it is still very drinkable. Lost & Found rating: Treasure.

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Southbrook 2001 Triomphe Cabernet Franc – Watson Vineyard

(Found – May 2008)

Here’s a wine that was started by Derek Barnett and finished by Colin Campbell … Derek, now with Lailey, is known for making great Cabernet Franc, so I suspect Colin probably just had to wait the prerequisite 12-18 months, that Triomphe wines traditionally received, before bottling this sucker (though it is still a reflection of the winemaker's taste and intuition). The nose is fresh green pepper and a bit cedary … mouth-wise, right from the bottle, it’s pleasant and smooth with a little tannins and good flavours: soft green pepper, blackberries and cedar. But, when you throw this one into a decanter you’ll watch it bloom: black fruit flavours galour, like cassis, black cherry and tobacco leaps into both the mouth and nose. An excellent wine with still a few years left to go. It’s wines like this that make me wonder (and hope) if Southbrook’s future will be as bright as their past – form my pen to bacchus’ eyes – I’ll drink to that. Lost & Found rating: Treasure.

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Erie Shore Vineyard 2001 Cabernet Franc-Zweigelt

(Found – January 2008)

I will fully admit that I waited too long with this one … finding it on the shelf in late December I knew it was probably past its prime, but waiting another month to drink it … that I can’t explain. If there is any good news to take away from this bottle is that it was corked, and therefore I never would have gotten the true flavours of the wine even if I tasted it in its prime. Soaking for as long as it did in the faulty cork the flavours and smells were just enhanced … the wine was ripe with wet newspaper and stewed prunes; and the taste was not much better. Looking at the bottle, now with the level of the wine at its shoulders, you could see the glass had become murky and cloudy. The wine itself looked more like a rosee, being almost completely see through. I gave the wine 30 minutes, an hour, then two hours to sit open, just to see if it would develop anything or blow off its stink … it did neither. Too bad, this one had some great potential in its youth and Erie Shore makes some great Franc. Lost + Found Rating: PURE TRASH.

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Marynissen 2001 Gamay Noir

(Found – November 2007)

I remember putting this one away at the time of purchase, because Marynissen had been very liberal with their oaking of this wine and I thought it just might hold. When I found it a few months back I thought a "Gamay Noir? Oh boy ... I might be in trouble here." I pulled the cork and waited for the unpleasant gases to spew forth, good news - they did not; so the obvious next step was to pour. A slight browning of the edges was the first thing I noticed – not surprising in a 6 year old wine. Time to put nose to glass and that brought out some stink of epic barnyard proportions. Surprisingly it was only the smell that was off-putting it did not follow through on the taste (what I'll put in my mouth in the name of science) with mainly black fruit and cedar notes on the tongue. I decanted it to see if I could rid it of the stink and lo and behold it mellowed out quite a bit while the flavors were improved too. Lost + Found rating: MINOR TREASURE.

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Jackson-Triggs 2001 Cabernet/Shiraz - non-VQA

(Found - October 2007)

I lost track of this white-labeled Jackson-Triggs offering: a non-VQA, cellared in Canada blended affair. I opened it with some trepidation, but to my surprise the wine inside the bottle was still good. Dark fruit, easy drinking, smooth on the palate, there was even some chocolate notes blended in with those black cherries - tasty. Lost + Found rating: TREASURE.

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Kittling Ridge 2001 Merlot

(Found - October 2007)

I have long been a proponent of Ontario Merlots needing time in bottle to really come about. Well, I lost track of this '01 Kittling Ridge offering somewhere in the depths of my racks and, well, after I found it I wished it had remained lost. The color had turned quite brown around the rim and the smells and tastes were prune-juicy in nature. Lost + Found rating: TRASH.

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