Couple of Wines from the Cellar: Henry of Pelham & Thirty Bench

Henry of Pelham:  Not previously reviewed

Thirty Bench:  Click here to read the original review from September 11, 2012

(Tasted March 2014) ... Tonight I pulled a couple of wines out of the cellar from a couple of cooler vintages.  Started off with the Henry of Pelham 2004 Off-Dry Riesling, which proved it still had plenty of life left in it.  Nose of peach, apricot and apple seed (with no sign of petrol what-so-ever).  Palate was a show of balance between the sweet and the acidity:  apricot, peach pit, touch of green apple along with a bit of Mac, there was even some lilac and honey notes that came into play ... What impressed me the most about this wine was that it kept its sweetness but with good acidity to keeping it from being cloying plus it had a long dried apricot linger to the finish.  Obviously, 2004 was a great vintage for Riesling.  Lost & Found Rating:  Treasure

(Re-Tasted March 2014) ... After that enjoyable feast of the senses I decided to move along to another cool vintage, but this time a little more recent, with a bottle of Thirty Bench 2009 Red.  In no sense of the imagination would anyone call the 2009 vintage in Ontario a great red vintage, but Thirty Bench managed to coax something special into their Red.  Now, some 5 years from vintage and 2 years from my last tasting of the wine I found the nose to be lacking of fruit but still appealing with its anise, oak, vanilla and spice; this continues on the palate, lots of vanilla and spice, but adds a hint of cassis to the background.  The wine is smoothing out nicely with silky tannins and sweet oak, but should not be held too much longer as fruit will start to fade even further.  Right now it is a real pleasant drinker for BBQ fare.

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Henry of Pelham 2007 Reserve Cabernet/Merlot

Click here to read the original review from June 2011

(Re-Tasted November 2013) ... Please excuse me if I get a little more effusive than usual about a Taste it Again wine but I'm telling you this might be one of the best taste it again wines I have re-tasted in quite some time ... granted it is only (according to the review) 2 years from tasting date - but something tells me I have tasted this earlier than that and the dating of the original tasting might be a little off.  But let's go through this wine bit by bit so that you know why it is so awesome.  The nose screams of dark fruit: blackberry, black cherry and plum along with cinnamon and clove.  Palate still has wonderful tannin structure and comes off as really sexy in the mouth with a smoky quality, hints of cocoa, great spice balanced with vanilla, blackberry and cassis - there's also some lovely mocha-spice on the finish. If you have some of this wine in your cellar it is drinking beautifully right now, if you don't have any, find someone who does, this is a really beauty that seems to just keep on getting better and I don't think it has reached its plateau quite yet; it still has a few years but I'm telling you now is as good a time as any.

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Henry of Pelham 2005 Meritage Cabernet-Merlot

Click here to read the original review from June 2007

(Re-Tasted July 2012) ... I think the thing I like most about doing these reviews is looking back at what the wine was.  Obviously I liked it in the first place, or else I would have never reviewed it, but it's interesting to see how the wine changed.  Reading the old review of this Henry of Pelham offering I noticed I mentioned a "vegetal" note and some "earthiness" ... well I can tell you those are long gone.  The nose is currently where this wine shines the most, once it gets out of the bottle: cassis, blackberry and cinnamon all take a turn at your olfactories - there is also a bit of oakyness but nothing too extreme ... over the course of an hour in the glass the fruit turns from the dark to the red with raspberry and black cherry - it still smells fresh and lively with hints of oak / spice character backing it up.  The taste is where my concern began, and ended an hour later:  the taste was black cherry but with an overwhelming cedar and oak-spiced cherries ... if this continued it would have been disastrous in an hour, but it mellowed right out.  The oak and cedar notes dissipated and in an hour I had spiced raspberries and black cherries on the tongue ... wow ... with a length black cherry finish.  This wine is peaking right now, but you have to give it about an hour to come out of hibernation, after all it's been 7 years since it's birth and at least 5 years in the bottle - you'd be a little cranky too at first.

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Henry of Pelham 2006 Off-Dry Reserve Riesling

Click here to read the original review from September 2007

(Re-Tasted February 2011) ... Another Sunday night, another battle with our demons ... our love of Chinese food from our local favourite.  I would say we eat Chinese from the Magnolia Restaurant as often as we eat chicken, which I think is once every couple of weeks.  And once again I dug around looking for a wine to match, coming up with a 2006 off-dry Riesling from Henry of Pelham.  '06 was a decent year of Riesling, not too great for the red grapes but a year that Riesling loved and this wine shows it.  The nose is pear and peach with a nuance of petrol, some talc and limeade.  The palate was lemon and green apple based with nice acidity and a long luxurious finish.  There is no rush to drink up the bottles in your cellar, this one still can age and should improve gracefully over the next 5 years or more.  Thankfully I have one left myself and will thoroughly enjoy it when the time is right ... that time could be now, but I'm willing to see this one through a few more years.

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Henry of Pelham 2003 Reserve Riesling

Found December 2010

Well, I combed through my records and could find nothing about me having tried this bottle before.  I have one bottle in my collection and that is all, so I must have been saving it for a special occasion and that occasion was tonight.  After a long weekend and long day we decided to relax and open something interesting, and what could be more interesting than a seven year old bottle of Riesling.  The nose was shy at first, we barely got any smell and even the flavour was a little muted.  We set our glasses aside and waited 15 minutes ... what a difference:  petrol mixed with green apple and lime skin.  The palate was similar yet different, the petrol wasn't apparent it gave up completely to the green apple, while the lime gave way to more lemony-citrus ... good acidity balanced everything nicely and there was a lovely mouth-coating lingering finish.  Lost & Found Rating:  Treasure

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Henry of Pelham 2005 Cabernet Franc

 

Click here to read the original review from May 2007 - OWR Newsletter #57

(Re-Tasted August 2010) ... I've been eyeing up this wine for about a month now, trying to decide the exact time to give it a try, would I be too early?  Too late?  Or would I be in the sweet spot?  

 

I re-read my original tasting note about this wine and noticed that a straight Franc is a rarity in the world of Henry of Pelham, so this bottle is to be cherished.  But it's not touchy-feely time; now is the time to pop the cork and give it a go.  My first sniff was that of spice and pepper, very welcoming.  A few swirls of the wine and some herbs come to the fore, like Italian seasoning, then a smokey tobacco note, then some dried cranberry (I knew  there had to be some fruit in there somewhere).  The taste is smokey-red fruit in nature, with some dried tobacco leaves, spice and white pepper ... and that was just in the first 10 minutes.

The next ten offered up more excitement. Sweet vanilla-cherry-tobacco caressed the nose, while the palate showed black cherry with a spiced nuance ... nice to see that fruit has finally decided to show itself, and very nicely I might add.  Tannins are soft and supple and each sip offers up more and more flavour and enjoyment.  If you bought a few of these I would suggest trying one now, as this wine has really started come into its own (not that it wasn't good from the get go, but it's gotten better);  I would also leave a bottle lying down for another couple of years as I can see this one getting even better by 2012-2014.  Enjoy ... I know I'm going to.

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Henry of Pelham 2005 Reserve Riesling

Click here to read the original review from April 12, 2007 - OWR Newsletter #54

(Re-Tasted November 2009) ... Back to one of my favourite topics, the 2005 Rieslings and their development. I have quite a few bottles of this wine in my cellar (4 more to be exact) so I had really high hopes for it when I bought it ... and I have to say it is coming along nicely, though at first, I have to admit, I was a little nervous. The initial smell was very gassy, and when I say very gassy I mean it was like standing at the pump having just spilled gas on your pants. And then if you can imagine getting into the car with your pants on wet with car-go-juice then you'll figure out what it was like to smell this wine. It took about 15 minutes for that to dissipate, but once it did there was a very pronounced lime-mineral note that emerged. The petrol came screaming through on the tongue in much the same way as it did on the nose, being extremely domineering in the first few minutes, but then it quieted down and giving way to lime rind, mineral/stony nuances and with only hints of gasoline. By the time an hour had passed the wine was warm but quite drinkable ... maybe I should have opened and let sit out for a bit then put in the fridge, next time, and with four bottles to go there will definitely be a next time.

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