Taste Ontario Wine !

 I recently got an invite to a media and trade show event for Taste Ontario! wine tasting at the NAC in Ottawa. I was really looking forward to the event as there would be a good selection of wineries from the Niagara area, North Shore Lake Erie, Pelee Island and Prince Edward Counties and they would undoubtedly bring a great sampling of wines from their vineyards. Sampling a large amount of wine over a 2 hour period and then jumping in my car and trying to negotiate my way through downtown Ottawa rush hour traffic would not be a sensible decision so I opted for the 15 window limo and road with the masses to downtown Ottawa and then walked a couple of blocks to the NAC. While riding in the bus, I had time to do a little brain math to calculate how long it would take me to cover all of the boothes. Assuming that each booth had 4 wines and it would take me about 2 minutes to sample each wine plus discussion with the representative would be mean I could spend no more than 9 minutes at each booth. Multiply that by 36 booths and I would only need about 6 hours to cover the whole event. Hmmm ? Unfortunately, the media and trade event was only 2 hours long so I had to change my strategy and be more selective in which wineries to visit. With a master plan in the back of my mind, I arrived at the greeting desk in the Panorama room of the NAC. The event was well very organized as they had lots of staff at the front desk processing invitees and I was into the event in only a few minutes with my name tag hanging around my neck, a Taste Ontario program in one hand and a tasting glass in the other. Prince Edward County was first on the list and I sampled some really wonderful Pinot Noir wines from Rosehall Run and The Grange of Prince Edward County plus a 2008 South Bay Vineyards Chardonnay from Huff Estates was very good. A new winery called Casa Dea also had some interesting wines and a really enjoyed talking to the winemaker Paul Battilana about his vineyard.
 The clock was ticking so I had to move onto the Niagara region where I sampled wines from 13th Street Winery, Henry of Pelham, Southbrook, Calamus, CaveSprings, Creekside Estates, Featherstone Estates, Fielding Estates, Flat Rock Cellars, Hidden Bench Vineyards, Le Clos Jordanne, Malivoire, Vineland Estates,  Wayne Gretzky Estates and Peninsula Ridge Estate wineries. All of these wineries produce excellent wines and to list them all would not highlight the effort of the winemakers who obviously have a real passion for producing high quality wine products. I would like to spotlights some of the wines which I thought were exceptional vintages.

• The Henry of Pelham 2008 Reserve Baco Noir was rich with earthy flavours and well balanced
• The Clos Jordanne 2008 Village Reserve Chardonnay had nice pear and tropical fruit flavours 
• The 13th Street Winery 2008 Gamay Noir with strawberry fruit and some pepper on the finish.

I continued to move around the room as fast as I could knowing time was fading quickly. As expected, the Taste Ontario! organizers flashed the lights like parents at a teenage party when the kids have consumed too much pop and sugar and are flying off the walls. The 2 hours had flown by and I was only half way around the room. My master plan to conquer the room in 120 minutes had been defeated by a lack of time management and a need to talk endlessly about wine. The good news was I sampled a lot of great Ontario wines and met some really interesting people passionate about making exceptional wines.

Here's my picks for this week.

Long Flat - 2008 - Shiraz - Australia

A dark ruby red Shiraz with aromas of dark fruits (plum) and a little smoke. Dark fruits again on the palate with some cherry and tobacco. The wine is well balanced with medium tannins and a long smooth dark fruit finish of plums.
Price - under $12 (LCBO)
I like this wine because it pairs well with sharp cheeses or a nice Sunday roast beef with roasted potatoes.








Little Yering - 2008 - Chardonnay - Australia

A nice "little" 100% chardonnay wine that is barrel fermented in French oak and has pale yellow straw like colour with aromas of peach, melon, citrus and vanilla.. Flavours of melon, vanilla and apples standout and the mouthfeel is a buttery texture. This medium bodied Chardonnay has a long smooth fruit finish with a slight taste of residual sugar.
Price - under $15 (LCBO)
I like this wine because it pairs well with creamy pasta dishes or just sipping on it's own on a cool summer evening.

Cheers !