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When I go to a large scale wine tasting, I always apply the wise strategy I saw Jerry Seinfeld use when entering a party: “Survey first, camp here.” The novice wine drinker, overcome by close proximity to abundance of wine, makes the not unexpected error of soaking their palate at the nearest table of wine, and then compounds this with the more important error of ordering their tasting in an inopportune way, so that the subtlety of superior wines tasted later in the evening will be lost in the miasma of bigger or sweeter wines tasted too early.
Herewith the strategy of “Survey first”. Take a tour around the room, to survey the selections and producers available, and then align your potential tastes in appropriate order, starting with delicate wines and saving the beasts and stickies for later. This approach is based on two principles: drink dry wines before sweet, and light wines before heavy. I usually like to start with crisp whites like Riesling, or sparkling wines, and the shift gears to lighter reds or richer whites like chardonnay as a preamble before trying bigger oaked reds, and always finish with dessert wines. Tasting ice wines first can destroy your palate for the next wines.
At Toronto Taste, a benefit tasting and auction for Eva’s Initiatives held in early November at the Liberty Grand, I appropriated a quick snap of refeshing Huff Estates rose, and then took a stroll around the room while appreciating the dry, gently smoky, and well balanced blend of cabernet and merlot. A quick gander at the offerings indicated that there were several chardonnays from Prince Edward County worth pursuing, which from past experience could be followed up copacetically by some red wine, in this case I noted judiciously that several cabernet francs had potential for good matches with the food tastes being offered.
Settling down with the trio of County chardonnays, I found the Rosehall Run 07 Cuvee County was crisp and lightly oaked, with a dash of musque on the midpalate adding an exotic accent, though the finish was a bit short. The Huff Estate 07 South Bay chardonnay starts with a base of zesty apple, coated in hot caramel sauce and finished with a fine smoky tone from 14 months in oak, 50% new. The prominent oak flavouring worked well with one of the best foods of the night, Cava’s Chris Macdonald smoked his king fish before turning it into a delicious ceviche. The final County chardonnay, Norman Hardie’s 08 unfiltered chardonnay, struck a chord with me, and though the oak was noticeable again, it was more elegantly integrated into the rich balance of the wine, and the limestone complexity was perfect with Rancho Relaxo’s corn tortilla loaded with guacamole. Some of this balance in the wine has to be due to Norm using some of the most expensive, finer grained barrels available ($1300 for a 225 litre barrique, translates into over $4 per bottle just for the oak) to mature his wines.
Continuing my survey of the room, I kicked off the reds portion of the tasting with one of my favourite Ontario wines of late, the fun and fruity cab franc from Rosehall Run ($19). It’s made from a blend of County grapes, and is light on oak, giving it a refreshing mineral accent, which was fantastic when paired with the roasted belly of wild boar served by La Palette, where the wine balanced the fatty meat like a cranberry sauce. Heavier wines were too clumsy, but the freshness and gangliness of cab franc worked perfectly. I think this would be a great wine for the Christmas season, as a chirpy house red to get a party started, or at dinner with the turkey. At the table of Legends winery, an often overlooked winery who produces much better wines than you’d expect for the price or the label, I was gratified to find that there their 07 Cabernet was in fact 90% cab franc and 10% petit verdot, with none of the ubiquitous cabernet sauvignon. I hope the general Cabernet denomination on the label induces more cabernet sauvignon drinkers to give it a shot, because in my mind cab franc makes a much more interesting wine than cab sauv. The blend of grapes and the Niagara terroir produced a bolder wine than the Rosehall Run, and only 10 months in oak lets the character come through, even though the vines are just starting to mature. The consistency and vivacity I’ve had with Ontario’s cab francs in the last few months tells me we should be gobbling up every 2007 that we can get our hands on. Other bottles to look out for include the LCBO general list cab francs from Inniskillin ($14) and Coyote’s Run ($16), and both of these wineries higher priced reserve wines give a little more fruit intensity and oaky richness for the added cost, but still come in under $20. At the luxury end of the spectrum, the $30 Laundry vineyard cab franc from Tawse delivers more depth and complexity, and an intriguing finish of lavender flavoured chocolate, which makes me interested to see how it could improve with a couple years of ageing.
A final thought to bear in mind when employing the “Survey First” approach to wine tasting: although this is a structured approach, I always plan some spontaneity, and keep my palate open for curiosities and unexpected discoveries. For example I lingered at the Legends table after tasting the cabernet to sample some of their whites, and was impressed with the enjoyment factor of a new blended white that will be coming out of Legends winery in January:Â the 2008 DIVA, a blend of semillon and sauvignon blanc, blasts the nose with intense green melon and zippy acidity that could make it a great party wine. As much as wine writers have been lauding the reds of the 2007 vintage in Ontario, the white wines of the 2008 vintage are turning out to be just as exciting, and yet have been flying under the radar. Keep your eyes out and palate open for these 2008 whites as they start appearing on shelves near you.
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