Wednesday, February 1st, 2012

A winemaker prepares for a “Winemaker’s Dinner” with the hope that his or her wines will show their best and contribute positively to the evening’s festivities and fare.  My pre-dinner jitters were immediately settled when I walked into Treadwell’s on Saturday and was greeted by so many familiar faces.  It was like walking into the warm atmosphere of a family dinner.

As we drove to Port Dalhousie, I had managed to convince myself that by now people must be sick of hearing me rattle on about leaf-removal techniques in Pinot Gris or the benefits of whole-bunch pressing in Riesling, but surprisingly that was not the case!  People expressed genuine interest in hearing the behind the scenes viticultural and enological practices that we employ at Five Rows.  I found this very encouraging and flattering.  But let’s not kid ourselves, the people came to hear Howie and Wilma tell their stories - and they didn’t disappoint.

As one might anticipate, the true star on this night was the food.  James, Jason and staff completely outdid themselves, coming up with a stunning menu that left everyone raving.  The liveliest debate was reserved for deciding which course and pairing was our favourite.  I was partial to the Pinot and Tuna.

It’s always amazing to me that our wines just seem to smell and taste more intense when served at Treadwell’s.  Perhaps it’s the heightened anticipation of the senses or maybe its the proper serving temperature and stemware.   Whatever it is, I was relieved that each wine seemed to go over well.

I decided to use this group as guinea pigs (they seemed rather willing) to demo a blending trial of our yet to be released 2009 Pinot Noir.  The 2009 vintage was a dream for Niagara Pinot growers, who were treated to perfect ripening conditions for a change.  I put together a blend of 85%  2009  Pinot and  5% from each of three different barrels of 2010 Pinot.  The blend composition was determined based on some areas where I felt the wine could use a lift.  One of the 2010 barrels was Clone 777 (first crop), which added an interesting fresh raspberry dimension to the aromatics.  It plays well off the typical burgundian notes always present in the  Clone 115 Old Vine Lowrey Pinot.

We decided to pit this 2009 blend against our 2007 Pinot Noir to see how it stacked up.  I felt that the 2007 had gained some aromatic complexity since I last tried it, but it’s lively tannins tell me that this wine could still benefit from a bit more time in the cellar.  It was agreed that the 2009 blend really showed promise, and some people even preferred it over the 2007!  We will bottle the 2009 (maybe this exact blend) in April, with a release anticipated for early in the summer.

Thanks to all who attended for making this such a memorable experience!

Thursday, January 12th, 2012

We are currently finalizing plans for our second annual Winemaker’s Dinner to be held once again at Treadwell Farm to Table Cuisine in Port Dalhousie.  For those interested in attending, it will take place on Saturday, January 28.  I’m told that most of the seats are spoken for by returnees from last year, but there may be a few spots still up for grabs.  Best to contact James ASAP (905-934-9797).

The menu and wine pairings are still being conceptualized.  You’d be amazed at the amount of thought and debate involved in this process!  I don’t want to give too much away, but I may have convinced my mother to part with our final few bottles of 2010 Sauvignon Blanc, 2010 Pinot Gris and 2007 Pinot Noir to pour for the occasion.  I can’t think of a better curtain call for these wines.

Over the next couple of weekends (Jan. 14-15th and the 22nd) our barn will be open for tastings from 11-5.  We welcome anyone planning to attend the Icewine Festival to stop in for a complimentary sample of our 2009 Single Press Cabernet Sauvignon Icewine.

I’m proud to say that my little sister will be getting married on January 21, so we’ve elected to close Five Rows for the day and use the barn for pictures and festivities.  Congratulations Catherine and Steve!

Sunday, October 9th, 2011

Defining a personal “style” of winemaking has always been a difficult proposition for me.  I still consider myself an unexperienced rookie, then I glance at the calendar and realize I’ve been at this gig for quite a while.  As visions of past vintages scan by quickly in my mind, I recall my early days in Nova Scotia through my time as Viticultualist at Creekside Estate Winery.  I’m suddenly astounded when it hits me that I’ve been making wine for Five Rows since way back in 2004!  Has it really been that long?

Questioning my personal style is standard practice around this time of year, as I debate what tweaks to make in each of our of 2011 wines.  The quandary is whether to mess with the formula that has produced a certain style of wines people have come to expect and enjoy.  The safe move is to keep thing status quo, but that’s not why I got into this.  I want to push envelopes and ultimately change perceptions of St. David’s Bench Terroir.  But what if I screw it up?

I present the case for my 2011 Sauvignon Blanc.  Previous successful vintages (2007-2010) could be chalked up to equal parts fruit quality, terroir, and winemaking technique.  Beautiful late-summer weather assured the success of this year’s crop, with ideal acid and sugar parameters, ripe seeds and classic Lowrey Sauv Blanc flavours.

Do I treat this fruit the exact same way as I did in previous vintages or do I make a few subtle changes to the winemaking protocol in an effort to improve?  ”Fence-sitter” Wes says, “Don’t rock the boat, people like it as is.  There is no need to alter the oak to stainless steel ratio, yeast type, fermentation temperature, and residual sugar content if you don’t have to.”

“Devil May Care” Wes says, “Deep down you know there was some room for improvement in the 2010 Sauv Blanc (and I don’t care if it sold out already!).  Trust your instincts and do what it takes to make the wine you envision.  When you first started making wine you didn’t care about defining a style, you just wanted to achieve the best possible representation of your terroir.  Ultimately, if you like the wine, so will everyone else.”

I chuckle at the irony when I read this over and tend to agree with “Fence-sitter” Wes, but all kidding aside, I feel it important to proceed without the boundaries of a defined style in all my wines.  The success or failure of a wine should not be judged by public perception or sales figures, but on whether the winemaker achieved their goal.

Monday, August 1st, 2011

August 1st marks yet another important time on the Winery calendar.   The first berries are threatening to turn colour, faint blasts of bird bangers can be heard in the distance, and our cherished new barrels are starting to board ships in France.  The anticipation is palpable!

Winemakers are busy working out the logistics of the coming harvest, while Viticulturalists can be spotted zooming around the Peninsula, horse trading for the best fruit.  ”Who’s got Pinot Gris?  Who needs Riesling?  Who’s on first?”  It’s a frenzied time for all involved.  Grape growers can just work hard, pray for good weather, and hope that all their fruit will make the grade.

In the vineyard, fruit exposure and crop load management are the focus.  These are achieved through cluster thinning, strategic leaf removal and timely Botrytis control measures.  My goal in the tight-clustered varieties (Pinot Noir, Pinot Gris, Sauvignon Blanc) is thinning them down to a point where each bunch has some elbow room within the canopy.  This allows space for cluster expansion and helps alleviate potential “hot spots” for rot.  It’s a finicky and costly undertaking, but I’ve learned the hard way that it’s essential to producing quality wine.

The recent stretch of hot and dry weather in Niagara has set us up for what could be a solid vintage.  As always, fall conditions will be the ultimate judge.

Sunday, June 19th, 2011

2008 Five Rows Pinot Noir:

Now that we’ve been at this venture for a few years, it’s interesting to look back at my old blog entries upon the release of a new wine.  This entry from October 6, 2008 aptly tells the story of our 2008 Pinot Noir:

“Vintage ‘08 is upon us and to this point things have been…well…in a word …WET!!  Enough rain already.  I mean just when I thought we were in the clear we got doused by the remnants of a hurricane, and for the record: I don’t like Ike. Thankfully, the last couple of weeks have more than made up for the rain, with lots of sunshine and perfect ripening conditions for the early varietals.

As per usual, the “Heartbreak Grape”, Pinot Noir, lived up to its moniker and provided lots of nervous moments and second guessing.  In fact, one day in the vineyard while pondering a harvest timing decision, I found myself singing aloud to the Clash hit “Should I Stay or Should I Go”.  The Pinot were clean but slightly underripe, with threatening weather on the horizon (“If I go there will be trouble / And if I stay it will be double”).  Ultimately, we decided not to pick and wait out what suddenly became Hurricane Ike.  All the water led to some berries actually splitting and roused us into action.  Led by a Pinot-loving mother hell-bent on saving her crop, the three of us spent two mind-numbing days cutting out individually split berries and underripe clusters.  On September 16th and 17th we finally hand-picked our first two tonnes of fruit.  In the end, what came in was ripe, clean (thus receiving the Wilma stamp of approval) and fermented into some really intriguing stuff.  I experimented with a new yeast strain this season called W15, which after pressing today, is the early favourite to put into our 2 new Sirugue barrels.”

Fast-forward to 2011 and that Pinot-loving mother can be proud of the wine she helped save.  The 2008 is reminiscent of many past wines featuring Lowrey Pinot.  A classic blend of bright cherry fruit, some floral notes and spice dominate the nose.  Flavours of black raspberry and vanilla bean resolve into a pleasingly soft mouthfeel.  Tannins are much more approachable than the 2007 Five Rows Pinot Noir at the same stage.

Technical Data: 12.6% alcohol,  5.4 g/L residual sugar,  pH 3.45

Price:  $50/bottle

Barrels: 5

Production: 106 cases

Friday, May 27th, 2011

As we head into the summer season, I would once again like to extend an open invitation to all wine lovers.  Please do join us for a tasting over the coming months during our weekend retail hours (11-5).  It’s an exciting time at Five Rows, as we’ve just released our 2008 Shiraz, 2008 Pinot Noir, 2010 Sauvignon Blanc and 2010 Pinot Gris.  The weekend barn traffic has ramped up dramatically in recent weeks and there has been a very positive response to our new products.  Anyone wishing to reserve a case, please call or email sometime soon.  History has shown us that these wines will not be around very long!

Friday, April 8th, 2011

In the past, all of our bottling has taken place offsite at other wineries.  There was always a calming sense of security associated with these occasions knowing that we were at a place where this had been done many times before.  On the eve of the first ever bottling day at our own barn, these secure feelings were nowhere to be found.  I’d spent three months preparing and going over every possible problematic scenario in my head, but doubt still lingered.  Would there be enough room to maneuver in our barn? Would the truck fit on our crush pad?  Would my bottle choices pan out and, most disturbingly, would bottling icewine prove to be the  nightmare I had heard tale of?

All these troubling thoughts kept me awake on the eve of April 6th.  I was to be at the barn for 6am sharp the next morning to greet Glenn Hunt and his mobile bottling crew.  As the minutes ticked by, I actually started feeling nauseous and got up to take some Pepto Bismol.  It didn’t help.

I took solace in the fact that Glenn and Randy do this every day, convincing myself that they must have encountered every conceivable problem and were very seasoned at dealing with anxious winemakers.  It was still dark when the truck rolled in and right away Glenn put me at ease when he looked up at the clear sky and confidently stated, “It’s going to be a great day for bottling!”  If he could be excited about today, then why couldn’t I?

My second boost of confidence came at the arrival of my father-in-law and brother-in-law who had graciously offered to lend a hand.  More important than their braun, they offered a good dose of comic relief that kept us all loose despite the fast-paced dynamic.  In times of stress I’ve found that it’s good to surround yourself with hardworking Polish pranksters.

Set-up took far less time than I had anticipated and the first Pinot Gris bottles were rolling off the line by 7:30.  Riesling, Sauv Blanc, Pinot Noir, Shiraz and Cab Sauv followed in quick succession.  I figured it must be close to lunch at that point and had to look twice when my watch read 10:30!  We were flying - but the dreaded icewine still loomed.

Bottling into 200ml icewine glass presents a bevy of problems to the line.  The bottles are very tippy, and filling consistently with such a small amount of wine is tricky.  Thankfully, our Cabernet Sauvignon Icewine was fairly cooperative and we were able to wrap up bottling by noon.  I’d endured months of sleepless nights and we had bottled our entire 600 cases in half a day…the sheer stupidity of this is not lost on me.

I would like to thank Glenn, Randy and all my helpers for making the first Five Rows bottling day a huge success.

Monday, March 21st, 2011

Perhaps the number one stress for a winemaker on a yearly basis stems from getting his or her wine safely into a bottle.  On the surface it seems like such an easy and routine task.  In reality it involves a lot of preparation, hair-pulling, and moolah.  For small wineries who put “all their eggs into one basket” so to speak, there is no room for error.  Every little spill or bottle gone bad is greatly magnified.

Thankfully, there are people who specialize in this field.  Mobile bottling lines are a very useful tool for small craft wineries like ours.  It does not make fiscal sense for us to purchase a bottling line when the mobile unit can set up and bottle our entire portfolio in one day.   Unfortunately, the mobile line does not alleviate the vast amount of prep work and the high cost of raw materials.  I’m currently working through an extensive pre-bottling checklist which includes: final blending of wines, protein and cold stability tests, VQA lab and panel testing, coarse and sterile filtration, ordering bottles and corks, floor plan logistics, and shamelessly enlisting family members to help me out on bottling day.  Our labeling and waxing is done by hand at a later date, so that removes two finicky variables from the marathon undertaking.  The fewer things that can go wrong the better!

The bulk of my worries come long before bottling day and involve decisions like the type of closure to choose and the extent of filtration to employ.  The screw cap closure is becoming more and more common these days for good reason.  It’s much cheaper and it provides the perfect seal.  I thought long and hard about going to a screw cap for this season’s wines, but in the end I’ve opted to remain faithful to good old cork.  Call me old fashioned, but it just feels like the right closure for our wines.   The potential savings in price by using screw caps is substantial (high grade cork is 70 cents per bottle, while a screw cap  comes in around 18 cents per bottle),  but the traditional visual and tactile appeal of natural cork still resonates with me.  I’m also not convinced that screw caps provide the best mechanism for properly aging my wines.

I’ve talked to a number of our customers about this decision and they are overwhelmingly in favour of cork closures in their premium wines.  There is still the perception, albeit unwarranted, that screw caps represent lower quality wine.  One only has to look at the increasing number of high-end wines using screw caps to know this is not the case.  Aside from cost, a second significant drawback to cork is the inevitable problem of “corked” wines caused by the cork taint chemical TCA.  Encouragingly, new technologies and sterilization procedures have gone a long way in reducing the number of “corked” bottles to a manageable level (under 3%).  Higher grade corks generally have fewer nooks and crannies for TCA to hide, so we’ve always spent a bit more money for the added security they bring.  We’ve been lucky with TCA to this point, but I would encourage anyone who ends up with a “corked” bottle to return it in exchange for a new one.

I’ll probably re-visit this closure debate every year around this time so, as always, I reserve the right to change my mind in the future!

On April 6th we’re scheduled to bottle our 2008 reds (Shiraz, Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Noir), 2010 whites and 2009 Cabernet Sauvignon Icewine.  The 2008 Shiraz and 2009 Cab Sauv Icewine are first time entries into our portfolio that I’m very excited to have you try.  I plan to release these wines early in the summer.

Thursday, February 3rd, 2011

I want to take the opportunity to sincerely thank everyone who attended our first Winemaker’s dinner this past Saturday at Treadwell’s.   It was an amazing night of food, wine and merriment.

James was a great host, as always, and his astute pairings worked out perfectly.  He really gave our wines a chance to shine.  In the end, we all agreed that we should do this more often!

Monday, December 20th, 2010

It’s fitting that the first Five Rows Winemaker’s Dinner will take place at Treadwell Farm to Table Cuisine in Port Dalhousie.  James and the Treadwell family have been ardent supporters of our wines since they agreed to showcase our very first release of 2004 Unfiltered Cabernet Sauvignon.   We’ve come a long way since that initial 12 bottle release, but our vision and commitment to small batch craft wine remains the same.

Not a week goes by that we don’t meet someone who was either directly or indirectly introduced to Five Rows through Treadwell’s.  They are a key to our winery’s success and have always been a family favourite place to dine.  In fact, my mother made James promise to include her favourite Mussel dish as an appetizer at the dinner.  I’ve seen a draft of the menu and simply put - it’s tantalizing.  The Treadwell team has chosen four complementary courses to pair with our wines.  I’ll be pouring our 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon, 2007 Pinot Noir, 2009 Sauvignon Blanc and the last of our 2008 Pinot Gris.

I encourage all friends of Five Rows to join us for this undoubtedly memorable dining experience on Saturday, January 29.   You can find ticket information here.  I’m told they are selling fast.