Summer Hours
Along with my parents, I would like to announce that our barn will be open to customers for weekends this summer starting Saturday, May 2nd. One of us will be there to serve you on Saturdays and Sundays from 11am-5pm (or thereabouts) until the end of August. The odd time you may have to come and find us somewhere on the farm, but I assure you we will be more than happy heading back into the cool barn to take you through a tasting of our wines! During the week it is still best to call ahead before you stop by to make sure we are available.
I look forward to your visit!
Virtue is Ever Green
My anticipation always heightens at this time of year. Buds are swelling, sap is running and our “to do” list grows exponentially with each warming day. Year in and year out it’s the same routine, but somehow it never gets old. Needless to say, this seasonal ritual predates us and has been experienced by humans since crops were first domesticated some 10 000 years ago.
Through a bit of research I’ve discovered that the Lowrey family has a couple of interesting mottos adorning its Coat of Arms, perhaps shedding a little light on why we make our living as farmers. Depending on the spelling of “Lowrey” and the associated place of origin, the Coat of Arms features the words “Repullulat” or “Virtus Semper Virdis”.
Repullulat translates to “It buds afresh” – and the connection here is pretty obvious. Virtus Semper Virdis translates to “Virtue is ever green” – which could be interpreted a couple of different ways. I like to think that the earliest Lowrey’s foresaw the importance of growing crops and preserving the essence of land through sustainability.
This continues to be a focus of ours, both through vineyard practices and now in designing our wine operation. It is our goal to give Five Rows more of an authentic feel than other “spare no expense” operations. In other words, don’t expect glitz or polish when you pull into our driveway! We don’t even have a sign yet, but somehow people still manage to find us.
Some sustainable and eco-friendly initiatives we promote are: leaf removal and hedging of vines by hand; close proximity of vineyard to picking and crushing facilities; hand-picking of fruit, minimal wine handling; gravity racking (no pump); hand labeling; small, moveable wine tanks (making barn space more flexible); cold stabilization of wine is done outside using the cold temperatures (versus a climate controlled room); finally, we don’t cater to large tour buses.
I welcome any new ideas that you folks may have to aid in reducing our carbon footprint. This will help to strengthen our farm business and keep things “ever green”.
Experience our wine
A number of you have asked where you can experience our wines. The list of places to taste by the glass is now a little longer as we are pleased to announce the following establishments are selling Five Rows:
The Charles Inn – 2004 Cabernet Sauvignon
Treadwell’s / Snobs Wine Bar – 2007 Pinot Gris by the glass
Jamie Kennedy’s Wine Bar– 2004 Unfiltered Cabernet Sauvignon
Please support these friends of Five Rows and remember to write down your bottle numbers to enter into our bottle registry.
Spring Tastings Begin…
Spring is here, and over the last week I’ve had the pleasure to host a couple of fun and lively tasting sessions. It was a welcome break from pruning to be joined by groups of both wine “lovers” and wine “makers”, respectively, for a tour of our barn and a taste through the Five Rows portfolio. I have to admit that I still get butterflies when pouring our wines for those who have yet to try them, and I don’t think that will change anytime soon.
I like to use these tastings to gauge the general vibe that people are getting from our winery, and based on our first few sessions the feedback has been tremendous. It excites me that our new friends really get what we are trying to do and often express a desire to lend a hand in the vineyard sometime next season. I’m hoping they all realize that I just might have to take them up on that offer!
I’m finding that each tasting takes on its own dynamic, which keeps me on my toes and very engaged. Often times I like to slip in a new barrel blend that I’ve been working on, as this is a great way to get valuable opinions directly from the people that matter…the wine buyers. Despite subjecting my guests to this “guinea pig” treatment, I’ve yet to receive any complaints.
For example, I’m always trying to fine-tune our 2007 Pinot Noir by experimenting with different amounts of 2008 Pinot as part of the blend. As a rule, we are allowed to blend up to 15% of different vintages into a single varietal wine. The potential marriage of these two vintages is very intriguing. The 2007 Pinot abounds with tannin, colour, and bold “new world” flavours, while the 2008 is more reminiscent of a classic Lowrey Pinot; subtle, elegant and classically Burgundian. To date I’ve experimented with 5-10% of the 2008 in the blend, and results have been mixed. Some loved it, some wanted more 2008, and some felt that it is simply too early to evaluate the potential of the 2007 alone. I tend to fall into the latter category, so perhaps I’ll stop bugging the Pinot and let it do it’s thing for a little while longer.
To our friends in Niagara-On-The-Lake: we are pleased to announce that you can now enjoy our 2004 Cabernet Sauvignon at the historic Charles Inn.
Kudos to Creek
Like many other trades, most winemakers get to where they are by learning from colleagues who have “been there and done that” many times before. I am no exception. I’ve been extremely lucky through the years to learn what I know from two of the best in the Ontario wine business.
Rob Power and Craig MacDonald have won so many awards for Creekside Estate Winery that I’m beginning to lose count. They are obviously skilled craftsmen in the cellar, but what I admire most in these two is their genuine nature, patience and teaching ability. In fact, it is no surprise to me when I open the St. Catharines Standard to read that they had captured four more trophies at Cuveé 2009. They’ve managed to surround themselves with an excellent winemaking team, who would think nothing of bogging out the nastiest of red fermenters at their behest. Now that’s loyalty!
Ever since our initial handshake agreement with Owner Peter Jensen in 1999, my parents and I have felt pride supplying grapes to Creekside and watching as Rob and Craig crafted one great wine after another. As original Creekside grape growers, our fortunes have been tied to theirs for ten years now, and we wouldn’t have been able to start our winery without their continuing help.
It is even sweeter to note that their latest wins at Cuveé really demonstrate the potential for the St. David’s Bench Appellation. All four winning wines contained a majority of fruit sourced at vineyards located in St. Davids. The terroir and micro-climate of this small area really helps ripen later varietals like Shiraz, Cabernet Sauvignon and Viognier. These wines tend to be distinctly full-bodied with great structure and ageing potential. Ravine Vineyard and Coyote’s Run are two other exciting wineries that are showcasing the best St. David’s Bench has to offer.
Good on ya, boys!
Five Rows Website Launch
Today marks the next phase in our winery development. We have officially launched our Five Rows website at www.fiverows.com. This will be the hub of our winery operation. From this site you will be able to access my latest blog entries and also get info on all of current and upcoming releases. Excitingly, there is a page specifically designed to keep us connected with all those who have supported us through wine purchases. All customers are encouraged to record their name and bottle number on this page along with an optional comment on the wine or a story behind their connection to Five Rows.
We’ve received many inquiries as to where you can find our wines, so now the website will keep you posted to that end. You will also find a link to our Lowrey Vineyards site, a future showcase for the viticultural side of our operation.
Pondering a Release Date
Now that pruning is in full swing and somewhat under control, I finally have some time to devote to tying up a few loose ends in the winery. One of the challenges of sustaining a vineyard and winery operation of this size (ie. no other employees) is deciding which “hat” to wear on a daily basis. Luckily, my cellar work is fairly minimal at this time of year, with a main focus on protein and cold stabilization in the 2008 whites. I like to use bentonite to obtain protein stability, at a minimal rate, so as not to upset the delicate nature of these aromatic wines. Fining with too much bento can actually have the negative effect of binding and stripping flavour compounds as well as unwanted proteins.
Another important consideration at this time of year is to assess the entire inventory in an attempt to come up with a bottling and release plan for the coming season. Needless to say, this is a daunting task! At the completion of this all-encompassing tasting session, a couple of things became abundantly clear. The first being that the 2008 vintage is a lot more promising than many people touted at the outset, and the second is that our 2007 reds are not quite ready to unleash on the public. These wines are so youthful and intense that further time in barrel is a must in my opinion. From a winery sales perspective this creates a bit of a conundrum. Initially, my intention was to bottle these wines sometime early next summer and have them ready for the fall of 2009, but now I’m leaning towards pushing those dates back. I truly feel that it would be a disservice to these wines to release them prematurely, just to meet budgetary demands.
I’m of the opinion that for Niagara to make the next step on the world stage, we have to make a concerted effort to demonstrate the ageability of our premium wines. The temptation and current trend is to release wines too early, mainly out of cash flow necessity. It is my hope that doing things on a smaller scale will afford us the opportunity to wait for the right time to release, without too much disruption in our business plan. That is the precise reason we decided to make small lots of Cabernet Sauvignon in 2004 and 2005 – to buy time for this kind of scenario.
The good news is that the 2007’s have a chance to be something very special, and lets hope there are enough of them around at the peak of their existence to prove Niagara can age some great wines.
Label Announcement
The labels are in! After signing a final draft approval and some weeks of nervous anticipation, I felt like a kid at Christmas as I ripped open a box to reveal the culmination of nearly a year’s worth of brainstorming, planning and tough decisions. I couldn’t be more proud of the works of art that I found in that box, and all the credit goes to the highly skilled and dedicated team at Insite Design. They took an initial concept and managed to translate it into a beautiful and original label that I truly feel represents my family’s vision for the journey we are about to embark upon. I always felt that the reality of starting this winery wouldn’t hit me until I saw that first bottle with a label on it, and I can now fully attest to that.
Through carefully writing in the required info and applying each label by hand, I feel a neat personal connection to every bottle. Notwithstanding a few crookedly applied labels, I’m thrilled about this prospect and intend to continue doing so as long as I can.
After “borrowing” my parents’ old kitchen table, we now have a space in our barn that is set aside for guest tastings, and I encourage anyone interested to contact us and set up a time. It is my intention to personally conduct all tastings and give our guests a peek into future vintages as well. All those who support us through wine purchases during this initial phase will be rewarded by always getting first choice when it comes to future limited releases.
Available wines include our 2004 Cabernet Sauvignon ($300 per 6-bottle case), 2007 Pinot Gris and 2007 Sauvignon Blanc (both $150 per 6-bottle case). Descriptions of all these wines can be found in previous blog entries.
Longing for the Beauty of Fall
With some extremely cold days bearing down on us later this week, I can’t help but find myself nostalgic for a beautiful fall day. I hearken back to the memorable November day when we wrapped up our 2008 harvest by hand-picking some very ripe Cabernet Sauvignon. The end of harvest is always kind of bittersweet because it represents a time when, thankfully, the stress is gone, but so is the fast-paced, daily excitement and a bond to something you’ve tended with care all season.
I remember that day on many levels. The crisp aromas in the fall air, the wonderfully rich colours filling the escarpment, the small dark clusters of Cabernet, lugging picking baskets onto the wagon knowing that I was going to pay for it the next day, worrying that I might not have enough bin space to accommodate both rows of grapes, then forgetting all my worries listening to a Fleet Foxes song on my iPod….ahh to be back just for a moment! As I rode back to the barn with this last load, I remember thinking that I must be the luckiest guy on earth to be able to do something I love surrounded by nature, family and friends.
The Terroir of St. Davids Bench
The friendly little town of St. David’s was a great place to grow up. Family members lived around every corner, and the public school playground was within walking distance. Grandma Lowrey’s house was always a hub of activity after school, as my cousins and I feasted on cookies and went exploring around the farm until our parents got off work. Little did we know that the dirt we came home covered in would one day be heralded for “uniquely expressing regional wine character”.
“Terroir”, the French word for “soil”, means many things to many people, and has evolved into an all-encompassing term. I like to think of it as the combination of environmental, biochemical and geological factors that influence both the fruit of a growing grapevine and the resultant wine. It’s the “je ne sais quoi” behind many of the world’s greatest wines. That part of the wine that is seemingly out of our control and expressed in its unique taste, aroma and texture. The cool thing is that single varietal wines crafted from the same vineyard terroir tend to produce similar characteristics year after year.
We are located in the VQA Ontario “St. David’s Bench” Appellation. I’m not sure whether my Great, Great Grandfather was aware of all the potential “vinifera-growing” benefits of this site when settling here, but he did have a keen intuition for which fruit crops to plant back in his day. I’ll spare you the geology lesson, but the Bench and Niagara Escarpment combine to provide excellent air circulation, drainage, and groundwater supply. The ancient shores of glacial Lake Iroquois have left our vineyard with soils that range from sandy loam to clay loam and hard clay. Limestone deposits are also abundant, helping to add to the overall mineral complexity.
Looking back at some newspaper clippings of wines made from our Pinot Noir over the years, I was amazed to see the similarities in flavour descriptors used by the reviewers. In 1993, the Inniskillin Alliance Pinot Noir was described as having flavours of “candied cherry, raspberry, anise, earth, pepper, vanilla and firm tannin”. The 1999 Creekside Pinot showed “raspberry, violets and a touch of pepper” and the 2001 Creekside Pinot featured “cherry, beet root and smoky notes”. Our 2007 Pinot Noir is in its infancy right now, but the preceding characteristics could aptly describe this wine as well. I take no credit for this…chalk it up to the terroir.
Our First Review! : Check out the “Last Drop” column of the Jan/Feb edition of Vines Magazine (seen above) for a review of our 2004 Cabernet Sauvignon.