called to the castle -- part two

Continued notes on the Le Clos Jordanne Pinot Noirs at the LCBO -- please see the first part of this posting below:

Ranging from $25 a bottle to $60 (which, again, I don’t manage to taste, though the bottle smells mighty fine), these new Canadian wines are a serious commitment for the average wine fancier. They are also seriously good wines, so viewed as an investment – one of those investments that will eventually turn to pee if used properly, keep in mind – you can’t lose.

The Village Reserve Pinot is the low end at $25. One of the other tasters in the room has a very convincing theory that this is the best buy simply because at the lowest price it is not significantly worse than the rest of the wines -- therefore bang for your buck, and all that. I agree, except that I like one of the $35 bottles (the Le Clos Jordan Vineyard Pinot) quite a bit better, and on a bottle for bottle (as opposed to case for case, at which point my colleague is way right) basis, I might choose to shell out the extra ten clams for what I would consider the more satisfying taste experience.

The Village Reserve is very pale but with a full earthy nose and good long structure. I think the key to all these wines is that they won’t tell you everything about themselves right off the top. You’ll pretty much need the entire glass (bottle?) to get to the bottom of the flavour profile, but if you like it you’ll know right away. I liked it.

My preference for the Clos Jordanne Vineyard is based on expression, more than on any particular fruit or flavour characteristic. There’s a bit more heat here; you breathe in slightly more alcohol off the top, I think, and it follows through with a dustier, firmer finish. All of these wines expertly blend earth and fruit, but this one is probably the earthier, or dirtier I’d say, with some mushroomy stuff near the end. It’s this dirtiness I’m attracted too, I think. If I’m going anywhere north of $15 for a wine, I want to feel like there’s more than just fruit juice in my glass.

This is also the reason I prefer the Clos Jordanne Vineyard to the Petite Vineyard Pinot (the 2nd of the $35 bottles). The Petite Vineyard is fruitier and less earthy, though it does have an attractive pepperiness up front. Same length, same fine dusty finish.

The final $35 bottle from Le Clos Jordanne, the Claystone Terrace Pinot distinguishes herself from her sisters with a subtle whiff of strawberries just under that first hit of forest floor. Really intriguing.

There are three Chardonnays on offer from this new winery as well (they make four, but the $35 Claystone Terrace Chardonnay was missing from the tasting). As with the reds, you’re not going to go wrong with any of these, and they range from a pricey-yet-worth-it $25 to an even-pricier-and-more-worth-it $55. The word that keeps hitting me with all of these wines is subtle. There’s a lot going on in the glass, yet it's not at all busy or confused. The Le Grand Clos Chardonnay ($55) has honey on the nose, but then is dry and balanced and moves your mouth through soft, shifting fruits to a refreshing finish.

Le Clos Jordanne is more a story than a wine right now. Everyone is waiting to see how they will market, how they will sell and what the wine world will have to say about Canada’s Burgundies. The general mood in the small white room at the LCBO suggests these first wines won’t be around long after they launch, so get yourself a taste of them any way you can.

called to the castle

(image by John Degen)

I’m at the Liquor Control Board of Ontario’s head office to get an advance taste of Le Clos Jordanne Pinot Noirs and Chardonnay. Le Clos Jordanne is a Niagara cooperative effort between Canadian firm Vincor and the Burgundy house Boisset, and they are getting set to release their 2004s, the first commercial release of wines from this experiment in true Burgundy-style wine making in Canada. The release is in March.

A frigid, windblown walk from the streetcar brings me to the LCBO’s industrial gothic pile by the lake, and after signing in (twice), I’m escorted to a tasting room by Vintages catalogue writer David Churchill, an easy-going, inviting guy whose ‘office job’ is to taste and assess some of the world’s best wines and liquors. He seems happy.

The third floor of the LCBO head office is as bureaucratic and corporate an atmosphere as you’ll find in bureaucratic and corporate Toronto. After all, the LCBO is the world’s largest wholesale purchaser of alcohol – a huge, multi-billion dollar business, with all that entails. Security guards, glass doors, quiet corridors, warren rows of office cubicles with the occasional cluster of low-talking co-workers huddled together for human comfort. I remember my corporate writing days at Sun Life Financial. I try to memorize the way out, but quickly lose my way.

David leads me through a white door into a starkly lit small white room that smells like the plastic bucket I’ve been making homekit wine in for the last few years. Sour and airless. Everything is white or silver. There are several sinks and plenty of instructive posters on the wall. It’s high school science class all over again, only with booze. There’s a few other tasters there already, kibitzing and laughing, their noses never far from a glass. Stainless steel spit canisters stand at the ready. The walls are lined with racks of wine glasses, and the white counter tops contain the latest LCBO releases, all opened and ready. Outside the windows, traffic races by on the Gardiner and the downtown canyons smoke in frigid air.

(image by John Degen)

I feel like a rent-a-goalie in the change room before a game. No one knows me; no one knows what I do or how well (or poorly) I do it. Worse yet, it’s clear to me I’m the only non-expert in the room. And yet, there are all those open bottles and a wall full of empty glasses. What else is there to do? I grab a relatively empty spit canister and work my way through the seven available Le Clos Jordanne bottles. There’s actually eight in the room but one, the $60 Grand Clos Pinot Noir, is empty. I’ve arrived at the tail end of a tasting, and it’s clear which bottle received the most concentrated attention. Lesson learned.

To be continued…

memories of the tar pot

In my late teens, early twenties, I worked summers as an all-purpose roadman in York Region, Ontario. I controlled traffic for road repair crews, installed new road signs, mowed ditch grass, collected trash (and a small fortune in beer bottles), buried dead animals (many, many dead animals), and just generally got a deep arm and neck tan. One of the hardest jobs as roadman was working the tar pot -- crack sealing duty. Stand in 30C afternoon heat beside a boiling cauldron of black road tar sometime and see how long you last. Think what you will about road construction crews and their five-person hole-digging; the tar pot crew earns its pay.

Yet, despite the backbreaking hours carrying the tar pots, and the probable lung damage (working the tar is like smoking two packs a day), I can't pass a roof repair crew or a roadside tar pot without stopping to take a deep and satisfying inhale. There is nothing like the smell of hot tar. Reminds me of my lost youth.

All of that is to say that, clearly, taste and aroma appreciation is a personal thing. James Joyce writes about "feety" cheese. Mmmmmm, feet.

I was thinking of all that after writing my Riesling appreciation yesterday. Kim says 'mop 'n glo', I say 'evergreen.' Then this morning, looking through an old Frugal Oenophile newsletter, I find Richard Best's thoughts on Riesling. A "queen with many moods" he calls this magnificent grape, and then describes its wine like so:

A versatile and good value wine, Riesling can age for up to 30 years, although it is good from 2 years on. Light to medium bodied, it is rarely oaked. The flavour is crisp and clean with fruity, flowery aromas showing apple, honey, lime, peaches, and sometimes slate. Perhaps Riesling's most cherished quality is its propensity to smell like petrol, coal oil or paraffin, especially in well-aged examples.

Coal oil? How does one's nose turn an abrasive smell like coal oil into something as delightful and refreshing as pine?

Why do I stop and sniff boiling tar?