Canada vs. The World: Wine Summary
Happy Canada Day!
As Canadians, we’re now six months into the “Buy Canadian” campaign. Some provincial liquor stores have re-stocked (or never stopped selling) American wines and spirits, and you can sometimes get them at private bottle shops or importers/distributors. But here in Ontario, the LCBO is still not stocking any. Personally, that hasn’t been much of a hardship because I didn’t buy much California wine to begin with, usually preferring French, Italian, Spanish, or Australian wines.
The best thing (from my perspective) of this policy is how many different Canadian wines I’ve tried that I might not otherwise have given a chance. At the beginning of the year I set out to highlight some Canadian wines, comparing them to wines from other regions in a grape-by-grape format. Sadly, there are a few grapes I wasn’t able to compare because we just don’t grow them here (or they’re not available to purchase here in Ontario): Tempranillo, Grenache, Albariño, Sangiovese, Nebbiolo, Malbec, Grüner-Veltliner, and Zinfandel, to name a few popular ones.
For this Canada Day edition, I’m going to share two new Canadian wines I tasted, and at the end, give you a summary of the past wines I reviewed.
This Week’s Wines
The other fun thing (to me!) I’ve been doing is sharing my reviews on Instagram. In case you haven’t seen those, I’ll repost them below (thanks to Carolyn for suggesting I do these videos weekly.) On the weekend, I recorded the following video to review this week’s wines and when I tried to upload it to Instagram it said it wasn’t able to do it, likely because it exceeded their 2-minute limit (it’s only 3:27 long.) So, here you get the full-length version!
Trius 2024 Sauvignon Blanc, VQA Niagara Peninsula, 12.7% ABV, $17.95
Lovers of Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand are going to really enjoy this wine. It’s got all those lovely tropical fruits and grassy notes that we love about NZSB. As mentioned in the video, this wine spent time “on its lees.” What does that mean? Well, the lees are the spent yeast that sink to the bottom of the fermenting vessel after they’ve consumed all the sugar and turned it into alcohol (and CO2.) When the wine is left to sit “on its lees,” it develops some additional “dairy-like” characteristics, similar to cream or yogurt, which adds to the complexity of the wine.
[Side note: I usually try my whites at a variety of temperatures: straight from the fridge, about 10-15 minutes out of the fridge, and even at (cool-ish) room temperature. That way, I can notice how the aromas and flavours change, and see which I prefer. In this case, this wine tastes great right out of the fridge, or even a few minutes after. Once it had warmed up, I didn’t like it as much.]
Peninsula Ridge, 2020 Red Tail’s Landing, Reserve Cabernet Syrah, VQA Niagara Peninsula, 14% ABV, $19.95
Wow, this one really impressed me! Cab/Shiraz blends are quite popular in Australia, and this Cabernet-Syrah blend reminds me of those, but with more of a medium+ body. That said, just like its Aussie counterparts, it still packs a punch at 14% alcohol. It has all the lovely black/dark fruits (plums, black currants) aromas of Cabernet Sauvignon, and those black pepper notes that are typical in Syrah/Shiraz. At $19.95, this is a great value wine.
Both Trius and Peninsula Ridge have a wide selection of wines at a variety of price points. In fact, one of the first Ontario red wines I tried and enjoyed (many years ago) was the Trius Red blend.
Canada vs. The World: A Grape-by-Grape Summary
Here’s a list and links to the posts I wrote about different grape varieties:
Whites
Riesling (Liebling Wines, St. David’s Bench, Niagara, ON, and Domaine St-Jacques, QC)
Chardonnay (Stonebridge Chardonnay, Niagara-on-the-Lake, ON)
Sparkling Wine (Henry of Pelham, Cuvée Catharine, Short Hills Bench, Niagara, ON)
Reds
Cabernet Franc (Domaine Queylus, Niagara Peninsula, ON)
Syrah/Shiraz (Creekside Estate Winery, Niagara, ON)
Pinot Noir (Westcott Vineyards, Niagara Escarpment, ON)
I don’t think I’ve done a post reviewing a single-varietal Cabernet Sauvignon and comparing it to another wine region. I guess I’ll have to try that in an upcoming post. That said (and as mentioned above) I did do some video reviews of other Canadian wines, but those were only posted to Instagram (and they weren’t comparisons.) Here are the links:
Two Sisters 2018 Eleventh Post Red blend
Rose Hall Run 2024 Unoaked Chardonnay and Twenty Bees 2020 Queen Bee Meritage
Lighthall Vineyard 2020 Chardonnay “Béton” and Morandin Vineyard 2020 Cabernet Sauvignon
Cave Spring Estate Riesling and Kacaba Cabernet (note: I mispronounce Kacaba, which is actually pronounced with a soft C, like '“ka-SAW-ba”)
Nayarai Cabernet Blend (this video also highlights some non-Canadian alternatives to California Cabs)
Other Provinces
Sadly, unless we order directly from the winery, we’re rather limited here in Ontario if only relying on the LCBO for our wine purchases. Fingers crossed that when inter-provincial trade barriers are lifted (as promised) that will open the door for us to access wines from BC, Nova Scotia, and Québec. Cousin Jano and I are going to a Canadian Wine event on July 12 and there will be wineries from across the country (even Manitoba is representing!) so I’ll have a lot more to report after that.
Do you have a favourite Canadian wine or Winery? Let me know in the comments.