Wine Club Bonus Tasting – Late Harvest Wines

We finished our 4th session of Wine Club last month but had a $300 surplus so we are using that money to do a couple of bonus tastings. The format of Wine Club is as follows, each member agrees to sign on for a 6 month session at $25 at month. We meet once month and I buy a case of wine and usually one comparison bottle for the monthly meeting. There 11 of us so everyone gets a take home bottle from the case and we split the 12th bottle and try it and the comparison bottle at the monthly tasting. The wines usually range in price from $13-25 a bottle.

The bonus tastings are a slightly different format as there is no take home bottle. The advantage to this is we can look at some higher price point wines. Next month we are trying 3 bottles of Pinot Noir and have $200 to spend on them.

This month we did a bonus tasting on Late Harvest Wines. I not a huge fan of Canadian wines but one of the items Canada and the Niagara region do very well is dessert or ice wines. Generally I find Ice Wines too sweet and syrupy for my taste but really enjoy their less sweet and much less expensive cousins – Late Harvest wines. Usually I go with a Late Harvest Vidal or Riesling as my grape of choice for these wines but Adam picked up a Late Harvest Cabernet Franc/Cabernet Sauvignon blend and a Late Harvest Pinot Gris for the tasting. Erik’s wife works at Fielding and he was nice enough to bring in some Late Harvest Gewürztraminer for us to try as well.

Here is a detailed listing of all the wines we tried –

Angels Gate Winery – 2007 Snow Angel Late Harvest Cabernet (51% Cab.Franc/49% Cab. Sauvignon), 750 mL bottle, $23.95.

Creekside Estate Winery – 2007 Select Late Harvest Pinot Gris, 375mL bottle, $23.95

Fielding Estate Winery – 2006 Gewürztraminer Late Harvest, 375mL, $28.95

Tracey brought in apple crisp to go with the wines.

The Angels Gate Snow Angel had the mildest nose of the three with aromas of strawberry and canned fruit. The strawberry nose carried through to the taste as well. This wine was at a bit of a disadvantage to the other two as it wasn’t as sweet and therefore didn’t pair as nicely as the other two did. On the upside, this wine was half or less than half the price of the other two wines and for that price point this wine was really good value for money.

The Creekside Pinot Gris has an moderately aromatic nose with a pleasing combination of nectarine and white pepper. Where this wine shined was the taste and the pairing with the apple crisp. The lively acidity balanced the sweetness of the wine just beautifully with a lovely flavour of apricot throughout. It was a perfect pairing with the apple crisp.

The Fielding Gewürztraminer had an absolutely incredible nose, big, powerful notes of apricot, lychee, clove, honey and some subtle floral notes in the background. The taste and structure of the wine wasn’t as nice as the Pinot Gris and I found that grapefruit seemed to be the dominate flavour to the wine. The grapefruit and apple combination of the wine and the apple crisp was ok but not amazing.

I’d like to thank Adam, Erik, and Tracey for their help in making this a great tasting and I’m already looking forward to next month’s tasting.

Cheers!

Mark