I didn't start drinking wine until about 1990, about a year after I founded the first VQA Ontario wine section anywhere, while working as a grunt for the LCBO at Store # 261 in Lakefield, Ontario. I have also never been afflicted by the typical Canadian feeling of inferiority about Canadian products. In conjunction with Hugh Johnstone, who was the head wine consultant (and much else) for the LCBO for a significant period of time, I instituted a series of blind tastings which pitted good Ontario wines against good French wines.

Unaffected by the normal Canadian feeling of being somehow second-best, and not trained to think of Bordeaux as the apex of wine, I quickly came to the conclusion that Canadian Cabernet Merlot blends tasted incredibly like the much-touted Bordeaux. We quickly came to focus on Classed Growth Bordeaux (1855) as the class of wines to compare to the Ontario efforts. To this day I don't believe that the winemakers of Ontario quite realize what they have created, and in fact some of these people have put significant quantities of Bordeaux in their personal cellars rather than purchasing from their domestic "competitors". In my opinion, the comparison of Oregon to Burgundy concerning Pinot Noir based wines will come to be recognized with Ontario (esp Niagara) to Bordeaux. Yet Canadian baby-boomers may never quite come to accept this. I think we need to somehow have an annual "release" of an assortment of Canadian Bordeaux Red Blends, including those from British Columbia (unavailable to this tasting). I don't KNOW but suspect that the best BC wines would fit quite readily into this group.

There is a common attitude in Canada that anyone with wine knowledge should be able to tell a great French Bordeaux from the supposedly-inferior domestics at a distance of twenty paces. Everyone who considers themselves to have wine knowledge entering one of these tastings is very confident that they will be easily able to distinguish the wines. Yet every time I am involved in one of these tastings I see experts in a state of shock after the tasting. Figuratively speaking, anyone entering one of these tastings with an attitude leaves with an ulcer...

This tasting involved eight members of The Wine Writers Circle of Canada, twenty members of The Wine Judges of Canada, three other journalists, eight people from Ontario Wineries, nine people (professors and students) with The Cool Climate Oenological and Viticultural Institute and three other recognized tasters. In conversation with many of these people in advance of this event I was given the impression that distinguishing the wines would be fairly easy.

To call this into question, I made available a prize of a ($50 plus) 200 ml bottle of 2001 Geisenheim Vendages Tardive from Chapelle Ste Agnes at Sutton, Quebec (in my opinion Canada's most beautiful wine spot of any kind). This was to be donated by me to the first person correctly identifying all four of the classed growth Bordeaux. Considering that four of the sixteen wines were Bordeaux, a random guess of any four of the numbers should be expected to produce one correct answer. In fact, 35 of the 51 people did file guesses with Wine Writers Circle of Canada administrator Sadie Darby. Of the 35 who did guess (on paper, with time, name and numbers recorded by Sadie), 5 had zero correct, 23 had 1 correct, 7 managed to guess two. Yes this means that nobody got them all, and nobody even managed three out of four!!! (I ended up donating the bottle of wine to Dr. Isabelle Lesschaeve, the new Director of CCOVI, who said it will be used for CCOVI purposes)...

While waiting for the crew of the Wine Stewards Commission of Ontario to calculate and print the results, we did some tastings of wines made with and without various winemaking additives. It was generally felt that AR 2000 enzyme shows increased aromatics, the OptiRed does soften mouthfeel, that Tanin Plus does round off, "sweeten", spice up / "chocolatize" and strongly flavour a wine. The real favourites with many people however were the two wines that I'd made with and without chocolate flavouring. The raspberry and cranberry chocolate wines were a hit with many - look for versions from small fruit wineries in the near future!

We did the normal striptease of unveiling the wines from the lowest scoring to the highest, and to nobody's surprise my homemade version containing two-thirds Landot Noir 4511 (a forgotten French hybrid) came second-lowest. I'm very happy that despite my prodding, it was not identified as a "lowly hybrid" even though it scored low. I must point out that the range from top to bottom was quite narrow, with just over 8 points between top and bottom. There were no "losers" this day. A bad wine would certainly have been reamed in this room.

The first 4 wines unveiled (that is, the lowest four scores), including mine, were domestic. I think that the room was now expecting the Bordeaux to assume their proper spot at the top of the tasting. Surprise ensued when the next two wines unveiled were both Bordeaux. Two more domestic wines filled in the bottom half of the tasting.

We made a point of reviewing the remaining wines at this point. There was certainly an air of surprise that two of the four Bordeaux had finished 11th and 12th out of 16 wines, and when the next wine unveiled (8th place) was Canadian, there was a feeling that somehow order was being partially restored. When 7th place was a Bordeaux, we paused and again reviewed the remaining six wines, which were one Bordeaux (1999 Branaire Ducru), Cave Spring, Colio, Henry of Pelham, Stoney Ridge and Thirty Bench. Many seemed surprised that Colio was in the running, and I made a point of stating that there were some very good wines coming from Southwest Ontario.

Upon opening the 6th place envelope I mentioned that it would be "horrible" if Canadian wines were to take the top 5 places. Billy Munnelly unfolded the piece of paper and announced that Canadian wines had taken the top 5 places. The room went dead silent...

Sorting the order of finish after this point was almost an anticlimax. Many were in a mild state of shock at this result. In fact, Colio's assistant winemaker Tim Reilly was asked to open the second last envelope, and when he read out Thirty Bench as finishing second he was really announcing to the room that Colio in Southwestern Ontario (with Pelee Island the warmest growing region in Canada) had won this tasting. Poor Tim had been teased by me in front of this group, with me saying that if they didn't do well he'd likely be fired... he took all this very well.

The obvious question is "What does this prove?". The simple answer is that on this day with this group of tasters the result was as seen. The more complete answer, taking the entire series of results as compiled over the years is that good cab merlot from a cool climate cannot really be distinguished from good cab merlot produced in another cool climate, or at least not easily, and certainly not by the vast majority of tasters. Even highly trained professional tasters will have difficulty with this comparison. The real story is that Canadians once again don't know what they are missing with their own best products. Canadians tend to purchase vast quantities of wines produced in other countries that would be difficult if not impossible to locate in a retail store in the countries that send them to the LCBO. As Canadians, we tend to hold the view that a "Great Canadian" is a person who has become famous and moved out of Canada in search of US dollars. At the same time we look down on our own, and have succeeded only in sending our children's jobs overseas at the same time as we have raised our own taxes and made ourselves somewhat foolish in the eyes of the rest of the world.

The opinions expressed above are my own, and certainly do not reflect any of the other individuals or groups taking part in this event.
If you wish to comment on this article, or the tasting, please feel free to email me at littlefatwino@trytel.net

Larry Paterson, February 28, 2005...

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