There's truth in blind tastings of vino
"It's great to have personal interest in the vines.
Along with other Ontario wine enthusiasts, I've got a vine named after me in Wally's Folly vineyard, near the Buckhorn Community Centre just north of Peterborough. I'm a Pinot Noir vine, in Row 6 of Mosquito Creek Vineyard (a vineyard also named after Wally Henry, who owns the land).
Wally, with LCBO consultants Hugh Johnstone and Larry Paterson, plus four other amateur wine-making prize winners, started planting vines in Peterborough in 1993. They followed with more plantings in Buckhorn, where climatic conditions are even tougher for the vines.
Advice and help in obtaining cuttings came from people like Jim Warren of Stoney Ridge, near Hamilton, and Salvatore d'Angelo, from Amherstburg on the north shore of Lake Erie.
The seven Peterborough partners succeeded in producing vines and wines from locally grown vinifera grapes. Their efforts have advanced local interest in wines, and they enjoy themselves by doing it.
And they discovered you can't drink too much when burying the vines for winter, no matter how cold it gets. Without special attention in the fall, a carelessly buried vine will get killed over the winter.
I'm proud to say my Pinot Noir namesake not only survived the winter but it's now "pregnant" with offspring, according to the partnership.
Few people are better at promoting wine enthusiasm than Peterborough's Larry Paterson, one of the vine-growing partners. Larry was instrumental in staging the first area wine show at Lakefield several years ago, and was severely rapped on the knuckles by his employers, the LCBO, for his efforts.
Kawartha Wine Society members grow vines, make wine, run wine shows, and conduct some of the most comprehensive blind tastings anywhere in the country.
Larry recently sent me a lengthy list of winners and losers at Kawartha Wine Society blind tastings, and some of the results are amazing.
For example, in a recent tasting of Chardonnay wines, a group of 18 tasters found that Cave Spring's 1993 Reserve, $21.95 a bottle, scored a favourable 87.61-per-cent rating, just ahead of a 1993 Chardonnay from Ontario grapes made by amateurs Tino Montopoli and Terry McCall for $2.85 a bottle.
Next down the list were the 1992 Chardonnays from Inniskillin (Klose Vineyard) and Stoney Ridge Butlers's Grant, $17.40 and $17.95 respectively. Then, in fifth place came the 1990 Batard Montrachet, Ramonet, selling for $180 a bottle, followed by 1993 Puligny-Montrachet, Verget, $68, which scored 83.28 per cent.
The same pattern emerged when 25 tasters gathered in a recent red wine tasting.
Jim Warren's Stoney Ridge Cellars took all three top places with the 1993 Lenko Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve, $13.95 a bottle and a score of 86.92 per cent, the 1991 Stoney Ridge Cabernet Franc, $15 and 86.84 per cent, and the 1991 Stoney Ridge Meritage Cabernet Sauvignon, $17.95 and 86.08 per cent. (Ed note: see results of this tasting
The next five finishers were Dunn's 1985 Cabernet Sauvignon from California, $80 a bottle; 1988 Chateau Beaucastel Chateauneuf-du-Pape, $63; Chateau Margaux 1983, $250 a bottle; and Pio Cesare 1989 Barolo, $50.
Pelee Island, Konzelmann, Cave Spring, Hernder Estates, Reif, and Chateau des Charmes also outpointed their German competition in a series of tastings that compared Ontario white wines with their German counterparts. In a few cases, the German products won.
There's nothing like a blind tasting to demonstrate true value in a wine, and that's a message the Kawartha Wine Society is driving home. Larry Paterson makes sure the word gets out.
Larry is still promoting a local wine show, though behind the scenes. This year, on July 25, there will be a wine show at the Buckhorn Community Centre. Already more than 20 wineries have signed up to be at the show, which promises to be an excellent Kawartha cottage-country event.
For $8 at the door, visitors will get a tasting glass and two sample tickets worth $1. Wine and food samples inside will be sold at close to cost. The show is offering free booth space to exhibitors of wine or food, and will rebate to exhibitors 70 percent of the value of tickets collected. More about the Buckhorn show closer to July 25... snip...