Compare and Contrast: Erin’s Thoughts on the Surprising Similarities Between Ontario and Italian Wines

One of the questions I’m asked the most is what is my favourite wine – and what is my favourite wine region? Far be it for me to pick just one – I don’t like the kind of commitment it requires to stay loyal day in and day out – in wines or otherwise – so I usually veer away from limiting favourites. However, those who know me, know Italy and Ontario both get my vinous motor running.

So, when I got the invitation to attend a day long joint tasting between VinItaly and Wine Country Ontario, led by Italian wine expert Ian D’Agata, my rsvp was promptly to the affirmative.

Ian, who was born here in Toronto before his family moved to Rome when he was 3, and then eventually returned to learn French and English, is an enthusiastic fan of Ontario wines. “You are sitting on a gold mine,” he told the crowd of 30 or so sommeliers, wine writers and industry insiders.

“I love Canadian wine. I love Ontario wine in particular…. I think Ontario is siting on a treasure chest and has this possibility for great success.”

Not surprisingly, the bulk of the Italian wines pitted against cool-climate Ontario came from the cooler, northern regions of Alto Adige (a mountainous area in the central-north of Italy that once belonged to Austria and still has deep Germanic ties), Friuli-Venezia Giulia (a relatively small area directly to the east of Alto Adige that borders Austria and Slovenia), and Piedmont (a sort of Alpine splatter of land in the northwest of Italy which borders France to the west and Switzerland to the north, and is the home of revered Nebbiolo, the red grape of Barolo and Barbaresco).

Now, I know what you’re thinking, because I was thinking it too: a comparison between Ontario and Italian wines? Even if it is the cooler regions of Italy, isn’t that a bit of a stretch? Well, as it turns out, no.

Out of the 40-something wines tried, the sweeping majority were difficult to definitively say which wine came from where. In fact, for most of the five-hour tasting, the group of trained palates and educated winos were divided – with solid arguments as to why – on the land of origin for the mystery wines.

For me, as you will read below, wines I considered standouts were a roughly even split from both camps. And while this was not so much a competition as it was a friendly comparison for interests’ sake, the blind tasting was a great opportunity to taste without bias and trust in your own palate. Here is what I took away from the day.

Flight 1 – Riesling and Other Aromatic Whites

“Alto Adige makes world class Kerner, Riesling, and Müller Thurgau.” Ian D’Agata

Kicking off the day was the largest flight of the day. Aromatic whites generally known for their crisp acidity, fruit and floral flavours and food friendliness. In addition to Riesling and Gewürtztraminer from both sides of the pond, we also tried Italian Kerner and Weissburgunder, not often found here.

Standouts:

Cave Spring “CSV” Riesling 2012
VQA Beamsville Bench, Niagara Peninsula
No surprise that iconic Ontario Riesling producer Cave Spring caught my attention. Ian told the crowd that in the last three years he’s participated in two international Riesling tastings, with samples coming from Alsace, Italy, Germany and elsewhere. “CSV won once, and came in second the next time.”
Focused and fresh with distinctive notes of white grapefruit, peppermint and lime aromas, the palate shows fabulous precision and focus with elevated, yet balanced acidity and fresh flavours of white peach, citrus-lime, and a subtle mineral note.

Malivoire Gewürtztraminer 2010
VQA Niagara Escarpment
Gewürtz isn’t a typical go-to wine for me, but something about this voluptuous, rich white made me take a second look.
“An Ontario winery can’t bank its future on Gewürtz, but I’d be sad to see it ripped up,” admitted Ian, after a quick poll of the room showed that only one sommelier in the room who was in charge of a restaurant wine list was pouring the heady, distinctive wine by the glass.
Thick aromas of orange oil, roast nuts, caramel and some faint match stick fill the glass while the off-dry palate is rich and weighty with creamy mouthfeel and flavours of honey, beeswax, orange peel, smoke and a curious Nyquil note.

GD Vajra Riesling 2013
Barolo, Piedmont
Barolo – did you see that? Barolo! Normally one would associate the heavily tannic red wine, or maybe even the beeswaxy Arneis if thinking about white, but to try a Riesling from the area was a real treat. “If we had done this tasting four or five years ago, I would have had a tough time finding four or five Rieslings,” Ian said. “[Now] Piedmont, the land of Barolo and Nebbiolo has at least four of five good Rieslings.”
Heavily aromatic with peach pie filling and peach fruit roll-up, red apple, cinnamon and vanilla and white floral notes, the wine is clean, bright and almost spritzy on the palate with citrus and stone fruit flavours. Lovely weight and tangy finish.

Flight 2: Pinot Grigio and Pinot Gris

“Last year, Italy sold more Pinot Grigio to America than it even made.” Ian D’Agata

Ah, the great Grigio debate. It’s a wine sommeliers love to hate …  but arguably the most popular white wine with consumers (sales have exploded more than 900% in the last decade in this province). Now to keep up (and cash in) on that demand, Italian producers are looking for ways to fill the void … and that means topping up PG bottles with a little – or a lot – of Trebbiano, says Ian, a reasonable facsimile for Pinot Grigio, and one that does in a pinch with unsuspecting wine drinkers.

Pinot Grigio (and its occasional stand-in, Trebbiano) is naturally neutral with maybe some stone fruit and minerality if you care to look long enough (but why bother? Just gulp the darn thing – preferably on a warm day while munching on olives or fritto misto). There are plenty of good Pinot Grigio’s on the market – just not this market says Ian, who lamented he could only find lacklustre bottles of insipid quality. Hence wine professionals’ frustration with the little white grape that could.

Grigio’s slicker, fatter twin, Gris (the same grape but native to Alsace and crafted in far more voluptuous nature of ripe peach and oily mouthfeel) does garner more industry respect for its serious nature.

Standouts:

Inniskillin Niagara Reserve Pinot Gris 2013
$19.95 VQA Niagara Peninsula
This wine was easily a Top 3 standout for me from the entire day-long tasting. A beguiling nose of rich peach and apricot, honey and floral notes, the palate echoes the nose and offers a nice backbone of acidity to sharpen the rich and plump flavours.

Lis Neris “Gris” Pinot Grigio 2012
$30 Friuli, Italy
Weighing in at a hefty $30 – quite the whopping price tag for Grigio, especially when consumers seem to be reasonably content with bottles less than half that price. But, it is a head turner, especially when cast against a sea of neutral, inoffensive, and fairly uninspiring examples. Unfortunately it’s not available in this market, keep an eye out if you are travelling around as it’s worth a sip or two. Focused and poised with subtle aromas of raw nuts, flint, mineral and vague citrus notes, the palate is fresh and clean with targeted minerality that begs for fresh oysters.

Kofererhof Weingut Pinot Grigio
Alto Adige, Italy
Forgive me, I didn’t write down the vintage or get an individual shot of the bottle, but while I thought this straddled the Grigio and Gris camps nicely. On one hand the bright acid, subtle stone fruit and mineral notes give a nod to Grigio, while the oily mouth feel, beeswax and caramel notes sway more to Gris. Gris or Grigio, potato or po-tah-toe, this was a pleasure to drink – too bad it can’t be found in this market.

Flight 3: Mixed whites

“You’ll never see an Italian drinking Italian Chardonnay.” Ian D’Agata

Ian says Italians are brilliant at producing world class whites like Pinot Bianco, Kerner and Müller-Thurgau, but Chardonnay is not one of them. This catch-all flight incorporated everything from Chardonnay to Marsanne, Garganega to Sémillon. An opportunity for us to try interesting developments from Ontario and classic varietals from Italy, that don’t really have an equal comparison in the other land.

Standouts:

Tommasi “Le Volpare” Soave 2013
Soave, Italy
Admittedly, many top-notch palates at the tasting were not overly blown away by this inoffensive quaffer, but I found it perfectly lovely. Cheap and cheerful and just what the doctor called for for afternoon sipping, this white made from the garganega grape is neutral and fresh. Stone fruit and mineral notes can be found if you search them out, but otherwise this is just a very pleasant sipper to kick start a dinner party or quench a thirst while reading a good book. And sometimes that’s all you need.

Stratus Sémillon 2011
$32 VQA Niagara on the Lake
Unbelievable how this stands out in a crowd. Not only does Stratus have a certain style that makes it so identifiable, but Sémillon’s profile is fairly exacting, also. Rich notes of beeswax, creamed honey, orange oil and vanilla on the nose that follow through to the palate, this is a luxurious and elegant wine to pair with baked ham, hard cheese or roast turkey.

KEW Vineyards Marsanne 2013
$19.95 VQA Beamsville Bench, Niagara Peninsula
Now this was neat. I have no idea why KEW decided it was a good idea to plant and make Marsanne – a weighty white grape with good structure from the Rhône – and at this point I can’t really see Marsanne being a calling card for Niagara, but it is fun to see experimentation with grapes beyond our beloved Riesling and Chardonnay. And the results are good in my opinion: a nose of peach jam on warm toast, orange peel and baking spice, the palate is rich and oily with passion fruit, mango and caramel flavours.

Hillebrand Showcase “Clean Slate” Wild Ferment Sauvignon Blanc 2012
$32.20 VQA Niagara on the Lake
Wild ferment is an interesting concept in wine making – it can be challenging and even downright scary as there’s a good amount of letting nature take its course when it comes to relying on the naturally occurring yeasts that settle on the grapes, to encourage and form the character of the wine. But to the victor go the spoils and this is a lovely example of when things go really, really right. Aromas of grilled peach, white flowers and ripe pear on the nose with fresh stone fruit flavours of peach and white cherry. The oak treatment and sur lie aging give a lovely rich mouthfeel balanced by bright acidity.

Fight 4: Light reds

“Wine is all about pleasure when all is said and done.” Ian D’Agata

A favourite flight for me with some undiscovered gems that opened my eyes to new finds here at home … or maybe warrant booking a trip to Italy.

Marchesi di Frescobaldi “Castello di Pomino” Pinot Nero 2011
Rufina, Tuscany, Italy
I don’t really taste Pinot Noirs from Italy all that often. Maybe it’s because of lack of availability or maybe it’s because I don’t think about searching them out. But I loved this wine. Thoughtful, graceful and complex with fresh raspberry, baking spice, red magic marker and subtle balsamic on the nose, the palate displays ripe red berries and spicy notes with fine tannin and bright acidity. Poised and feminine, I wish this could be easily found here.

The Old Third Vineyard Cabernet Franc 2013
VQA Prince Edward County
I absolutely love Ontario Cabernet Franc, and even though the County likes to hang its hat on Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, I think Cab Franc is an unsung hero that does particularly well there. Apparently, Ian agrees. “Really great Cab Franc is not common and it’s not an accident that Ontario has so many.”
This Cab Franc took many tasters’ breath away. Full of violet, spice, ripe black berry and subtle bell pepper aromas, it’s ripe and dense on the palate with fresh raspberry, sour cherry, tamarind paste, black berry and subtle undertones of bell pepper.

Between the Lines Reserve Lemberger 2012
$29.95 VQA Four Mile Creek, Niagara Peninsula
When was the last time you can say you had an Ontario Lemberger? When was the last time you can say you had a Lemberger from anywhere? Also known as Blaufränkisch in Germany, the grape is dark skinned with good tannic structure and fruity and spicy in flavour.
This Lemberger has beautiful savoury aromas of cured meats, crushed pepper corn and cassis with ripe fruit, smoke, black pepper spice and blackberry on the palate. Firm tannin and powerful structure, I’ll be keeping an eye out for the next release, as by the look of the website the 2012 is sold out.

Flight 5: Powerful Reds

“100% Nebbiolo and 100% Sangiovese can not be black. And even dark is a stretch.” Ian D’Agata

Years ago, when I was working as the Sommelier for the Badminton and Racquet Club of Toronto, a group came in and ordered a Barolo. Pouring it for the host, he turned up his nose, and confidently declared the wine was not Barolo as it was far too pale to be the powerful wine he knew to be Barolo. But, this just isn’t the case with Nebbiolo (the red grape that makes up Barolo). Nebbiolo, even at its most tannic and masculine, is inherently pale, garnet (in some cases sort of orange), and definitely transparent.

Ian explained that neither Nebbiolo or Sangiovese (the grape that makes Chianti and Brunello), have the chemical components to make dark and opaque wines. No matter how tannic or powerful the wines may taste or be in structure, they simply do not have the ability to get very dark in colour – unless another naturally dark wine is blended in (which, incidentally, is illegal).

Unfortunately for me, in this flight of dark and brooding reds, the Italian Barolos and Brunellos – normally a favourite – didn’t quite wow me as much as the Bordeaux blends hailing from Niagara.

Standouts:

Tawse “Wismer Vineyards” Cabernet Franc 2007
VQA Twenty Mile Bench, Niagara Peninsula
From what I can tell, this particular bottle is no longer available, so if you have a few kicking around your cellar, govern yourself accordingly. Though I picked up the tiniest hint of stewed fruit, this is still going strong and I bet could easily last until its 12th birthday. Ripe black berry, red cherry, fresh herbs and a bit of bloody meat on the nose, the palate is rich, plush and dense with flavours of mocha, cassis, toast and smoke.

Hidden Bench “La Brunante” 2011
VQA Beamsville Bench, Niagara Peninsula
While the ’11 is sold out, the current release is available at the winery. A Bordeaux blend made of Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon and Malbec, that’s only produced in top vintages, I loved the savoury character of this red: spice, pastrami and soy sauce mix with black cherry and cassis on the nose. Firm and grippy tannin on the palate with black fruits and spice notes and a firm backbone of acidity, this is another strong contender for long term cellaring.

Stratus Red 2010
$44.20 VQA Niagara on the Lake
This isn’t the first time I have tried Stratus Red (see our 2013 write up here), but it’s interesting to revisit over the years to see the evolution. A mostly Cabernet Sauvignon Bordeaux blend, at this tasting, I found the aromatics fairly mild with spice, black fruit and chocolate notes. The palate still showing vibrancy with good acid and fine tannin and flavours of earth, spice and cassis.