TN: PELLER ESTATES CLARITY 2017 RUBY RED; SURPRISE, A NIAGARA OFF-DRY TABLE RED!

Berserkers,

CLARITY 2017 RUBY RED – SURPRISE, A NIAGARA OFF-DRY RED TABLE WINE

SUMMARY: A surprising and unexpected off-dry red from one of the better-known Niagara, Ontario wineries that’s better than Cupcake and Georgian semi-sweet reds but still has an uphill mountain to climb to get drinkers.
A while back I reviewed my first ever Georgian semi-sweet red wine. Georgia is the only country in the world other than Portugal to produce a sweet red wine. Unlike Port, however, Georgian sweet wine is meant to be treated as a table wine.

You may recall I said that this immediately presents a host of issues and considerations for classical wine drinkers as Georgian semi-sweet wine is neither sweet nor alcoholic enough to function as a dessert wine but the intense sweet red fruit flavor would likely throw off dry red drinkers and could also prove difficult to pair with food. Of course, the same could also be said about Cupcake red wines and those are enormously successful.

Still, I pretty much assumed that was the end of that. To my surprise, however, I stumbled upon another off-dry red table wine. While window browsing at the LCBO, samples were being given out of a new line of off-dry wines, the Clarity line from Peller Estates out in Niagara, Ontario, Canada. The line current consists of the Clarity 2018 Crystal White and the Clarity 2017 Ruby Red. The white is a blend of Niagara Riesling, Gewurztraminer and Muscat at 32g of RS/L while the red is a blend of Cabernet and Merlot with 25 g of RS/L.

Now I can see why you would do an off-dry white based on Riesling, Gewurztraminer and Muscat as all three of these are proven commodities in off-dry table wines. But Cabernet and Merlot? Now that was intriguing and I had to try it.

Ruby purple in the glass, a sweet nose of Bing black cherries, and a very smooth texture on the palate. That was probably the biggest surprise, how smooth the wine actually felt on the palate. Taste wise, the wine had soft tannins and mildly and pleasantly sweet sour cherry, blackberry and strawberry flavors. Very slight touches of cocoa and tobacco there as well. Right off the bat, I have to say this is much better than Cupcake red wine which I find a bit overextracted.

This is a very pleasant fruit forward wine. Of course, any wine with sweetness in it is going to be pleasant and fruit forward. To its credit, the sweetness is fruit sweet, not sugar sweet, and is much milder than that of a Georgian semi-sweet red. The Cabernet Merlot flavors are definitely present and I’d say the wine, given what is is, is more complex than a Georgian semi-sweet red. All this said, this wine has the same uphill battle those wines had. At the Summerhill LCBO where the sampling station was set up, it was like pulling teeth to get people to try the wine on a bright warm Saturday afternoon. You could tell people were simply thrown off by the idea of a sweet red wine and had no idea what to make of it. It’s hard enough getting people to drink Port wine, let alone a sweet red table wine. I’m talking regular everyday wine shoppers too, not wine snobs like us. Those that did venture to try, though, found that they liked it.

The reason I tried it was because I was very curious given that I was already familiar with sweet red wine. I’m glad I did but the ever-present dilemma for a sweet red wine remains. Is it ageable? Is it even meant to be aged? What do you pair it with? Is it too sweet to go with table food? Why would you go with it over a dry red or a sweet Riesling? I think I’d drink it on its own chilled down on a warm sunny day as a nice change of pace from Riesling and Sauvignon Blanc myself.
20191012_153845.jpg

I don’t think they are as rare as that

Off the top of my head I think of Mavrodaphne, a sweet red wine from Greece, from several producers in Patros.

Or what about Quady’s Elysium Black Muscat from California?

Canadian icewine made from Cabernet?

South Africa makes both port style wines, muskadels (where fermentation is stopped very early by addition of brandy), unfortified and sparkling sweet red wines…

You make a fair point. I completely forgot about Mavrodaphne. We can also thrown in Australian Port along with the South African versions. THey’re usually made from Shiraz and Mourvedre.

Try Lambrusco for another.

Also Valpolicella Ricioto. I don’t know why I didn’t think of this before as only last month I was drinking it in Valpolicella, Italy