2012 Niagara Icewine Tour Report 1/4

Berserkers,

This past Saturday I embarked on the first of two weekend day trips to Niagara Wine Country to take part in the annual Niagara Icewine Festival with the iYellow Wine Club here in Toronto.

40 people gathered on a tour bus. I made icewine marshmallows and maple icewine bread pudding for the trip while another tour-goer made cinnamon roll cookies and toffe chip cookies. Sugar was the word of the day.

Our first stop was Flat Rock Cellars, where their always passionate Ed Madrionich regaled us with stories of his youth in wine and educated us on his preference for screwcaps for his table wines and crown caps for his sparkling wines. Ed was the first Ontario winery to convert to screwcaps and he is very staunch in his defense of their use and personally views the idea that cork is the best closure for wine as a myth.

He also went over the biodynamic and organic practices of the winery and stressed to us not to think of him as a winemaker but as a wine grower. If he damages the environement, he damages his end product so it is in his best overall interests to use sustainable practices to protect his land.

We tasted brand new vintages of his 07 Sparkling Brut, 10 Twisted white blend, and 10 Pinot Noir Rosé. Once off to the tasting room, there was an interesting reversal from my last visit. When I last reported in the Fall on Flat Rock Cellars, the Pinot Noir was literally swept off of the shelves. For some reason, the white wines were the stars for this tour with tourgoers buying up the Twisted and the 10 Riesling. Maybe people view Pinot Noir as a Summer weather wine? Whatever the reason, it was interesting to see such a complete reversal.

2010 Twisted – A neat little blend of Riesling, Gewurztraminer and Chardonnay that takes the best assets of all three. Fruit and acidity from the Riesling, spice from the Gewurz, and a little touch of smoke and toastiness from the Chardonnay. A fun wine for sure.

2007 Sparkling Brut – Traditional champagne style sparkling wine composed of 2/3 Pinot Noir and 1/3 Chardonnay. Nice acidity and depth to the flavor with a bit of bread and biscuit flavors from aging on the lees. Another fun wine.

2010 Pinot Noir Rosé – Ed explained that this Rosé wine is made by actually drawing some juice away from the fermenting pomace, increasing the skin to juice contact and giving it its amazing deep pink color. He is very strongly against the idea of Rosé wine being just for women and set out to make one that both men and women would enjoy.

I actually don’t like Rosé wine myself as I feel it’s a very weak compromise between red and white wine but I must admit this one is very tasty, with much stronger flavor and a fuller body than I usually get from a Rosé. Very clean tasting.

OVERALL: Like the man himself, Ed’s Flat Rock Cellar wines are clean, refreshing, unpretentious and just plain fun. While he is clearly making wine for the common person to enjoy, he’s also putting in the care and craft as if he were making them for collectors.

To give you an idea of how well received they were, after the tour was over and we were back in Toronto, several of the tourgoers who had already purchased wine at the winery wandered over to an LCBO nearby where we let off and purchased MORE Flat Rock Cellars wine. That was an interesting sight for me to see.