TN: 2004 Daniel Lenko Vidal Select Late Harvest

  • 2004 Daniel Lenko Vidal Select Late Harvest - Canada, Ontario, Niagara Peninsula, Niagara Peninsula VQA (5/16/2012)
    Medium gold color. Still has a good bit of acidity that works well for the sweetness. Primarily apricot and pineapple flavors with some floral notes on the back side. Still going very strong with no sign of decline. Many years of good drinking left. (92 pts.)

Posted from CellarTracker

Mmmm, love Ontario late harvest Vidals. Especially good are the ones that are not the second pressings of ice wines, which it seems like more than half of them are. While it probably maximizes revenue for the wineries due to the ice wines selling for 3X what a late harvest would sell for, and then you can make some more money selling the leftover as well, it doesn’t produce the best wine. It has been many years since my last visit to Lenko, and I don’t remember what method he uses, but I do have some of his ice wine and late harvest wines in my collection, and I don’t think that I would have bought them if they were the second pressings. I wish that there was some regulation on labeling how these are made, as there is a big difference in quality. If wineries have to disclose how the sparkles get in their bubblies, equally important is how they make their dessert wines.

Also continuing with the theme of labeling is how the industry determines the late harvest, select late harvest, and special select late harvest categories. I don’t think that there is any legal requirements on this either.

I take it back, there are regulations and here they are in the VQA rules:

Wine Category for All Grape Varieties
Minimum Brix (after each pressing when measured after transfer to the fermentation vessel)
Minimum Average Brix (all grapes used in final blend)

  1. Botrytis Affected (B.A.)
    26.0º Brix
    26.0º Brix

  2. Icewine
    32.0º Brix
    35.0º Brix

  3. Late Harvest
    22.0º Brix
    22.0º Brix

  4. Nouveau Red Wine, Fortified Wine, Liqueur Wine
    18.0º Brix
    18.0º Brix

  5. Sparkling Icewine
    32.0º Brix
    35.0º Brix

  6. Sparkling Wine
    n/a
    n/a

  7. Select Late Harvest
    25.0º Brix
    26.0º Brix

  8. Special Select Late Harvest
    28.0º Brix
    30.0º Brix

  9. Totally Botrytis Affected (T.B.A.)
    34.0º Brix
    34.0º Brix


    Note 1: For Vin de Curé wines, the grapes used in making the wine must be dried to achieve the Brix level specified in Column 2 at the time of transfer to the fermentation vessel.

Great information Errol. Thanks for researching it.

On Lenko’s production method, I don’t think that this particular wine is a second pressing of ice wine grapes. I don’t recall Lenko having a 2004 ice wine. At the time I first bought this wine, he was only selling a 2001 ice wine and I’ve not seen anything since on later ice wine vintages. That leads me to believe that this was made as a strictly late harvest wine. Although the sweetness level on this wine certainly rivals many ice wines I’ve had. It’s good stuff that’s a steal for CAD$12.95 a bottle.