2009 Lailey Vineyard Pinot Noir Brickyard- Canada, Ontario, Niagara Peninsula, Niagara River VQA (11/15/2014)
I’m not seeing a lot of development in this one. I decanted this bottle, unlike the last one, since the wine is bottled unfiltered. The nose is heavily raspberry. Medium weight with medium tannins that dried out after about 30 minutes but then calmed down again. There’s nice acid in the wine too. Red fruits primarily, with a bit of plum. I don’t think there’s any need to keep these further, as I think they’re about as good as they’re going to get. (89 pts.)
And Lailey is one of the few that did something useful with Pinot Noir in 2009. There was a limited version of something that I quite enjoyed–it wasn’t this—my faint memory is of a 3-block combination. I myself still wouldn’t put this in the same class with any good Burgundy or Cali Pinot or Oregonian or New Zealand effort. Thanks for the note, John, appreciate you checking on this one.
Mike, I picked up a number of '09 Pinots a couple of years ago when visiting friends in the NOTL area, as I had heard that it was a good Pinot year. What’s your take on the '09 Pinots?
Since you’re in the Toronto area, you might want to check my tasting note on the 2007 Cave Springs Chardonnay here. It’s a great wine.
For Ontario, they’re mostly OK, John, just hard to find examples of this grape that stand out. Now, there will be others that disagree. Bob Hudak, who I count as a friend with a good palate, really likes Flat Rock’s product for this grape. Malivoire has sometimes made something decent. I just don’t myself believe that Ontario really does have the climate to make top-end pinot noir, despite all the press to the contrary.
That said, if any year was going to be the winner for Pinot in this Province, it will be this year, with a very cool summer and then about a week and a half of hot weather in August-September. We’ll see.
Glad the Cave Springs showed well. They do make good Riesling and Chard