Berserkers,
To close off the long holiday weekend, I convinced two friends of mine to take the short drive out to Brampton, Ontario (30 min outside of Toronto) to visit Downey’s Farm Market and Estate Winery.
As mentioned in the previous “Have you stopped buying wine?” thread I have been cutting back (I haven’t bought a single thing at the LCBO since July 20 and my last trade-in was Aug 20), but I made a specific exception for this winery. I previously tasted and purchased their Framboise raspberry wine at the International Wine and Cheese Show in April and was blown away and have kept them in mind ever since.
My research shows that while virtually every country in the world makes it, fruit wine in general has gotten a really bad rap all through vinicultural history due to a number of factors:
-
It seems to be the wine that is made historically by those who cannot afford viticultural access either due to financial or access reasons. Ex. British soldiers stationed in Fort York, ON in the 1700’s.
-
Fruit wine doesn’t have the prestigious viticultural history and acclaimed winemakers that grape-based wines do.
-
It is strongly associated with bad and cheap home winemaking that usually results in syrupy undrinkable messes made by yokels who will make wine out of anything cheap that they can get their hands on.
However, it’s not just snobbery at work against fruit wines. There is a very valid scientific reason why grape-based wine is superior. My research shows that the grape is classified as a “weak” fruit by food scientists, meaning that it’s very vulnerable and extremely susceptible to outside influences both internally and externally. Ironically, this “weakness” allows it absorb the terroir surrounding it very readily and become the best fruit with which to make wine with.
In contrast, other fruits such as berries and stone fruit are hardier fruits which will more or less remain the same regardless of their terroir and will not be influenced as much. This “strength” pretty much ensures that fruit wine will also pretty much taste the same as the fruit it came from and will never be able to match the complexity of grape wines no matter how hard winemakers try. This is the reason why a grape-based wine, say Sauvignon Blanc, can have so many different flavors such as lime and grass to it while a strawberry wine will only taste like strawberries and nothing else.
Not surprisingly, fruit wines apparently make up less than 1% of the world’s total wine economy. Caymus and Yquem don’t make it, Parker doesn’t review it, and Berserkers don’t post about it. They’re the Rodney Dangerfield of the wine world – they don’t get no respect.
Here in Ontario, the creation of Canadian icewine and the subsequent growth of our table wine industry has led to a resurgence in fruit winemaking when fruit growers realized they could apply the same cryoextraction principle used on grapes to other fruits. Ice cider took off in Quebec and then iced fruit wine took off in the rest of Canada. Bye bye syrupy sweet fruit wine, hello iced fruit wine and ice cider. This was followed by the development of dry, off-dry, and semi-sweet table fruit wines.
I enjoy fruit wines immensely, as much as I enjoy grape-based wines. They make for a nice change of pace, they’re delicious and they’re fun. I recognize and appreciate their novelty aspect while also appreciating the superiority of grape-based wines. So without further ado, let’s get into the tasting notes.
DOWNEY’S PREMIUM APPLE – A semi-sweet table wine from apples. Gold color, medium bodied, nose of apples. This was an incredible surprise, as it came off as a Spatlese made from apples. Sweet, high level of acid giving it some balancing dryness, and very refreshing. Of course it lacks the complexity and terroir of an actual Spatlese, but shockingly far closer to it than I would’ve ever imagined from a wine made from apples. RECOMMENDED
DOWNEY’S GOLDEN RASPBERRY – Clear gold color, medium bodied, nose of raspberries and vanilla. Clean golden raspberry taste with a pleasantly mild seam of acidity. Like their award-winning Framboise wine which I tasted earlier this year at the Wine and Cheese Show, Downey’s has managed to capture the natural acidity of the fruit to go along with the sweetness which balances it out and keeps it from being a sweet cloying mess. Very unique even amongst fruit wines.
DOWNEY’S CASSIS – Dark purple color, light to medium bodied, nose of black currants. An extremely balanced taste of black currants with some citrus overtones. Not too sweet, a nice seam of acidity, and very refreshing. This was the one I was most afraid of being a cloying mess and it completely won me over. By far, the absolute best Cassis dessert wine I have ever tasted. RECOMMENDED
DOWNEY’S BLUEBERRY ICE – Deep purple blue in color, light body, nose of blueberry blossoms. Sweet taste of blueberries with a hint of mild acidity. Very straightforward and as good as any other iced or sweet blueberry wine I’ve tried from other Ontario wineries.
DOWNEY’S ICED PEACH – Bright orange in color, light to medium body, nose of peach blossoms. Sweet taste of canned peaches in light syrup. Another pleasant and straightforward iced fruit wine.
DOWNEY’S CRANBERRY ICE – This is the other one I was scared of. Cranberry is a unique fruit in that it is so high in natural acidity that it presents a reverse problem for winemakers – they risk an undrinkable highly acidic mess as opposed to a merely sweet cloying one if things go wrong. If they correct it with too much sugar addition it becomes an undrinkable highly acidic sweet cloying mess just like most bottled cranberry juice cocktail.
Fortunately, this was perfectly done. Bright translucent red color, light body, nose of white and red cranberries, and tastes of the sweetness and mellowness of white cranberries along with the tartness of red cranberries in the finish. Perfectly balanced. RECOMMENDED
DOWNEY’S MAPLE GOLD – Golden color, full bodied, nose of maple syrup. Very smooth mouthcoating feel. Pleasant but not overpowering maple taste. Quite different from the previously tried Crown Bench Maple Ice maple flavoured icewine. This was more like a mead made with maple syrup instead of honey. It’s made from finished maple syrup and subsequently shares its base ingredient’s strength and fault – it has a unique sweet maple flavour but lacks some balancing acidity. This is a very high quality wine considering what it’s made from. I suspect it will not be to everyone’ s tastes. The Jost Vineyards Maple Wine from New Brunswick just edges this one out.
OVERALL: This is a very fine bunch of fruit wines which I will definitely enjoy with dessert. A couple of them were very pleasant surprises and I must emphasize again what a hugely pleasant surprise the Premium Apple and Cassis wines were. You can tell that a lot of care was put into the wines, with the winemakers undoubtedly aware A return visit is definitely warranted and is extremely likely with it being only 30 minutes out of the city. Cheers. ![[cheers.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/0ff9bfcdb0964982cd3240b6159868fbdf215b1a.gif "cheers"){kind=small}