Berserkers,
For the start of Labor Day weekend, board members Jay Shampur and myself and our friend/designated driver Michael Wright took a day trip east of Ontario, Canada to visit the burgeoning Prince Edward County wine region.
An idyllic and quaint country setting, PEC is 2.5 hours away from Toronto and makes the Niagara wine region look like a crowded metropolis in comparison with a mere 30 wineries open and operating. It is a popular weekend getaway in general and the combination of a Labor Day weekend, excellent traffic, beautiful sunny weather, tons of other friendly visitors and two very special and hospitable hosts made for a fantastic day. Our first was Norman Hardie of Norman Hardie Winery and Vineyard.
OVERALL: An absolute must-visit for PEC visitors. Beautiful site, charismatic straightforward owner and winemaker, excellent high-quality wines, amazing pizza. If the wine doesn’t get you, the artisanal pizza will.
The Norman Hardie Winery and Vineyard is a beautiful 90 acre site established by the charismatic, driven and affable Norman Hardie whose star attraction is a modern wood and steel roofed barn that has been converted into the winery/kitchen/tasting boutique. Though it’s a bit hard to make out in my photo, attached to the left of the barn is a canopied area that serves as both a mini local farmer’s market and an outdoor tasting boutique when the weather is good as it was today. (The second floor of the barn serves as the indoor tasting boutique otherwise).
To the right is a destination that is just as if not more famous than any of the wineries – the outdoor wood-burning brick pizza oven open air restaurant. It’s so popular that literally half of the visitors at the winery on this beautiful day turned out to be there specifically to eat pizza for lunch and were more than happy to do the 45 minute wait to do so. Wisely, we booked our seats just before touring and barrel tasting so that the timeframes would coincide which was helped by Norman graciously asking his staff to set aside a table for us as soon as they could.
As you might expect with this killer combo, those who come for lunch almost inevitably end up tasting and buying wine and those who come for wine almost inevitably end up having the best pizza lunch of their lives. Definitely a great business model, to say the least. Their artisanal Italian pizza puts most restaurants to shame and is the only main course at the restaurant.
Our tour began with something of a miscommunication as the winery had been contacted on our behalf by Pearl Morissette for a tour arrangement but this failed to get through to Norman. This seemed to have been misplaced or lost and since the place was insanely busy, we headed to the outdoor tasting boutique not wishing to get in the way. While there, Norman personally came to rectify the error and graciously asked us to join the tour group he was already with.
When we joined, we saw that “tour group” was a young couple visiting from Ottawa. In the midst of an insanely busy day at the start of the long weekend, the owner and winemaker had no problems giving a full tour himself to just two guests. Talk about graciousness. This was highly reminiscent of our similar experience at Pearl Morissette and we saw why these two wineries in opposing regions had a kinship with each other due to their similar values. I should also point his very organized and professional staff ran the winery and restaurant so smoothly that he could afford to give us his time without worry so a note of commendation to them as well.
Norman took us through his facility which, despite the massive size it appears to have outdoors which you can see from my photo, was surprisingly tight for space inside and not a bit of it was wasted. Half of the open kitchen for the restaurant is also a steel tank room as well. The kitchen also connects directly to the barrel room.
We started in the kitchen/barrel room where Norman shared with us his philosophy of minimalist organic winemaking, his love of using natural yeasts and his passion for the region. He’s a no BS guy and didn’t hesitate to inform us that many other Ontario wineries in the business are after profit and not quality when we asked him why more Ontario wineries didn’t practice his surprisingly simple and straightforward organic winemaking techniques. Like Pearl Morissette, his quality over quantity approach has led to international sales and acclaim including in France which is where he trained to become a winemaker himself. He was also very straightforward in informing us that he dreams of his winery and brand getting even bigger and is working towards that.
For our tasting, Norman chose the unusual route of having us taste his Niagara and PEC Chardonnays and Pinot Noirs out of tank, not barrel as is the norm for this kind of thing, so that we could taste where the wine was coming from. He believes that barreling and oaking are the finishing touch that rounds out a wine and that truly interested winos should taste wine as winemakers themselves taste the majority of their wines –as they are developing, so they can see what they will eventually become. He also strongly believes in using as little sulphur as possible in his wines.
NORMAN HARDY 2013 PEC CHARDONNAY (TANK) – The first two samples were a bit of a shock to me, as I didn’t realize how even a Chardonnay hater like me had actually become used to oak in the wine, both good and bad. Without its presence, we could see the beginnings of a fabulous start as we focused only on the primary aromas and flavors. Crisp and refreshing young pineapple – not green apple as is usually associated with Chardonnay – and canary melon flavors and aromas highlighted by some lightly toasted lees flavors all carried on a backbone of very high and bright acidity. Norman informed us that this will spend a few months in oak to round it off and “frost the cake” as it were but that what we were tasting should be the core of the finished wine.
NORMAN HARDY 2013 NIAGARA CHARDONNAY (TANK) – Same as above but much richer, with a fuller body and less acidity though certainly no less delicious. A very interesting lesson in Ontario terroir as he treats both wines exactly the same and told us that differences we were tasting could be attributed solely due to terroir differences which his minimalist organic growing and winemaking bring out. Both wines will only spend about 10 months in oak after they are transferred and Norman strongly believes that a well-made Chardonnay will never need longer than this in a barrel… unless you’re trying to cover up something about the wine.
NORMAN HARDY 2013 NIAGARA PINOT NOIR (TANK) – Norman gave us a great lesson about organic/minimalist winemaking here. Just because a winemaker is a naturalist or minimalist, he told us, doesn’t mean that he doesn’t have a bag of winemakers tricks and techniques to rely on. This Pinot got into a stuck fermentation halfway through when the natural yeast stopped fermenting. So they moved the tank outside and let the wine to 21 degrees Celsius in an attempt to restart it. When that didn’t work, they decided to finish it using commercial winemakers yeast but continue treating it as an organic minimalist wine so that it would “take” after its natural yeast origins. He was quite honest in admitting they were more than prepared to ditch the whole batch if anything were to fail.
Fortunately, the wine was completed and out of oak two very distinct characteristics stand out – a very sensual light body to the wine and gorgeous fresh ripe black raspberry flavors. Very long finish on this as well. Once again, it really does make me aware of how much oak can completely ruin the quality of a red wine as opposed to helping it. Gorgeous stuff that I would have paid to have bottled on the spot.
NORMAN HARDY 2013 PEC PINOT NOIR(TANK) – Lighter in color, body and aroma than the above, the PEC Pinot Noir is all cranberry and red raspberry flavors. Long finish, a lot of flintiness which is not something I typically taste in red wine, and very soft tannins. Very Burgundian in quality.
After the informative tour and generous tank sample tasting, we were seated at the outdoor restaurant where we had what for me personally was the single best pizza I’ve ever had in my life. Once he sat us down, Norman literally wasted not a second switching gears and once again showed his graciousness and humility by instantly attending to our table and others around us and serving water to them, never once acting like waiting a table was beneath him as the owner and winemaker. This more than anything spoke to me of his amazing character.
Once lunch was done, it was back to the outdoor tasting boutique to sample and purchase some finished wines:
NORMAN HARDIE 2013 PINOT GRIS – Clearly Alsace influenced, as if the flute bottle didn’t give it away. Soft honeydew melon flavors with a bit of ginger spice. Very high in acidity and almost finishes like a Riesling. While not the richly concentrated Rolly Gassman I love, it’s also miles above the watery and near flavorless Ontario Pinot Gris I usually taste out of Niagara.
NORMAN HARDIE 2013 MELON DE BOURGOGNE – Another French patterned wine, this time after Loire Muscadet, and it succeeds wildly with a hefty smokiness and bracing acidity. Screams for shellfish. Honestly this is not my style of wine but I have had French Muscadets before and I was shocked at how closely he got it. Would fool anyone blind going up against a Muscadet of equivalent price.
NORMAN HARDIE 2013 RIESLING – A blend of both Niagara and PEC Riesling, this one has green apple and white grapefruit flavors, high acidity and a touch of smoke on the finish. A slight tad off-dry. This wine is probably the closest to a “standard” Ontario wine as you’ll ever find here.
NORMAN HARDIE 2013 CALCAIRE – This intriguing wine is produced by the co-fermentation of Chardonnay, Pinot Gris, Riesling and Melon de Bourgogne grapes on the lees as opposing to blending finished wines together. The result is a crisp clean wine that has all the pluses of a Sauvignon Blanc but none of the faults i.e. no cat pee aromas or flavors and is all but begging to be served with a fish main course. Bright green and red apple flavors with a touch of smoke and lees to round it out. Not my style of white wine, but definitely earns my respect for the accomplishment. I should also note that I preferred Norman’s individual finished wines of each component much more than the Calcaire.
NORMAN HARDIE 2012 NIAGARA CHARDONNAY AND 2012 NIAGARA PINOT NOIR – Of course for reference I had to try a sample of the finished wines we had in tank. Obviously the vintage is different so they didn’t taste exactly the same, but they were similar enough to their 2013 counterparts that the only real notes I have to add is that they have additional complexity and body via more wood tannins but also have some more roundness and slight vanilla flavors. True to his word, Norman has indeed used the oak barreling as the frosting on the cake – these wines are both lightly oaked and the flavor of the wine itself is allowed to shine through.
