On the Road with the Grape Guy
Report from - PMA Canada Chairman's Gala ... April 12, 2011
29 May 2011- Details
- Category: On the Road with the Grape Guy
The day started with a Malbec seminar, sponsored by Bodegas Norton, one of Argentina's top five exporters of wine, making 12 million bottles a year. Founded by James Norton in 1895 the winery has been in continuous operation for 116 years. In 1989 the winery was purchased by Gernot Langes Swarovski (yes the crystal company guy) and that changed the direction and fortunes of this winery immensely in the years that have followed. We tasted through the Malbec based wines, 5 in total, plus a special cellar Malbec from 1974 (still had good flavour if a bit over the hill). The best wine poured was the Norton 2008 Reserve Malbec which spends 12 months in oak and 10 more months in bottle before release. The nose was smoky, mainly dark fruited with red licorice, and red raspberry; palate showed smoky notes, chocolate, dark berries that veered red with lots of aeration - there was just so much going on in there that it was hard to get a handle on everything, but one thing was certain, it was delicious and perfect for drink-now or holding-on-to (****+) ... big alcohol (14.7%) made it seem sweet with lovely fruit.
The next seminar was a Pinot tasting by Anne Moller-Racke of Donum Estate ... she made two very interesting statements about Pinot over the years and what she has learned: 1) "Pinot needs to be done in small lots", because mass produced Pinots lack the character that small lot, single vineyard Pinots have. 2) The popularity of Pinot has exploded in California, "years ago I was paying $400 per ton, today it's $6000 per ton." As for the wines poured, there were 7 in total, all Pinots, all small production from single vineyard or smaller plots / lots. Two really good examples that stood out were the Donum 2008 Thomas Carneros Pinot Noir, from a specific block of the Ferguson Vineyard: a nose of floral and red berries followed by a palate of violets, cran-cherry and a slightly stony finish (****+). The other wine was the Donum 2008 West Slope Carneros Pinot Noir, a stunning mix of fruit, spice and finish, the wine rides the tongue delicately yet deliciously all the way to the finish. (**** 1/2).
As for the Gala tasting itself, over 65 wines were poured and the ones I will tell you about here ranged from very good to excellent. The rating scale is in stars and they equal as follows: 3 1/2 (good), 4 (very good), 4 1/2 (excellent) and 5 (outstanding). The wines are presented here in booklet tasting order (as they appear in the informational booklet handed out) ... (click here to find out which wines made the list)
