Easter at the A Family part 1 - Niagara College Teaching Winery, 2009 Barrel Fermented Chardonnay

Many people who know I (A) like wine ask me how I started drinking it, since I have been into it since a time when Vex Coolers should have been my more appropriate drink of choice. The answer is my parents (but in a good way)! When I was a kid, Mohawk College in Hamilton used to offer bus tours of wineries, stopping at six wineries per trip with food, and talks, and fun. This was in the 1990s, when Niagara on the Lake had only about twenty or so wineries open to the public, as compared with the nearly fifty and growing these days. My parents loved these tours and the wine, and so when the tours were cancelled, they started going on smaller jaunts, of two or three wineries which allowed them to be done in an afternoon in the car. These have continued as I have gotten older and the chance to support farmers, try before I buy, and go on these trips as a means of spending time with my parents has made wine tasting (samples are less than an ounce, so these are not wine keggers by any means) a familiar and fun activity. Wine is on our dinner table probably three nights a week, and we have always talked about how we like them I should note that you need to have a plan in place for a responsible driver (having three of us means we can take turns over the summer and no one gets left out, and wineries offer spitoons so you can sip and spit, if you absolutely have to try something, but do plan ahead) if you are doing winery visits as a road trips.

One of our recent trips was to Niagara on the Lake's Niagara College Teaching Winery, outside of St. Catherines. My parents had tried their wine at the Hamilton Food and Drink Festival, and took me out one day as well. They teach both wine grape cultivation and wine making and it was an educational stop for sure. This wine is only available at their store and was $18.95. While this wine was a little (ok a lot) steep for my budget (especially for wine drank while cooking), my parents believe that if they've already bought a bottle, there is no point in feeling badly about drinking it, and when in Hamilton... Both my Mom and I agreed this was in the end not the appropriate choice for afternooon sipping, which was when we had it. Due to the time, money (barrels are expensive and cannot be reused indefinitely), and attention that goes into barrel fermenting a wine (instead of doing it in stainless steel casks), barrel fermented wines are more expensive. This wine is better suited to impressing a small family at Easter for serving with dinner, rather than for sipping as we cooked. Though at this price, I may choose a more traditional barrel fermented chard.

A - This wine was shockingly yellow, as you can see in the picture. It was like the colour of apple juice or canola oil. It had good legs, which is when a wine has enough body that the wine runs in beads down the side of the glass. It smelled floraly but fruity, kind of like a farm in the spring  (like hay and clover, but fruity). The wine was on more of a tart/ sour side of the scale than on the sweet side. You can really taste the oak in it (oak taste is like when you taste a library, classy, woody, and aged). It has more of an apple or pear start for me but a definite lychee/ grape taste to finish.

Mom - This wine was fairly heavily oaked. I got tastes of pineapple and lychee. It has a long finish, and a medium body (which means it is thick, but not syrupy, but also not thin). It is semi-dry (meaning it is dry, but the dryness isn't the predominant flavour). It was maybe not suited for an afternoon sipper following an ice cream snack, and perhaps would have gone better with food as this wine had BIG flavours and power. It was a bit on the heavy side.

Dad - This is a very tasty wine. But you can't get as much thickness as you can out of other barrel fermented wines, like the ones at Strewn. It is floral and really oak scented but the taste was not at all what I was expected. It is sharp and crisp, especially for a wine aged in oak. I like this wine, but like I said, it just wasn't what I expected. I don't get that big oaky-ness in the taste and instead get crispness. It is almost deceptive, as you expect a thick chewy wine from this kind of grape and the colour of the wine, but don't get that at all.