Date: 11-Aug-2005 14:54
Author: Paul B., Ontario, Canada Email
Subject: TN: NiagaraCOOL 2005 Day Two: Wine Picnic in North Tonawanda, NY
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NiagaraCOOL's Sunday picnickers gather for a tasting of Chambourcin, Norton, Chancellor and various other hybrids, labruscas and viniferas as well as some awesome food cooked up by Chef Howie and his crew.

Sunday, the 7th of August saw the first-ever NiagaraCOOL Picnic event - an offline held at West Canal Marina Park just outside of North Tonawanda, New York, and organized by WLDGer and home winemaker par excellence, Howie Hart. I invited my friend Ziggy to come along with me and so we left mid-morning, wary of the potential traffic jams that tend to clog up the Queen Elizabeth Way. On this morning, however, the traffic turned out to be significantly lighter than the day before - and, to my pleasant surprise, it was pretty good all the way around The Horseshoe, right past St. Catharines. Where it did get heavy, however, was just before the border crossing. However, in due time we were heading down Niagara Falls Blvd. Finding the park was a breeze thanks to Howie's excellent directions posted earlier on the WLDG.

Many NiagaraCOOLers were already there when we arrived, and later in the day we would also be joined by Paul Bosc Jr. and his wife, Michèle, of Château des Charmes, whom we had met the day before during Day One of the NiagaraCOOL events.

Howie and the cooking crew, serving up wonderful food for the NiagaraCOOLers.

Many wines were laid out on the table, and what immediately struck me was the fact that vinifera grape names were few and far between. In a way, it was reminiscent of the yearly "non-conforming" table at MoCOOL, except it differed in one very significant way: This whole event was non-conforming. Norton (Vitis aestivalis), Chambourcin, Chancellor, Vignoles, Traminette and other members of the non-vinifera brotherhood of grape varieties greeted my eager eyes. I scanned the bottles, eventually adding one of my own: the 2004 homemade dry Concord Rosé that I had promised to bring.

Howie and his crew, which included his sons Dan, Andy and their friend, Josh, were hard at work preparing wonderful food for everyone in attendance. The NiagaraCOOL picnic menu included Beans & Greens Soup, grilled marinated salmon, grilled marinated chicken thighs, cole slaw, Italian sausage, various veggies, bread and rolls, as well as amazingly tasty corn on the cob, shrimp and a variety of other goodies such as steamed clams which, to my regret, I never got around to trying.

It was good to finally meet fellow WLDGers with whom I had corresponded many times in the past on the topic of Eastern/Northeastern U.S. and Ontario wines. This was an offline like no other, and the wines proved it!

Dan Smothergill's Whites

Dan Smothergill's awesome array of crisp and flavourful dry white hybrids and labruscas.

Dan Smothergill was there and had brought four of his own amazing dry whites: a Steuben, a Dutchess, a Traminette and a Catawba - all bearing the Salt City Cellars label and the words, "Daniel Smothergill, Proprietor" at the bottom.

Taking a tasting glass, I knew exactly which wines to start with. I poured myself some of the Steuben - the first-ever white Steuben that I had encountered - and found a beautifully perfumey wine with up-front fruit and spicy/floral accents on the nose. The wine was gorgeously crisp and clean and most enjoyable. I tried each of the remaining whites and greatly enjoyed each one.

The Dutchess was the absolute best example of this varietal wine that I have ever tried anywhere. Previously, I did try Ontario's only Dutchess, made at Quai du Vin Estate, but it was nearly neutral by comparison. Dan's example was beautifully full on the nose with a superbly aromatic, ripe, fruity character. If wines of such quality can be made from Dutchess then by golly, all of them should taste this good.

The Traminette had a distinct Gewurz-like bouquet but also some appealing toasty-buckwheat hints - exactly like those that I picked up in Howie's memorable Cayuga Brut which I tried at MoCool in 2004.

I thought the Catawba was a bit aromatically shy but otherwise varietally correct.

West Virginian Nortons

Three of Alan's Nortons and a Finger Lakes Lemberger from Fox Run.

Alan Wolfe, owner of Jones Cabin Run Vineyards in Tanner, West Virginia, had driven up to Ontario the evening before and joined us for our tasting at Château des Charmes. I had been corresponding with Alan for some four years prior to NiagaraCOOL, discussing all manner of things having to do with the growing and vinification of hybrids, labruscas and Norton. I have great respect for Alan's viticultural and winemaking knowledge, and NiagaraCOOL offered us a chance to meet in person and for me to see and taste some of the truly fine West Virginian wines that he produces from the Norton, Chambourcin and Vignoles grape varieties.

The 2000 Jones Cabin Run Vineyards Norton had a medium garnet-ruby colour and beautifully rustic aromas that evoked the intriguing "torrefied" aromatic character inherent to wines from this native American grape (and quite a few V. riparia hybrid varieties as well). I found it bright and tart with exemplary acidity and food-friendliness. Truly pleasing to my palate.

The 2001 Jones Cabin Run Vineyards Norton had a similar colour to the 2000 example and was also rustic, but seemed to have a tiny bit of volatility lifting up the nose somewhat and reminding me of a Mascarello Barbera that I tried some years ago. This wine, like that Barbera, would be a natural match for all manner of Italian-American pasta-and-tomato-sauce-type foods.

I found the 2002 Jones Cabin Run Vineyards Norton similar to the preceding two, but with a somewhat sweeter fruit character on the nose. Again, the same thought kept coming to my mind as I tasted my way through this vertical: "Man, are these ever food-friendly!"

The 2004 Jones Cabin Run Vineyards Norton had a very youthful, bright ruby-garnet colour. The wine was excellent with a bright forwardness on the nose. It displayed less rustic wildness on the nose than the preceding examples.

Among the vinifera reds present nearby was a 2001 Fox Run Vineyards Lemberger from the Finger Lakes. It was clear, bright ruby in colour and had an excellent spicy pepperiness and pleasantly firm astringency on the mid-palate.

West Virginian Chambourcins

The amazing seven-vintage Chambourcin vertical brought by WLDGer Alan Wolfe of Jones Cabin Run Vineyards in West Virginia.

One of Alan's other significant contributions to the wine lineup was a seven-vintage Chambourcin vertical. Personally, I have never seen so many Chambourcins lined up in one place - it was a truly inspiring sight!

While writing this, I realized that I did not take detailed notes while tasting through the Chambourcin vertical. However, the wines were extremely impressive as a group, so I will comment on them as such.

The vertical included a 1997 Reserve and examples from the 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002 and 2004 vintages. All had a generally dark ruby-garnet hue; this was not dissimilar from the colour of the Nortons. However, what is interesting is that I actually found more "brackish complexity" in the Chambourcins than I did in the Nortons - not something that I was expecting given my previous experience with two Missouri examples of Vitis aestivalis wine.

Alan's Chambourcins were extremely enjoyable. They had bright cherry/berry fruit, excellent acidity and food-friendliness, and a good measure of rustic Chambourcin character.

Alan pours us his 2003 sparkling Chambourcin.

Chambourcin in the middle U.S. states seems to consistently make more character-laden reds than the few examples that we've seen made here in Ontario. My feeling is that to enable reds of character like Alan's examples to result, Chambourcin requires a longer and possibly warmer growing season than what we have in Ontario. Like the rare hybrid Villard Noir, Chambourcin seems to really shine when given the length of growing season and warmth that grapes like Cab Sauvignon, and possibly Norton, enjoy.

At one point during the picnic, a bottle of Alan's 2003 Chambourcin Mousseux was opened - a sparkling Chambourcin finished with just a touch of residual sugar. Intriguing for its frothy purple appearance and beet-hued pinkish-magenta froth when poured, it was redolent of pure blueberry fruit - an amazingly different sort of wine that I had never tried before.

Yes, there are wineries making sparkling Chambourcin in Australia, I believe, but here was an Eastern American example, and a darn fine one. Alan, I really enjoyed this wine and think that the paradigm deserves more studious geek-level attention. This was a wine that you could sip and savour and contemplate.

Johnson Estate Chancellor Vertical

A four-vintage Chancellor vertical comprising the 1978, 1983, 1995 and 2003 bottlings. Many thanks to Jeff Murphy for this most educational tasting of older NY-State Chancellors.

Jeff Murphy, winemaker at Johnson Estate Vineyards, brought a four-vintage vertical of varietal Chancellor to the NiagaraCOOL Sunday picnic. This was an opportunity like none other that I have ever seen before. What an amazing array of aged Chancellors - you really don't see this sort of lineup every day!

In addition, I was not even sure if the oldest of the Chancellors - the 1978 example - had held up over the years. Not only did it hold up, but it was a thoroughly remarkable, mature wine. The 1978 Johnson Estate Chancellor had a mature brick colour with a bit of amber towards the edges. Aromas were of "toast and raisins", as I put it. I also got a hint of something akin to molasses - but despite this, the structure of the wine was beautifully intact and I could taste diminutive but firm tannins. "It's alive! It's alive!" I kept thinking to myself.

Now, the 1983 Johnson Estate Chancellor was, in my opinion, the most intriguing one of the entire vertical. It, too, displayed a mature brick colour, but also had a considerable ruby hue. The nose here was completely different from the 1978 wine: It was, well, "sweet" - for lack of a more precise description. I found the nose extremely ethereal and elegant; delicate, you might say. Again, the wine was completely alive - the structure was fully intact, with excellent acidity, a gentle roundness on the mid-palate and a clean, dry finish. Just wonderful. Good Lord - when have most of us had the chance to try such a wine and then realize that it's a 22-year-old hybrid red in that bottle? I was extremely inspired by this wine.

Unfortunately, the 1995 Johnson Estate Chancellor turned out to be corked. What was there under the TCA seemed promising - spicier than the older two vintages - but in the end, the cork taint prevented any real examination of the wine's aromas.

Finally, the 2003 Johnson Estate Chancellor showed a gorgeous, youthful ruby-black colour and a generally primary-fruit-oriented nose. I am sure that this one, laid away for a couple of decades, will certainly age into something tasty and elegant like its elder brethren have.

"Yes, Virginia, there really is a Norton." Actually, two Virginia Nortons and one Virginia Cab Sauvignon.

Three Virginian Reds

Two more Nortons caught my attention: the 2002 Chrysalis Estate Bottled Norton and the iconic 1999 Horton Vineyards Orange County Norton. Both were very enjoyable, though I found the Horton to be a bit more "Nortony" if you will ... though I understand that there is a vinifera component in the wine (Mourvèdre, if I am correct?).

From left to right: Jeff Murphy, winemaker at Johnson Estate Winery in Westfield, NY; Robin Garr; Alan Wolfe of Jones Cabin Run Vineyards in Tanner, WV; Paul B.

I think that the Chrysalis example had the most "vinifera-like" profile of all the Nortons that I tasted. That said, both were excellent wines by any standard - and, happily, both are standard bearers for America's True Red Grape.

The 2001 Barboursville Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve was a truly excellent Cab - much more substantial than any of our Ontario Cab Sauvignons that I've tasted to-date. It was my first Virginian Cabernet experience, and I must say that everything seems to be in place for fine Cabernet to be made in The Old Dominion. "Yes, Virginia, you can make world-class Cabs!"

This brings me back to a point that I think was made on the WLDG quite some time ago in a thread on Virginian Cabernet Sauvignon and the fact that it has a style of its own - not quite Bordelais, not quite Californian, but probably closer to the Bordelais style. Jason might remember the details, since I believe it was one of his notes that inspired the discussion. This tasting gave me a good preview of the style of Virginian reds: The Nortons, at least, do seem to be more "polished up" and, yes, "vinifera-like", than the two examples from Missouri that I tried in 2004. The Missourian aestivalis wines had way more of the torrefied-coffee-bean/wild-marsh/brackish aromas. In other words, they were simply wilder - and this is the pivotal point in what I keep saying about that aroma: Many a vinifera-attuned consumer or wine judge will simply dislike that type of funkiness because it's external to the vinifera sphere. However - and respect for individual taste is paramount - that set of wild aromas is not a flaw in and of itself; it is a characteristic of many North American grapes that vineyardists and winemakers may choose to mediate, but that can add a very distinct kind of compexity to the wines that sets them very much outside the international, homogenizing drummer's beat.

West Virginian Vignoles Stickies

Another unique lineup: Alan's late-harvest Vignoles and cryogenic "Vin de la Glacière" Vignoles dessert wine.

Alan also had a fine array of Vignoles stickies on hand. This was my first time ever trying varietal Vignoles - a wine that I had wondered about for many years. Vignoles is a white hybrid grape that can produce some very luscious dessert wines.

Again, I didn't take detailed notes during this tasting, but I can say that both the late harvest and the cryogenic "Vin de la Glacière" icewine iterations of varietal Vignoles were jam-packed with opulent ripe pineapple-/apricot-syrup flavours, and were most interesting to behold.

This was also my first experience with cryogenic icewine. Really, I don't think I could have told you for sure that I knew it to be such, had I tasted the wine blind and not had a hint as to its origins (West Virginia doesn't get cold enough, regularly enough, I don't think, to be able to make icewine from grapes frozen on the vines). As a stylistic and/or labelling sidenote, I will also add that I think the use of the term "cryogenic" (not to mention the very stylish French equivalent) is good and proper, since it allows for the creation of a distinct category for these wines which, after all, really can be very good! If I am not mistaken, I believe that Lakewood Vineyards makes their Borealis (Concord icewine) and Glaciovinum (Delaware icewine) precisely by means of the cryogenic method.

I can't remember whether there were any Vignoles table wines at the picnic - this was an iteration that I would have loved to try.

All in all, I found the Vignoles flavour profile to be not dissimilar from that of Vidal - another white hybrid grape that, as most people know, has a considerable presence in Ontario as one of our main varieties for making icewine. (On a rather unrelated sidenote, I'll add that the Birchwood Riesling icewine that someone brought over from Ontario was the most amazingly complex example of its type that I have yet tried, having a gorgeous nose of pin-point orange rind and oatmeal! Just beautiful. I will most certainly be making a visit to Birchwood at some point in the future, just because I was so impressed by that wine.)

In Summary

How much more fitting can this be? Wild, native American Vitis riparia - "riverbank" - grapes growing along a fence adjacent to the canal, and only steps away from our offline.

What an amazing culmination to the weekend's events - a wonderful offline attended by great people, some of whom work intimately with grape varieties that I have always looked to as the rightful backbone of what could be a true home-grown wine culture in the Eastern U.S. and, in part, Ontario; grapes that truly work well in our climate and that produce a vast array of wine styles: from deeply coloured reds with great food-friendliness, to highly interesting and satisfying aged examples of the same, all the way to late-harvest stickies and natural, as well as cryogenic icewines.

All the verticals were extremely instructive and none of them disproved my strong feelings of support for hybrid- and aestivalis-based viticulture in Eastern North America. Alan's Nortons and Chambourcins are extremely well made table wines - all of them have an innate food-friendliness that just had me saying "Italian-American" constantly to myself when thinking of food matches. They are very much in the Chianti mode, if I am to offer a comparison for all our vinifera-attuned friends.

The Johnson Estate Chancellors made for an extremely revealing and educational experience. Only one - the 1995 example - had a problem: cork taint. The 1978 example surpassed even my expectations, and the amazingly ethereal 1983 example simply blew me away. It just goes to show that yes, well-made hybrid reds are a succesful, workable, distinct and admirable genre in the Northeast and in Ontario. When well treated in the vineyard and in the cellar, wonderful reds result that on the whole are defined by their acidity, and not by a Bordeaux-modelled tannic grip that needs a long time to mellow out. Hybrid reds are mellow from day one - and they stay that way with age, though they develop exciting secondary and tertiary aromas as they age.

In short, there's a whole world of grapes out there to discover - grapes that don't bear fashionable names, but whose wines speak of the good earth and the efforts of the fine folks who make them.

Many thanks to Howie, his sons and friends for putting together this remarkable offline. And many thanks to Alan Wolfe, Jeff Murphy, Dan Smothergill, Ed Draves and everyone else whose presence made this a day that I will always remember.

To read about the Day One events at NiagaraCOOL 2005, follow this link.