Sunday of the Wine Tour

I woke up, and BF1 claims she was awake also, but she didn't move, so I did and went and showered and did the girly things one does first thing in the morning, like brush the teeth and apply mascara. While I was doing this BF1 actually did haul herself out of bed and looked out the window. We had a great view of the lake and of a small harbour full of small craft, and Sunday was Haul Your Boat Out of the Harbour with a Really Big Crane Day, which provided amusement while one or the other of us was getting dressed to find some breakfast. We eventually settled on just eating in the hotel restaurant, so that we could continue to watch the drama of the BoatHaul, but as it turned out, other than the two small powerboats the only thing they managed to do while we ate was get the mast off a big sailboat. It was slow going, but there were a few of the moneyed class milling about, and Hummers circling the area, and general waiting while being dressed in the latest in outdoor fashion.

We packed up and checked out, and then since it was 11:00 a.m. on a Sunday and everything was now Open For Business, headed down to Jordan to start our day off at Cave Spring. They've basically rebuilt the town so there's a raised boardwalk and several little Shoppes ("they" being Cave Spring themselves, I suspect) .... we tried some wine and found the whites to be to our liking, specifically a 2005 Estate-bottled Gewürztraminer that was rockin' for before noon drinking. It's always noon somewhere, after all. I also picked up a bottle of chardonnay brut, having been promised that it would suck all the moisture right out of my mouth and that I'd be loaded in record time. I'm pretty sure there's nothing more that a girl can ask for, really.

I asked if we could step into the restaurant to check out the view, and was told Sure, They won't Mind, Go for It! which is not quite what one does in a refined establishment, but I did ask permission again when we breached the threshold of the restaurant and we were indeed told to go ahead and get an eyeful. We did this, and it was lovely, and two weeks later it would have been even lovelier with the foliage colour and all....and then the inevitable question that I knew was coming, "Why didn't we eat here last night?" and I just didn't have an answer. Um, because I've been here? wasn't the correct response (although I had, because BF2 and I were there for lunch) but it was lunch, and the dinner menu is different, so we could have gone there, but when you're choosing between the two best restaurants in the region, you just flip and then say that you liked one wine list better than the other, which you did. You also liked the decor of Treadwell better, but that's hardly a consideration of the food, which would have been just as good at Twenty. So you're stuck for an answer and now you really need to stop talking about yourself in the third person and get on with the story.

Now being cute little shoppes, we stopped into one that reminded me of a place in Invermere, with furniture and trinkets and stuff like that, and they were decorated for Christmas, which was a bit off-putting but we soldiered on anyway, because it was a whimsical Christmas and we all like the whimsical, right? We do. We especially like it on our Christmas tree, and so we found ourselves looking at the decorations, and BF1 was really taken with these sequined fishes that would stand on the mantle, but settled for little crazy fishes for the tree for each of her darlings. We took about 20 minutes sorting through all the boxes and by that time my arm was numb because that bottle of brut was heavy! but we got the whimsy and tossed it all in the car (which was starting to get full of bottles. We used the green Superstore bin for most of it but by the end of the day it was overflowing.) and moved along.

I definitely had a destination in mind...and I'd only seen a description and a picture in a magazine...still, I knew we were en route for another Oh My God moment. I really wanted to stop in at Tawse, although I hadn't heard anyone say anything about it, and I only liked the review. I knew they were working with small lots and I knew that they used a gravity filtration process, and that the place had been started out by a banker from Toronto. We drove along the road, which goes up a hill a little bit and then Tawse would be on our left. "Holy Fuck!" was the only comment from the passenger seat, and with good reason:

our only picture of the trip. Sad, but true, because really, this would have been a better story with way more pictures. Still, if you turned the corner not expecting much because really, the Niagara region isn't about giant chateaus and landscaping and incredible vistas, it's about scraping together enough money to survive and make some drinkable wine before you're laughed off the planet for a wasted venture. Luckily, Tawse dispelled that myth, and not only provided us with the Oh My God moment but also a tour of the winery and some excellent tasting. I don't know who the guy was that toured us, he was maybe an owner or the owner, because he certainly went on about how many cases of each thing he had in his basement, but he was a fantastic tour guide, starting off with, "This is a bar. Let's go see where the wine is made..." and we did. First to the area just behind the bar, where the gravity filtration takes place, consecutively down until the wine reaches the bottling area. Then over to a barrel room, where he turned the fans on before we went in so that we didn't succumb to the CO2. We discussed estate vs. export barrels (export are thicker) and French oak, and whether to use argon or nitrogen to get the wine out of the barrels. Of course I'm more in favour of argon, seeing as it's heavier than air and prevents most/all oxidation much more effectively than nitrogen will, but argon is expensive, way more so than nitrogen...so mostly they use nitrogen. Then it was back to the bar for some tasting, and let me tell you, we were not disappointed. We were treated to a comparison of 2002 vs 2003 chardonnay (not the Robyn's Rock, which wasn't being opened and he only had magnums left, and at $111/bottle we were a bit shy) and the 2003 won out, handily. We tasted the Echo Red, a blend of the leftover barrel remains (oh that sounds so sexy, doesn't it? barrel remains. leftovers. better the next day. yummy.) that is a wine made specifically for food, and it was quite good (good enough for me to donate to our school's pasta supper in November) and then we bought bottles of the 2005 merlot/cab franc that he also wouldn't open but I knew about and bought. Their wines are expensive, but then so are the wines at 30 Bench and so far, so good. Daniel Lenko is expensive too, but truth be told, you totally get what you pay for.

Tawse was really, really a lot of fun. If not for Hub (who is quite the wine guy except for the words part) I would totally fall for a wine guy, what with all their talk of the feel of the wine, its textures etc....I'm a sucker for the decriptive as long as it's not pretentious, and that's a fine line to toe. T married the wine guy and it has paid off in spades for her. Sure, he doesn't work and does the stay at home dad thing while she is a brilliant scientist, but he's the wine guy. He can be forgiven for not working; he cooks and puts the perfect pairing of alcohol beside her plate. I have another brilliant scientist friend who married the wine, music and food guy all in one, and she is so happy it's unbelievable. Seriously. Find the wine guy, reel him in and marry him. You will never regret it. Well, unless you're a guy and you're not gay and the wine guy isn't either. Then you must find a wine girl, there are plenty of them after all. More winemakers are women than men now, the women have better palates; they can smell more stuff, better. And yeah, I have a flare for the descriptive, don't I? After all, I used totally in two consecutive sentences.

We leave in awe and way poorer than when we drove in but wow again. Off to Crown Bench, hoping for some Livia's Gold, but that was sold out. Their specialty is dessert and late harvest and ice wine, so it's tough to get into this sweetness after the excitement over untasted red wines in the back of the car. I tried the Ambrosia, which was stupid of me because of its overwhelming chocolate flavour and nothing else. They only allow one tasting, since we're talking about stuff that's $50+/bottle, so that was it for us. We asked about the cab franc icewine, but the winemaker (Peter, Livia's husband) was not a fan, said he wouldn't make it again because after all, it only took away from his cab franc (they do make a few reds and whites). On the other hand, Livia herself indicated that the cab franc icewine was amazing, she loved it best, it's so complex and exciting....so I said to the winemaker, you know, you should not sell this wine. Let her do it. BF1 and I walked around, what to do? She got a bottle of the cab franc that she'd tasted and liked, but really, I was curious about the cab franc icewine, when the winemaker came over with a taste for us. "Here," he said, "give it a try."

Well you could have knocked me over with a ... I don't know ... pretty easily. I tasted the stuff, and it really was incredible like Livia said, full-bodied and yes, sweet, but not overwhelming. Slightly port-ish but not with the medicinal taste that port sometimes has. A bottle of that came home with each of us.

Finally, we were going to head up the road to Thirty Bench, since I have my membership there and we could have a free flight of tastings, but much to my surprise, Daniel Lenko was open. I squealed and pulled in to the driveway up to the tiny bungalow. Bill Lenko was outside with the dog, and they came over to greet us. Bill recognized me (it's the hair) but couldn't place me, so we talking about the hearing aids yet again and he remembered. The dog knew me. Bill said that Danny was inside so we went up the steps and he met us at the door, all wearing his overalls and dirty and stuff. He's so tall and handsome I was positive that BF1 was going to have a flirting-induced coronary, but she managed to keep hold of herself as we sat down at the tiny kitchen table. Unoaked chardonnay, cab franc, old vines merlot (our very good friend from dinner the previous evening) and something for dessert....it was an experience. I was so excited that they were open I forgot to buy anything, but should have split with BF1 on a case of the OVM (Hub was a tiny bit disappointed that we hadn't).

And with that, we drove back home. Our quest was done, BF1 had her requisite 12+ bottles and I had 10 or so, we were sated. Tomorrow: how to get all that wine across a provincial border when you're flying.