AUTHOR: Dave McIntyre TITLE: Oh, Canada, Where Are Your Wines? DATE: 7/20/2007 11:51:00 AM ----- BODY:

Spending a few days recently in Montreal and Ottawa, I was excited at the chance to taste some Canadian wines. Ontario and British Columbia are known in this country for their sweet, dessert ice wines, but they also produce some dynamite dry wines that are not widely available south of the border. Unfortunately, Canadian restaurants – at least the ones my wife and I were able to patronize with a picky-eater 7-year-old – are not very enthusiastic about the local product. My difficulty in finding top Canadian wines in Canada reminded me of the blind eye DC-area restaurants turn toward the increasingly good wines from Virginia. More’s the pity. We did, however, enjoy two nice Canadian wines. We found the Mission Hill Five Vineyards Pinot Blanc 2006 from British Columbia’s Okanagan Valley region at a state-run store outside Montreal for about $17, then took it to a BYO restaurant nearby. It was a delightful wine, fist-thumping good, lush with stone-fruit flavors of apricot and peach, maybe even a tropical note of mango, with great acidity and wonderful balance. It would do well in any market at that price. At Stella, a trendy Italian osteria near Ottawa’s Byward Market (think Dupont Circle meets Eastern Market) we enjoyed a grilled sirloin steak with a Henry of Pelham Pinot Noir 2005 from Niagara-on-the-Lake in Ontario. This wine was light and lean, not as lush and exciting as other Pinot Noir I’ve tasted from Niagara, but with the steak it flashed some bright cherry and spice flavor. While I may have shrugged it off in a quick blind tasting, we enjoyed it more with every sip, the hallmark of a successful wine. Alas, Canadian wines are not widely available here in the DC market, thanks to economics (they sell rather well at the wineries, even if not in the restaurants I found) and regulation (it is costly and laborious to import wines to the various U.S. states). That’s too bad, because I believe they would do well here if the economics were favorable – their quality is outstanding. One other note that struck me: At that BYO near Montreal, I asked the waiter if we would be allowed to walk out with any unfinished wine we had brought. He looked startled at the very question and said, “It’s your wine!” Then he thought an instant and added, “But I’m sure we could figure out something to do with it if you don’t want to take it.” We had a nice nightcap that night in our hotel, without cracking the minibar.

Labels: Best Bites, Canada, tasting notes

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR:

Marcus DATE:7/20/2007 01:36:00 PM Hey Dave,

Which BYO did you go to? I like to post about them whenever I can work it into a wine review.

Montreal really is a wine-friendly (and wallet-friendly) place when it comes to dining out. I hope you'll be back again soon, and maybe try more BYOs... There really are so many worthwhile ones.

Cheers,
Marcus ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR:

Dave McIntyre DATE:8/05/2007 10:50:00 PM It was called L'Academie, in the Laval neighborhood up near the new end of the subway line. A nice restaurant, a happening scene - very popular with the locals, especially the young and hip crowd - good service, merely OK food. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR:

Daniel Speck DATE:1/02/2008 02:46:00 PM Hi Dave

Thanks for the note. I agree, the 2005 Reserve Pinot is still fairly tight right now. It's actually from a rather warm year but we (Niagara generally with notable exceptions, Henry of Pelham specifically) tend to make wines in a more slow-to-unwind style. Case in point: the similar 2002 Pinot is just nicely out of its shell now but will develop further.

In any event, you'll be happy to know that the fine wines from Henry of Pelham are now accessible widely in the US via www.thecuvee.com

All the best and please look me up on your next visit to the Niagara Peninsula -- you're not going to believe the 2007 Pinots!!!!!!!

Daniel Speck
Co-owner
Henry of Pelham Family Estate Winery

www.henryofpelham.com ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR:

Dave McIntyre DATE:1/05/2008 11:44:00 AM That's good news about the increased availability of Henry of Pelham wines in the US! I hope more Niagara and Okananagan Valley wineries follow suit - I believe they will do well in the US market once people learn about them.

And I'm looking forward to tasting 2007s up and down the US East Coast, Niagara - anywhere. I've heard a lot of excitement from winemakers about this vintage. ----- --------