With the sun moving north and the days getting longer it certainly feels as though Spring is just around the corner. We’ll soon be welcoming back our amazing Thai field worker crew for another season, with their first crucial task of unburying the vines.
Our delicious 2017 Riesling has just recently received a glowing review and 93-point accolade from Michael Vaughan. As you may know Michael is known for his old-school style English scoring and does not give away such scores easily.
“Norman Hardie is an extremely accomplished and creative winemaker who is always learning. He often produces great wines that defy comprehension, and this 2017 Riesling is one of them…
Buy a case today. If you have just 2 bottles a year, by the time you finish you will regret not buying four times as much. The 2017 is best Riesling he has produced yet”
-93 points, Michael Vaughan, Vintage Assessments
(Full quote see bottom)
This wine is very unique and we’ll likely never see a blend like it again. Part of what makes this Riesling so unique and special is that it’s a blend of both County and Niagara grapes. We get the mouthfeel and lusciousness from the Niagara grapes, and the firm piercing minerality and persistence from the County. A true unicorn one wants to sip all day.
With its low 11.5% alcohol and tremendous balance this makes a great house wine for the summer, whether at the cottage or in the city. If you need any more convincing, it’s known by our staff as the breakfast-lunch-and-dinner sipper. On a more serious note this wine has a beautiful balance, is just dry, and now starting to go into its peak (5 years since it was picked). Available now at your local LCBO Vintages store, or directly delivered to your home via our online shop.
Our winter food program continues to grow in strength with fresh PEI oysters delivered twice a week, delicious individual piping hot lasagnas, and fresh in-house cured and smoked trout served with warm sourdough bread. Serving daily with seating available indoors, outdoors by roaring fire pits, or in our cozy outdoor heated cabanas.
As always if you can’t make it to the County we’re happy to deliver it directly to your front door across Canada through our online store. Free shipping is available for Ontario orders $90+, and orders to Quebec and the rest of Canada of $200+. Mixed cases welcome!
Cheers,
Norm
2017 Riesling Review — Michael Vaughan
“Norman Hardie is an extremely accomplished and creative winemaker who is always learning. He often produces great wines that defy comprehension and this 2017 Riesling is one of them. Bright medium straw colour, it has an extremely intense, complex, mineral-driven, yellow-grapefruit-tinged, ripe, just-out-of-the-oven, apple-lemon nose with some hints of slightly spicy meringue. Slightly off dry, medium bodied and beautifully structured, it’s surprisingly complex, intense, with lots of ripe apple-lemon fruit flavours with a lingering, crisp, meringue-tinged finish.
This outstanding Riesling has 11% alcohol and 10 g/L residual sugar with lot number L100318 on the lower part of the glass bottle and a screw-cap closure. Sourced from a number of sites in the Niagara Escarpment and Prince Edward County. Each block is individually whole cluster pressed and fermented separately in stainless steel than aged 4 months with no malolactic fermentation.
Buy a case today. If you have just 2 bottles a year, by the time you finish you will regret not buying four times as much. The 2017 is best Riesling he has produced yet – it will get better every year over the next decade ending up with say 95-points.”
93/100
-Michael Vaughan, Vintage Assessments