Mother Nature is teasing us with some Spring-like days. With Easter just around the corner we can all be positive that hot Summer days are close by.
Margaret as usual has taken on the challenge of managing the paperwork for our incredible Thai workers who return to work each year at the winery. This year it has been particularly challenging due to the impact of COVID. Due to her diligence, hard-work, fortitude, and (slightly) cunning ways, we estimate our Thai workers to arrive in a couple of weeks, just in time for another season.
Our Cuvée Tornado has quickly adopted a strong cult following and sells out very quickly. Fortunately it’s not the “cool factor” that allows the wine to move so quickly, it is simply a delicious expression of skin-contact Pinot Gris grown on these beautifully rocky mineral sites. This perfect Spring & Summer wine is now available both at the winery and in our online store. Read below for more on the history of this Cuvée.
The pizza oven will re-open for the 2022 season on Friday, April 22nd. Erica, our Director of Hospitality for the last 5+ years, has completed the enormous and thankful task of hiring close to 60+ employees. We believe they will be the best “class” yet of Summer students we’ve had since opening the oven. As always our pizza menu will remain similar to past years. We will be adding some vegan cheese options and a larger selection of salads. Neapolitan-style pizzas, fresh salads, PEI oysters (delivered three times weekly), and in-house smoked trout will all be available daily. Our Winter food program will run until the pizza oven re-opens.
Chaka Chikodzi who created our beautiful sculpture garden will be on hand even more this summer. He will be setting up a sculpting shop on our property, and will be on hand to answer any of your questions. He is simply one of the nicest humans I know, and his stone carving abilities are a true reflection of him as a great person.
We look forward to welcoming you to Prince Edward County! As always if you can’t make it to the County, we are happy to deliver directly from our cellar to your front door via our online store. Free shipping is available for most orders, even smaller ones. We ship across Canada including Quebec.
Cheers,
Norm and the entire Norman Hardie Winery Team
Cuvée Tornado History
In 2016, our first vintage of “Tornado” Pinot Gris was a result of an unexpected Tornado warning just after we had loaded the press and started pressing. We rolled the press drum so it would hold the juice and skins, shut the power off, covered it with a tarp and rode out the storm. Once the storm had passed the next morning, we pressed the must and out came this beautiful, highly aromatic, slightly pink juice. The juice was racked and put to old barrels to ferment and age. Fortunately, we do not have tornadoes each year, but we continue follow the tradition of making this wine.
This attractive, slightly pink skin contact wine has a beautiful nose of fresh all spice and citrus. On the palate there is a delicate spicy, viscous quality without the wine being cloying. The wine is unfiltered, unfined and was bottled with minimal sulphur additions. Delicious any time after 11am. Available now in our online store.