Virtual VQA
Virtual VQA. The Wine Marketing Association of Ontario wants you (yes, you!) to Enjoy a Virtual VQA Getaway with the release of its new Wine Country Ontario 2021/22 Travel Guide. The guide features 142 Ontario VQA wineries, organized by offish appellation (grape-growing region) and emerging regions. It has a new section on sustainability, and also highlights what's trending in wine, such as natural wines (which “applies to wines made with the loose concept of ‘nothing added, nothing taken away’”), and orange wines (Ontario was one of the first countries in the world to establish a Skin Fermented White Wine Category, which means it’s regulated). In Ontario, the VQA designation means that wines meet origin, vintage and other standards (but there are other Ontario wineries that are not VQA-certified). You can virtually support Ontario wine by drinking it IRL, ordering direct from winery, bottle shops, or LCBO. Also there’s a new County Collab Pinot Gris mix pack ($125, while quantities last) featuring 2020 Little Fluffy Clouds from Trail Estate, 2018 Allegra from Hubbs Creek, two wines from Redtail Vineyards, and a virtual tasting with County Somm Thierry Alcântra-Stewart on May 18. I’ll be virtually visiting VQA wineries from my couch with Stanners Pinot Gris and Therianthropy’s Chardonnay over the next few stay-at-home weeks.
Top Notch Tawse. The Toronto Star's Carolyn Evans Hammond says Paul Pender makes "top-notch, terroir-driven wines in Niagara," in The man behind the wines at Tawse in Niagara. Pender is the director of viticulture and winemaking at Tawse, a family-owned organic winery, and before getting into winemaking, he was a carpenter. Pender decided on a career change because he became allergic to dust; he headed to Niagara College (“I’m sure I was one of those really annoying mature students”), and did a co-op at Tawse because he was interested in their focus on terroir (a French term meaning ‘a sense of place’). He’s been making wines at Tawse for 16 years, 80% of which are based on four varieties: Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Riesling and Cabernet Franc. A few of the wines that Pender is particularly proud of include the 2018 Tawse Quarry Road Chardonnay ($37.15 via winery, and $35.95 via LCBO Vintages) grown on limestone-rich soil on top of the Niagara Escarpment; and the 2019 Tawse Rosé ($16.15 via winery), a blend of Cabernet Franc, Pinot Noir, and Gamay that Pender says is “something you could sit on the beach and drink all day,” (I wish, Paul, I wish).
Domaine aux Moines. It was this impassioned post from Kieran Coyne of That's Life, a Toronto-based wine and sake agency, drinking 2019 Chenin from Tessa Laroche, that sent me on a Google search about the winemaker. Domaine aux Moines is located in Anjou in the Loire Valley, where mother and daughter, Monique and Tessa Laroche, produce mostly white wines, 100% Chenin, using organic farming with biodynamic practices. It was hard not to share in Coyne’s excitement in his one-and-a-half minute video, clad in Le Berceau de Fees merch, as he describes the wine: “it smells like Chenin Blanc, but it's just on another level, all the apples, all the pears, all the colours of the rainbow.…” In Ontario, the wine is imported by That's Life, and it is available for a limited time at various bottle shops, including Grape Witches, Paradise Grapevine, and Milou in Toronto.