Greetings Riesling Land,
Summer is here, has been in fact since March and the vineyards are in spectacular shape. Now is the time to introduce new vintages of Riesling. This project is based on capturing snapshots of the Niagara Escarpment through the lens of Riesling – one vineyard and one vintage at a time.
Since 2005, I have been working with the Picone Vineyard on Vinemount Ridge. The wine has been consistent in depth and character. If you have followed this wine, you will have come to love it's generous mouth-filling texture that is balanced by finely streamed acidity. It is a fragrant wine, a floral wine, a Niagara Riesling.
The 2010 CB Riesling from the Picone Vineyard is a true expression of Niagara Riesling…from a warm vintage. 2010 gave our team very little fruit to work with – in fact we harvested scarcely over 1 ton per acre. We made the least amount of wine from the largest surface of the vineyard. In fact we used the entire vineyard and only bottled just over 400 cases. What does this mean? Well for one it means even more concentrations and extract of that elusive character we all chase. We ultimately hope we capture a little "there, there" in our wines.
This wine is perhaps the driest of them all. I like this change in style – it keeps me on my toes.
To purchase the 2010 Picone Riesling, please click here. You will have few regrets. Few have.
My continued gratitude to Mark Picone for trusting me with his magical vineyard. As time passes, his care and attention make working on this farm even more rewarding and enjoyable. He is a true vigneron.
In early 2010, I met Bob Nedelko, proprietor of the tidy 12-acre Ivan vineyard on the Twenty-Mile Bench. Just over 1 acre is devoted to Riesling. We shook hands and got down to work. The 2010 result was a fiery, chrome-plated, truck-munching Riesling. There is plenty of ripe lime-orange rind character with a firm, pungent, penetrating palate. We bottled 90 cases. It sold out immediately.
We are now pleased to present the 2011 Ivan vineyard. We cropped even lower, sorted even more and watched it carefully ferment until we were left with a bright, zesty, quite dry, citrus filled gem. We managed to bottle just 50 cases. Not enough for a rocking patio evening really!
To make wine the way we do, we rely on vineyards for the most part but we must have partners who believe. In the Nedelko's, I have found that vineyard partner yet again and I am proud to label the wine from the vineyard Ivan, named after Bob's Father.
My continued gratitude to the team at Stratus for their on-going support of this winemaking effort.
Please order here. We will ship to you or you may pick up your order at Stratus Vineyards in Niagara-on-the-Lake.
Wishing you an outstanding end to 2012.
— CB