Part One: Inniskillin Wine Summer Series

Inniskillin Riesling | Photo: Kelly Hunt Welcome to Part One of Inniskillin Winemaker”s Series Summer Releases A few weeks back I agreed to do a sampling of four different local Ontario wines from Inniskillin Wineries. Remember the book Charlie and Chocolate Factory, where Willy Wonka sends out the golden tickets and the children go crazy trying to find a winning golden ticket? Well, Sean told me I looked just like little Charlie when I came home to find four bottles of local wine on the doorstep along with a personalized note. I will admit, it has been the highlight of my blogging career to date! So please join me in a series of four blog posts that I think you will enjoy. Each one of these wines is available at the LCBO and it would be fun if you could try them out with me. I am going to pair up each wine with a meal that I believe would go nicely with the wine. There will be mishaps along the way, and I am sure there will be winning combos as well. I am very excited to be a part of this series and I hope you will find it fun, but most of all – I hope you will explore some of the amazing wines that Ontario has up for offer. Part One: Meet Ms. Riesling Harvested in 2008 from two vineyards (Cooper Vineyard on the Twenty Mile Bench and Erigan Valley Vineyards on the Short Hills Bench), this Riesling has won a Gold Medal in the Decanter World Wine Awards 2010. The product sheet tells us the wine is a perfect accompaniment to poached, light textured fishes, white meats, shellfish, sushi, mild Asian cuisine, citrus based sauces and soft cheeses. When you pour this wine the first thing you will notice is its colour. It is a very pale yellow, a yellow so pale that it is almost clear, I liked looking at it. Sean was my taste tester for this wine and we sat outside on the deck at about quarter to eight on a very warm evening. We initially had a few sips of the wine without any food because we were a little giggly about being taste testers, so we thought – lets try this out on its own first. The first thing Sean said was “it smells really good”, he also offered up that it “smelled like an apple”. I prodded a bit and asked him “what kind of apple?”, he thought about this for a while and then said “one of those big yellow apples”. I am guessing that he was recalling a Mutsu or a Golden Delicious. I also agreed that the smell was light and pleasing. Next, we moved on to taste. First, I must say that it is a very hard thing to describe all of the subtleties that you taste when you are trying to concentrate on describing a wine. I went first – I could taste apple, but I swear it tasted to me like green apple instead, I am also sure I tasted starfruit and persimmon. A tad difficult to explain, but it is the crisp taste of those fruits that were there for me, along with a really light lime taste, like I said, a light taste – but it is there all the same. Sean could taste golden apple and he also commented that it was a nice mellow taste. After our initial sips, we started to dig into our summer meal. Fresh peas are now on the market, so for the pairing of this Riesling I decided to make a sweet pea quiche. I found this recipe in one of my new cookbooks from Niagara Chef Lynn Ogryzlo and this dish is delicious. I was at O”Sheas Family Farm on the weekend and I was able to purchase these peas there. In this dish you will taste the saltiness of bacon, the earthy anise flavour of the fresh tarragon, the crisp and green taste of the freshly shelled peas and then pulling it all together, the overall creaminess of the heavy cream. Sweet Pea Quiche With the addition of bacon in this dish, there is a saltiness present in the quiche that the Riesling seems to embrace. The wine also goes really well with the taste of the peas. Sean and I both found that the wine”s flavour actually improved with the meal. It seems that pairing the wine with the quiche, it all rounds itself out and seems to taste even better. Lynn Ogryzlo”s Sweet Pea Quiche which appears in Niagara Cooks 1 cup all purpose flour (I used Arva Flour Mill Flour) 1/4 cup Parmesan Cheese 1 tablespoon of fresh thyme (I used dried as I did not have fresh) pinch of salt 1/2 cup unsalted Gay Lea Butter 1 farm fresh egg 2 strips of smoked bacon, diced ( I used 5 as mine seemed pretty small) 1 1/2 cups of fresh, shelled sweet peas 1 tablespoon of fresh tarragon, torn 4 farm fresh eggs 3/4 cup of milk or heavy cream ( I used some fresh whipping style cream – oh yeah!) salt and freshly ground black pepper Preheat oven to 400. In a food processor, combine flour, cheese, thyme and salt. Blend. Add butter and process until it forms a ball. Lynn says to roll out this pastry into a round and then press into a 6 inch spring form pan or loose-based cake pan. I found that once I rolled the pastry I could not get it off the counter in one piece, so I ended up taking my ball of pastry and pressing it all into my pan gently until I had an even covering of pastry. Prick the base of the pastry and chill. While that is chilling, cook the diced bacon in a pan until crisp. Drain on paper towels. Sprinkle bacon into the pastry base, then dump the peas on top of the bacon, sprinkle evenly with tarragon. Whisk the eggs, cream, salt and pepper together and pour this mixture into the pie shell over the peas. Cover with aluminum foil loosely and place in the oven. Cook for 20 minutes, then remove foil and cook for an additional 25 minutes. I found I cooked it for closer to an additional 35 minutes. Cook until browned. Serve warm or cold. This unique combination of cream, tarragon, Parmesan, egg, peas and bacon culminate to a finished quiche that I think is a perfect pairing for this wine. Would I make this again? Yes! Would I serve this wine with this meal again? Yes More information on this Reisling can be found here and if you would like to read about the next three wines I will be sampling they can be found on the Inniskillin Facebook page. Off to a great start!  Read More

Ontario Wine 30 Day Challenge – Happily Swish, Suck and Spit!

Let”s talk about grapes – Ontario grapes. More importantly, let”s talk about fermented Ontario grapes – you know, wine! I know you are out there (like me), you are trying your very best to be a locavore. You are eating within your 100 miles, you are shopping the Farmers Markets, you may be growing some of your own vegetables, you are reading my blog (thanks!), hey – if you are really living on the edge, you may even have a few backyard chickens. Well, that seems to have your food decisions covered and good on you, because that is where we can make our biggest difference in food miles (farm to plate), but what about beverage? What about fun beverages… like wine? Just what is a locavore to do when it comes to deciding where their wine comes from? Fortunately for Ontario locavores,we have something amazing going for us. Aside from living in Southwestern Ontario and being literally surrounded by fertile farmlands to eat from,we are also side swept by some of the best growing conditions for wine on the planet. Ontario wineries are generally located on the shores of Lakes Erie and Ontario, placing them very close to us and well within a 100 miles or so. map from the thinkglobaldrinklocal web site There is the lovely Niagara Region that sits at the Southwestern side of Lake Ontario and then there is the equally lovely Lake Erie North Shore and Pelee Island regions. Both of these regions produce wines of superior quality that equal or even sometimes rival those of expensive imports. map from the thinkglobaldrinklocal web site You may not know this, but these two regions actually sit right inside the Northern Grape Growing Belt. What is the Northern Grape Growing Belt you ask? Well, it is an area where Northern Climate wines flourish in – and it happens to be the same belt that most famous French wineries reside it. It gets better! The two Great Lakes involved here, help to create this fantastic diddy called a micro climate (a local atmospheric zone where climate is different from its surrounding zones), which results in conditions for growing grapes even better – that means that some of our Ontario wines can actually kick some French butt! A little earlier today I put a tweet out and asked some of my follower/friends “What is Your Favourite Ontario Wine”, well some of them responded that the 2006 Pelee Island Gewurztraminer was a favourite, someone else chose Peller Estates French Cross Pinot Grigio was their favourite – and mine, well… it is very hard to narrow down and I have not tried enough to even say I have sampled the region (there are so many!), but this summer, for the time being I will say that I am a little addicted to East Dell Estate”s Pinot Noir. Yo” East Dell – send me a case for the free plug! lol. In case you have not heard, the Wine Council of Ontario has launched a challenge. They want you to try and drink only Ontario wines for 30 days. It”s really not much of a challenge for me, heh heh – you want me to drink wine for 30 days? Hey, no probs! Now I know some of you are sticky on what is authentically and wholly found within a 100-mile radius and although drinking Ontario Wines for 30 days may not seem like much of a challenge, it actually is. You see, this evening on the way home I heard a CBC story about wine labels that state “Cellared in Canada” and how they may be misleading to consumers. As it turns out, a lot of these wines are in fact not purely Canadian wines. They can have up to 70% of imported product in them. One way to make sure you are drinking a pure Ontario wine, is to look for the winery first, make sure you recognize it as an Ontario Winery, then look at the grape. If it is a blended grape variety – sometimes (not always!) the grape or juice comes from afar and is blended into the local supply. Read the label carefully, but most importantly have fun with this challenge! Sample a few Ontario wines for 30 days, don”t develop a problem and hey – you might just find a new favourite that you just can”t get enough of! Happy sipping Kelly xo ps Going on another camping trip – so you are stuck with this post for a few days – which means I would love to see tons of comments! Post what your favourite Ontario wine is, and if you change your mind over the next 30 days – post again!  Read More