Post-TasteCamp North interviews: Jonathan Wilson of Labeled.ca

By Remy Charest | Published: May 22, 2011

TasteCamp North, held on both sides of the Niagara river on May 13-15, was a lot of fun and very instructive for the thirty-some wine bloggers and writers present. Pursuing a tradition started by Lenn Thompson for the first two TasteCamps, held in his home turf of New York State, I’ve decided to ask bloggers from outside the region to answer a short series of questions detailing their impressions of the region.

First up is Jonathan Wilson, a Nova Scotia sommelier who writes the Labeled.ca blog, dedicated to “opening bottles and minds”. Jonathan was also one of the artisans of the online Marc Madness that had the twitter wine community ablaze for weeks, earlier this year.

Was this your first visit to Niagara – in Canada and/or the US?

I hadn’t been to the Canadian side in some time.  It was my first visit since really becoming serious about wine.  My last visit was during a time in which wine was a hobby, this time I viewed the areas through a completely different set of eyes.  This was, however, my first trip to the US side.  There are a lot of similarities between Niagara Falls, US and Nova Scotia when it comes to finding their identity as a wine region.  It was interesting to see.

Had you ever had any Niagara wines before? If so, what was your impression of them?

I try and taste as much Canadian wine as I can.  That being said, not nearly enough Read More »

Posted in Niagara, Ontario, United States, wine, wine blog | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Ready for TasteCamp North: What’s So Great About Niagara, Anyway?

By Remy Charest | Published: May 10, 2011

Pinot noir grapes at Hidden Bench, just after véraison, in August 2010

Friday, May 13, will mark the beginning of TasteCamp North, a three-day exploration of Niagara wine country, on both sides of the Canada-USA border. 40 wine lovers from as far as Colorado, Indiana and Nova Scotia will start tasting, spitting, evaluating, tweeting and blogging about the wines, the region and the people who turn local grapes into wine.

This third edition of TasteCamp, created by Lenn Thompson, head honcho of the New York Cork Report, is the culmination of nearly a year’s work, all done in their free time by a small group of wine lovers (Rick Van Sickle, Suresh Doss, Bryan Calandrelli and myself, under the supervision of the founder himself), with the support of a great bunch of sponsors.

I’m obviously pretty excited to meet with everyone, and very eager to see what those writers and bloggers, many of whom will be visiting the area for the first time, will think about what the region has to offer. For my part, it will be the first time I get to taste the wines from the US side of Niagara, something I’m really looking forward to. The full program of events should allow everyone to get a good sense of what the region – or regions – are all about.

Why should you bother coming to Niagara?

As the event nears, Read More »

Posted in Canada, Niagara, Ontario, United States, wineries | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Can blind tasting help you see things clearly?

By Remy Charest | Published: May 4, 2011

Oh, Twitter. The things you make me do.

Last Saturday, I caught a tweet by Cory Cartwright which said – a little provocatively, I’m sure: “Blind tastings, dumb? or just a waste of time?”. Despite many reactions by a lot of serious people, Cory never followed up on that tweet, and since he’s put his blog Saignée on hiatus, there’s no post either to give us any insight into what he meant exactly.

That didn’t stop some other tweeter to jump me insisting that blind tastings are not serious, useless even, akin to trying to describe sushi in the dark.

Say what?

I still don’t get how that came about. I’d replied to Alice Feiring, who said “there’s always something to learn”, and added that “You need to approach wine from many perspectives. Blind tastings give you 1 perspective, barrels another.” And later on, I pointed him to a story Read More »

Posted in ratings, wine, wine trade | Tagged , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Tasting Note: 2009 Old Vines Chenin Blanc, Road 13 Vineyards, Okanagan Valley VQA

By Remy Charest | Published: April 30, 2011

Road 13 Vineyards, at the southern end of the Okanagan Valley, has certainly won notice for the remarkable blends that Michael Bartier, the estate’s winemaker until last January, put together seamlessly from sometimes improbable combinations of varieties. Whether it’s the Stemwinder white (chardonnay, chardonnay musqué and sauvignon blanc) or the Rockpile red (60% syrah, 19% merlot, 10% cabernet sauvignon, 6% cabernet franc, 2% zinfandel and 1% each of viognier, grenache and mourvèdre), those blends were remarkably coherent and convergent, with the different components flowing together quite harmoniously.

When I visited the winery Read More »

Posted in British Columbia, Canada, chenin blanc, tasting, white wine | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Forget March Madness, join Marc Madness

By Remy Charest | Published: March 22, 2011

In some ways, it’s one of the silliest things I’ve seen in the world of wine writing, and at the same time (and largely for the same reason), it’s also one of the most brilliant and exciting things I’ve seen.

Vaguely inspired by the NCAA’s March Madness, two really cool Canadian wine guys, Jonathan Wilson and Joel Wilcox, created this grape competition called Marc Madness, a varietal answer to varsity sports that you can follow on Twitter using the #marcmad hashtag.

The idea is to Read More »

Posted in Canada, red wine, white wine, wine | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments