On The Town: A Day at Tawse Winery

As you all have probably noticed I’ve totally fallen for local (Ontario, duh) wines.  Read about my other trips out to Niagara here and here. So when I was invited to join a food bloggers’ excursion to spend the day at Tawse Winery I didn’t hesitate to say yes.

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Our leader for the day was Paul Pender, Tawse’s winemaker. Not only did we get a tour of the Cherry Avenue and Quarry Road sites but we learned a lot about the philosophy behind wine-making at Tawse. Paul introduced me to two really interesting ideas: Biodynamics and Terroir. At Tawse they use organic and biodynamic farming techniques to ensure the quality of their vines. A really basic explanation of what biodynamic means is  that it’s the idea of the land being it’s own self-contained ecosystem, requiring no additional fertilizers, pesticides etc. (Check out Tawse’s site for a good intro to the idea of biodynamics). At Tawse they have integrated animals as a way of enhancing this ecosystem. There are horses that are used (sometimes) in place of tractors, sheep to prune the vines and chickens to aerate the soil. Of course the excrement left behind by these animals help the soil as well. They have also planted clover among the vines as a weed suppressant. Pretty cool stuff and kind of neat to see the animals frolicking amongst the vines.

While the biodynamics stuff was fascinating, what really got me thinking was the idea of Terroir. I’ve heard this term thrown around by wine folks and to be honest, thought it sounded kind of scammy (without giving it much thought). Terroir is the idea/belief that the soil in which the grapes are grown gives the wine characteristic of that particular region. We had the opportunity to test this out during our blind tasting in the new tasting room. We were given some tank samples and finished wines of Chardonnay’s and Pinot Noir from both the Cherry Ave and Quarry Road sites. We were to guess which wines came from which land based on characteristics we were given earlier. Sounds nearly impossible, right? I was shocked that I got 2 out of 3 correct! The Cherry Ave wines to tend to be richer and more complex, while the Quarry Rd wines are “tighter” with more minerality. The blind tasting was a really great exercise to understand the difference that Terroir can make.

After our tasting it was on to our lunch prepared by fabulous chefs from The Only on King in London, ON, paired of course with Tawse wines.  We started off with a great pumpkin soup topped with blue cheese.  Butternut squash soup is one of my favourite types of soup, so naturally I loved the pumpkin soup.  And why didn’t I think of putting blue cheese in my squash soups before? Such a great flavour combination.

The next course was a an autumnal salad using vegetables from Soiled Reputation. The salad featured a mixture of beets and root vegetables and was topped with… LAMB BACON. Lamb bacon is my new obsession. I need to find a butcher that will make me lamb bacon. I can’t pinpoint what I loved about it so much but let me just tell you it was delicious.

Our next two courses featured delicately perfect gnocchi in brown butter with leeks and a roast chicken with sauerkraut and mustard sauce. The gnocchi were really light and airy and were perfectly paired with the leeks. I was less excited about the chicken because chicken freaks me out a bit. Despite that the chicken was pretty good! I liked the idea of chicken with Sauerkraut, nice touch! For dessert we had a chocolate and walnut torte with chantilly. It was a nice, chocolatey finish to our meal.

As Tawse is a winery we had the opportunity to try many wines. This was particularly fantastic because Tawse was recently named Canada’s Winery of the Year at the Canadian Wine Awards where they took home 18 medals. We tried the award-winning 08 Robyn’s Block Chardonnay and 08 Quarry Road Chardonnay as part of our blind tasting. Over lunch we had some lovely Pinot Noirs including the 08 Lauritzen and 08 Cherry Ave. A really great treat was the chance to sample the 2005 Ninety-nine/One Pinot Noir, so named because it contains 99% grapes from Burgundy and only 1% from Ontario (due to a terrible frost Ontario crops were destroyed). We also had the 08 Wismer Lakeview Vineyard Riesling and the 08 Tawse Riesling. As a riesling fan I enjoyed them both and purchased a bottle of the Tawse Riesling for later.

Just when I thought the day couldn’t get any better I stumbled upon eggs for sale at the winery! Since Tawse has chickens and chickens lay eggs they sell the eggs in the wine shop. Who doesn’t love farm fresh eggs? They were not only gorgeous and delicious but have been consumed in eggs benedict, quiche and a lemon tart.

If you have the opportunity to visit Niagara, Tawse is worth checking out especially if you have an interest in all things “green”. Thanks to the folks at Tawse, Moray, Paul and Daniel for hosting us and to Suresh for organizing a great day!