Guest of honour

"Albert’s Honour” is a tribute to proprietor Martin Malivoire’s great-uncle, who was awarded the French Legion of Honour medal for heroism in World War I. This generous, floral wine is the perfect one to pour when you want to impress someone (and that includes you!).

Riesling with style

Riesling fans, mark your calendars! International Riesling Day, March 13, is just around the corner. One of the most expressive and versatile grape varieties, Riesling thrives in Ontario’s wine scene with its ideal combination of cool climate, mineral-rich soils and skilled winemakers. These local wines illustrate four stylistic facets of Riesling, just in time to celebrate the big day.

Thirty Bench crafted their Sparkling Riesling in the traditional method of Champagne, using fruit harvested by hand in the autumns of 2019 and 2020. After the base wine was fermented, it aged on the lees for just over a year, which brought subtle touches of the brioche character prized in bottle-fermented sparkling wines while retaining the Riesling’s bright natural acidity and expressiveness. Dosage was added using still wine aged in similar conditions alongside the sparkling wine, ultimately creating a seamlessly elegant fizz.

Cave Spring Vineyard has been specializing in top-tier Riesling for decades, and their CSV is consistently one of the finest local examples of dry Riesling. Made from fruit grown from a single estate vineyard consisting of complex, stony clay till composed primarily of limestone and dolostone mixed with sandstone, shale and traces of granite and gneiss, the wine beautifully conveys the minerality of its origins. The 2022 vintage was fermented exclusively with indigenous yeast, half in oak casks and half in stainless steel, and spent 12 months resting on the lees.

Inniskillin was the winery that originally put Icewine — and in the process, Canada — on the international wine map, so it’s no surprise that their Riesling Icewine is a stunner. The 2022 vintage was harvested in the third week of December that year, when ideally frigid temperatures of -10°C signalled the perfect time to collect the frozen grapes. After the lusciously sweet, concentrated juice was pressed from the fruit, temperature-controlled fermentation occurred in stainless steel over a span of 23 days to retain the Riesling’s beautiful, balancing natural acidity

Megalomaniac boasts a beautiful example of off-dry (partly sweet) Riesling with their 2023 vintage of Narcissist. This style is accomplished by allowing the Riesling to retain some of its natural sugars during the vinification process. Riesling’s brilliant natural acidity means the wine stays perfectly in balance, with the acidity providing a lovely counterpoint to the residual sweetness and resulting in a crisp, bright finish. The kiss of sweetness means the wine pairs nicely with spicier foods.