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Traditional Method - Blanc de Blanc, 2018

2018 Niagara Peninsula 750 mL, 12% ALC/VOL

Chardonnay

Critic's Rating 93 pts

Tasting Notes

If you can imagine dipping a freshly baked lemon/herb croissant into a cloud then you have some idea of how this wine tastes! The toasty/biscuity and lemon-curd aspect leaps immediately out of the glass, with a background of crème-fraiche and flowers. The palate is full and round, with a very fine mousse showing fresh-baked bread, lemon meringue, roasted almond and unicorn-dust. The terroir and old-vines really come through on the finish with an amazing mineral/flinty core and very present acidity. Enjoy now, but this wine will age gracefully over the next 8+ years if you want it to. Drink with fresh Malpeque oysters, hazelnut crusted halibut, and soft white cheeses.

Winemaking Notes

This 100% Chardonnay sparkling wine comes from a beautiful old vines (35+ years old) block on the Beamsville Bench. The base wine was fermented and aged on lees in barrel for 6 months. Made using the traditional method, the second fermentation happened in bottle followed by aging on lees for 36 months! It was disgorged on March 19th, 2022 with a 2 g/L dosage added.

Awards & Ratings

Critic's Rating

93pts

Single vineyard block called Hemeris (an old term for garden, or "something like that," from the Greek). Of chardonnay, location between (Hidden Bench's) Rosomel Vineyard and Cave Spring, picked late September and sometimes early October, for sparkling. Base wine is barrel fermented and aged in oak for six months. Spent 36 months on lees in bottle, finished at 2 g/L dosage (so essentially bone dry) and is now about to be released. This was the wine Nadia Senchuk pushed her husband for and this is the chardonnay tract that was needed to create it. Listen to the vineyard says Ilya, “because it’s basically growing bubbles.” Rich and exciting in the same breath, essential through autolytic response elicited and the breath stolen, literally taken away, every move made for the connection between I and it. An auspicious debut and were it not for the prophetic mind and ravishing palate of the winemaker's better half, well then access to supply might not be so limited. Drink 2022-2026. Tasted June 2022.

- Michael Godel