Top Wine Picks! Traynor Family Vineyard

Mike and Rebecca Traynor, the folks behind Traynor Family Vineyard, purchased the Prince Edward County property in 2008. They turned a cornfield into a vineyard of Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc, as well as hybrid varieties Frontenac Gris and Marquette. Mike has a history with wine: working in retail shops and completing sommelier and winemaking courses before landing a gig as operations manager at Huff Estates. Later, he became the winemaker and general manager of Oak Heights. The first Traynor Family Vineyard harvest was in 2013.

This week My Wine Canada is featuring Traynor Family Vineyard by offering free shipping on six or more bottles (feel free to mix and match).

My favourites from Traynor are those steeped in experimentation, like the Madonna Vermouth. A fortified wine infused with local herbs and flowers like lilac, juniper, chamomile, hyssop, sumac, and lavender. It's tasty as an aperitif served over ice.

There is also the Trifecta lineup of three different pét-nats or pétillant-naturel—a style of making sparkling wine that only a few other wineries in Canada are doing. It's an ancient method where the fermenting wine is bottled before the fermentation has completely finished. This captures the CO2 in the bottle naturally. The Trifecta wines are a collaboration between Mike Traynor and The Courage Bar in Wellington. They were looking for a local pét-nat to serve and asked Mike if he would make it.

The Trifecta White 2016 is a blend of Pinot Gris and Sauvignon Blanc and comes in at 10.8% alcohol. It's fresh, fruity, and very easy drinking with notes of peach, pear, and banana. This is a great wine to drink outside in the sun. That being said, like most pét-nats make sure the bottle is very cold and settled before you open it; they have a tendency to give off a lot of foam. It's best to just barely crack the crown cap so the bottled up CO2 can escape before you open it all the way... or just disgorge it into a pitcher and pour from there!

Other favourites from the MWC staff are the Sauvignon Blanc and the super-trendy-right-now orange wine, in this case the Pét-Nat Sparkling Orange wine. The Sauvignon Blanc always amazes with its tropical fruit notes of passion fruit and guava, grapefruit zest, and baking spice. Well-balanced and with a roundness that sets it apart from the more common New Zealand style, it’s a Sauvignon Blanc that walks on the wild side.

The Pét-Nat Sparkling Orange is made from Frontenac Gris grapes that have been fermented in whole clusters. The orange colour comes from the contact that the juice has with the grape skins and seeds. This wine is fruity, delightfully bubbly, and pairs perfectly with finger foods, cheese boards, and salty snacks.

Click the bottles below for more information. Add 6 or more to your cart to get free shipping, this week only. This great deal ends Sunday at midnight!

     

Jake Skakun is a writer and sommelier from Vancouver, currently living in Toronto. He can be found most days pulling corks and twisting caps at the Grey Gardens. He Tweets and Instagrams @jakeskakun.