As members of the Flat Rock Cellars wine club we had the opportunity to purchase some bottles of 2009 Riesling. We have a group of friends who we have done wine and spirits tastings, and we thought this would be a great opportunity to do a Riesling tasting. I was originally thinking of doing Rieslings from the major areas; Germany, Alsace, Austria, as well as Niagara. However, we decided to just focus on Niagara.

As it happened, the day of the tasting was the same as the Riesling Spree at Flat Rock Cellars. This was a chance to taste the 2019 Rieslings prior to bottling. We have enjoyed out previous 2 visits to Flat Rock, and this visit was the best yet. Once we signed in, we lined up for some food paired with wines poured by the owner, Ed Madronich. The sausages & sauerkraut, samosas, and apricot & pear tarts were wonderfully paired with some older vintages of Flat Rock Riesling. The Reserve is not one that they do every year, and it was very unique for a Riesling, as this vintage (2014?) actually had 25% of the wine undergo malolactic fermentation. This provided an unusual creaminess, almost as if there was some Chardonnay in it. Then we were served a Nadja’s Vineyard, and the lively acidity and hint of sweetness paired beautifully with the spicy samosas. The Estate was next, and the more noticeable sweetness worked well with the tarts. This is a delightful wine on it’s own, but after the Nadja’s Vineyards brightness it felt a bit one-dimensional.

We had more time before our 3:30 session with Allison Findlay, the assistant winemaker, so we wandered into the tasting room to try a couple of wines. On a previous weekend in the Twenty Valley we’d sampled Gewürztraminer at a few different wineries, and really liked it, but the one at Flat Rock wasn’t memorable. Tasting it again I realized that it was a drier, more peppery style, whereas the ones at Featherstone and Tawse were more on the fruity side with a higher level of residual sugar. My tastes do lean to the fruity, especially since Gewürz is known for tasting of my favourite fruit (lychees), but after tasting this one again I could understand the appeal. The other wine we sampled was the Twisted Red. It was a mostly Cabernet Sauvignon blend that was pleasant and easy drinking, but not to my taste.

Finally it was time for our tasting, and Allison took us down into the “pit” where the tall stainless-steel tanks for their whites reside. She gave us a bit of an intro about the Riesling, answered questions, and poured us a taste. It was a sight to see her just open a tap on the side of this massive tank, dispense some of the freshly fermented wine into an ordinary jug, then pour us each a taste. And oh, what a taste it was. First the 2019 Estate was lively and balanced, with notes of citrus and apples. Then we had the Nadja’s Vineyard. This is a single-vineyard expression from the limestone-rich soils of the upper part of their property. This is a wine that has lingered in my thoughts since tasting it. More notes of apples and citrus and a strong backbone of minerality, but the racy acidity was so lively and fresh, that is what has stayed with me. We had 12 more Riesling’s later that night (checkout the next post), and none of them measured up to that bright, beautiful wine.

The next wine was also a neat treat. Most of Flat Rock’s Riesling, and in fact most of the Riesling in Niagara, is a German clone (21b) brought to Canada by Herman Weis, from the Mosel Valley. A few years ago, Flat Rock decided to expand the Nadja’s Vineyard plot, and planted it with a clone from Alsace (49). This is the first year that the vines are ready to make, and that day we were among the first to taste the little sister of Nadja’s Vineyard, the new Flat Rock NV2. This was a distinctly different wine, a bit softer and lighter, without quite the zing. I wish I knew enough to tell you how much of the difference was the age of the vines, and how much was the clone. After tasting a wine from Alsace later that night, I suspect it was more the latter that made the difference, but I’ll check back in 10 years and let you know.

Once that was done, we head off to pickup our 2 bottle club order. This quarter is was the 2018 Gravity Pinot Noir, and 2 375ml bottles of the 2015 Twisted white. They also had a few back-vintages from their library available for club members to purchase, and I couldn’t resist a bottle of 2008 Nadja’s Vineyard Riesling, in addition to the 2009 Estate Riesling I’d already ordered.

Overall this was a very cool experience, and I highly recommend it.