Inniskillin Wine Tasting at Nancy's Cheese

I got a last-minute invitation to attend an Inniskillin wine and cheese tasting tonight at the delightful Nancy's Cheese (260 Dupont, 647-343-0315). There was a small gathering of local food and wine types there by the time I arrived, primed and ready to try the new Inniskillin Reserve Series Cabernet Franc VQA 2007, released about a week ago at the LCBO, with a succesion of six cheeses chosen to accompany it. The cheeses, pictured above, are (left to right):

• Chèvre Noir (Damafro, Quebec): a salty pasteurized goat milk cheddar
• Île-aux-Grues 2-year-old Cheddar (Île-aux-Grues, Quebec): a "thermalized" cheddar, not as sharp and grainy as Balderson or Forfar. Thermalizing is heating to a low temperature, so it's in between pasteurized and non-pasteurized cheese.
• Piave (Belluno, Italy): A firm, pasteurized cow cheese very like a Parmigiano-Reggiano
• Roaring Forties Blue (King Island Dairy, Australia): A noble, creamy blue
• São Jorge (Loudrais, Portugal): An unpasteurized and very flavourful cheese, quite acidic, with a pleasantly strong, barnyardy flavour
• Blackburn (Fromagerie Blackburn, Jonquière, Quebec): This medium-textured, thermalized cheese seemed to befriend every wine we tried. Its washed rind is robustly nutty.

We tried three other wines before the Cab Franc was uncorked.

• Inniskillin Winemaker's Series Two Vineyards Riesling VQA 2008 (the 2007 is listed at the LCBO as Vintages 105387, $17.95): Very pale green-yellow with a pineapple-mango-citrus nose. I'm used to Rieslings that taste like pears or apples or peaches; this one had a surprisingly tart, citric-acid (Vitamin C) taste that got a little bit sweeter as it sat in the glass, ending up somewhere around the range of pink grapefruit.
• Inniskillin Winemaker's Series Three Vineyards Chardonnay VQA 2008 (the 2007 is listed as Vintages 105379, $17.95): Greenish with extremely tiny bubbles. A very subtle scent of pear or lychee, verging over to pumpkin or melon. The taste was surprisingly sweet in comparison, baked-appley, nicely acidic and rather warming at 13.5% alc/vol. With the 2-year-old Cheddar, it had a finish that reminded me of Cracker Jack. Or you could say caramel and butter with a hint of nuttiness if you prefer.
• Inniskillin Winemaker's Series Three Vineyards Pinot Noir VQA 2007 ($22.95): A dark brownish red with a sweet strawberry-cinnamon scent. Its taste is dark, like Kalamata olives or very dark chocolate, and the finish is pleasantly bitter.

• Inniskillin Reserve Series Cabernet Franc 2007 VQA (Vintages 91140, $16.95): Vincor rep Scott Starra called this "the quintessential red wine from Niagara in that vintage". (Vincor is the parent company of Inniskillin.) It had a deep plum-blackberry colour and a rich blueberry-blackberry nose with a hint of strawberry. The taste was peppery-spicy, close to liquorice, with a tendency to get richer and more fruitcake-like in the glass as it was exposed to the air. For most of the tasters there tonight, this seemed to be the favourite, although I might possibly go for the Riesling, despite my usual preference for sweeter rather than drier wines.

For the record, although all the cheeses were pretty good with the Cab Franc, the Blackburn was the standout. I also enjoyed it with the Roaring Forties and the São Jorge, and would be pleased to have any of those combinations again.