Unusual Wine Grapes at the Gourmet Food and Wine Expo

Sure, every Ontario wine drinker knows about chardonnay and cabernet sauvignon. But at this year's Gourmet Food and Wine Expo, I thought it would be fun to explore some of the more unusual grapes being grown in this province.

Pelee Island Winery has been established for a long time, and its bird- and flower-labelled bottles are a staple for Ontario drinkers of modestly priced wines. A few years ago, the winery partnered with the Nature Conservancy of Canada to rehabilitate a walking trail in their neighbourhood, and they marked the event with the release of a pair of unusual blends named Eco Trail, both priced at about $10. The red (LCBO 612465) is a blend of baco noir, cabernet franc and chambourcin, which, explains Pelee Island sales manager Darryl MacMillan, is a French native varietal sometimes grown in Australia that winters well and yields small, intensely-flavoured grapes.

In combination with the baco noir, he says, the chambourcin lifts the flavour and adds elegance. For the price, I was pleased with the blend's light juicy taste that reminded me of roses and cherries. In Ontario, Konzelmann and Frog Pond also use chambourcin grapes.

The Eco Trail White (LCBO 591719) blends chardonnay with another relative rarity: auxerrois, a grape related to pinot blanc that is grown in Alsace and in the Moselle region of Germany. Although it isn't as prominent here as some other grapes, MacMillan says that auxerrois is "grown quite a bit in Ontario", since, like the chambourcin, it withstands our winters well.

I found the Eco Trail blend to have a bright citrussy scent of sweet melon with pear undertones and a sweet-sour nectar flavour with a pineapple quality; for the price, it seems a bargain. Some other wineries that use auxerrois grapes are Southbrook, Château des Charmes and Ancient Coast. Mike Weir Wine has recently launched a second label called Underdog, with White (LCBO 248476) and Red (248484) blends that sell for $14. The White uses auxerrois with sauvignon blanc, riesling and gewürztraminer; both red and white were being sampled at the expo.

Incidentally, in 2010, Pelee Island launched a couple of new wine series: Lighthouse (a riesling and a cabernet franc, soon to be joined by a merlot and a chardonnay), and Alvar, named for a landscape type consisting of a thin layer of topsoil over limestone (a pinot noir, a cabernet sauvignon, a cabernet sauvignon-merlot, a semillon blanc and a chardonnay-gewürztraminer). The Lighthouse and Alvar wines sell in the $12 to $15 range.

Alvento Winery is a much newer establishment; their first vintage arrived in 2006 and was released in 2009. Their portfolio includes a wine called Aria, which is made from nebbiolo grapes, common in Italy but extremely rare here. However, says Alvento winemaker Bruno Moos, "it's a similar climate. [In Italy], nebbiolo grows up to 2,000 metres. It doesn't get as cold in the winter there, but it does get quite cold."

I didn't previously know that nebbiolo is famously a wine that's supposed to be opened hours before it's drunk. I was told the 2007 bottle I tried had only been open for a shockingly brief two hours. That might explain why it seemed to have so little scent; however it was a pretty amber-red colour and offered a pleasing taste of woody herbs like thyme and oregano. There's still some of the 2006 Aria at Vintages ($21.35, 176874) Ridgepoint Winery may be the only other Ontario winery to use nebbiolo grapes.

On a side note, I enjoyed tasting some British Columbia wines, courtesy of Jamie Crain of Terroir Wines and Spirits. He handles about 40 of the best known BC wines, which are rather difficult to come by in Ontario. He sells mostly to restaurants and private clients who can afford to buy a case at a time, but through his agency several interesting choices are launching at Vintages, including LuLu Island Cabernet Sauvignon ($19.95, Vintages 254219), Aces Wine Seven Deuces Red ($29.95, 273631) and the pricey but delicious Cassini Cellars Collector's Series, a juicy syrah with a rich aromatic scent and a fruitcakey blackberry-plum flavour ($45.95, 255752).

The 2011 Gourmet Food and Wine Expo continues until 6 p.m. today.