Last month we talked about how to start a wine cellar. To those who tuned in to the live broadcast we asked what we should take a look at in October. We got two responses – something white and something local. We could have looked at riesling, sparkling, or chardonnay.
It should be a surprise to no one who follows this site, or my writing in general that I used this as an opportunity to add more Chardonnay to my cellar. Up until a few years ago my cellar was comprised mainly of red wines. The whites I did manage to collect consisted of a few bottles of riesling. But as I’ve learned from a few sessions of clearing out Michael Pinkus’ cellar that many Rieslings from Ontario just don’t age as gracefully as I had hoped.
It was by accident I started holding more Chardonnay in my cellar. Simply put – I started buying more than I was drinking. I’ve always been a fan of consuming Chardonnay the moment it hits the market. But it wasn’t until I realized that after a couple years in bottle they start to mellow. When you open a bottle of Chardonnay while its young I find that the individual flavours can be quite disjointed. You’ll find spice, vanilla, orchard or tropical fruit – but they don’t necessarily feel harmonious. I used to play in punk bands – and young Chardonnay is definitely punk rock music – loud, obnoxious and a little disjointed. After a couple years in bottle things mellow, and a harmony between the flavours develop – you’ve gone from Punk Rock to a perfectly in tune string quartet.
The other thing about Chardonnay, especially these wines from Ontario, is you can get top shelf bottles without spending a lot of money. My cellar has a wide selection of bottles from Featherstone, 16 Mile, Meldville, Back 10 Cellars, Rosewood, and Bachelder.
When it comes to the wines from Bachelder – they are among my most expensive in my collection. I cherish these bottles of single vineyard Chardonnay that usually run around forty dollars. But I am always happy to recommend the “chalkboard” Niagara Chardonnay that you can frequently find in the vintages section of the LCBO. This is a wine I’m always happy to recommend to people because it usually outperforms its price point. That being said I’ve never given any thought to aging this wine. I buy a bottle ready to dive into some punk rock. It’s the thing about some great wines – they were not all made to spend time in a cellar (Nevermind the Bollocks Here’s the Chalkboard Bachelder). But, that’s the point of this whole series – it’s time to see if we can find some string quartets we may have overlooked.
So how long did we decide the 2017 Bachelder Niagara Chardonnay should sit in our cellars?
