Every two weeks, the wine critics of Toronto gather at an old warehouse by the expressway. One by one they trickle into the foyer, squeezing past deliverymen and other people who work for a living. They sign in at one security desk, and then another, and then they wander down a corridor into a brightly lit room simply called “the lab.” This is the LCBO’s tasting clinic, where the media come to review wines. At any given session, there are about 140 open bottles on the lab’s counter, arranged in a long queue that begins promisingly with sparkling wines and ends in an uphill slog of non-vintage port and grappa.
I like arriving late. You can learn a lot about what’s in the lab by examining how much is left in the bottle after the other writers have picked their way through. As you would suspect, expensive Barolo and Burgundies attract scrutiny. By way of contrast, there are always some wines whose waterline barely slips below the neck: Moroccan wine, Moldovan wine, Macedonian wine, just to name the Ms. In other words, bottles from the margins of the international market. The critics may sample these wines but no one I know dilly-dallies with them. No one, that is, except me.
I love bottles from the neglected corners of the wine world. Strange, indigenous grapes and new, experimental terroir is the best cure for the palate fatigue caused by too much Australian Chardonnay. Not that all marginal wines are superstars. They are usually table wines, and usually rough table wines at that — but for all their rusticity, they offer something that even the most expensive wine cannot give: a picture of the vast plenitude of Earth’s viniculture.
For instance, I recently pre-sampled Cotnari’s 2008 Tamâiosa Româneasca ($12.95, Vintages #651653) from Romania. Although almost unheard of in North America, the sweet whites of Cotnari (it is a winery and also an appellation) have a long history of excellence, and now provide some of the best bargains for dessert wines in the world; it’s balanced, agile and fragrant with notes of poached pear and dried apricots.
Another great discovery is Mildiani’s 2004 Kindzmarauli ($15.95, Vintages #682781) from Georgia. This excellent bargain is made from late harvest Saperavi grapes, giving it more sugar than your typical table wine, but less than a true dessert wine. It offers incredibly complex flavours of persimmon, aloe and lemongrass in a surprisingly light body. The tannins are still robust, giving it some capacity to evolve in the next 2-3 years. It’s a unique product but very compelling, especially when matched with soft, gooey cheese.
Stay tuned for the next Short Cellar, when I will talk a little bit more about wine from the far-flung corners of the earth.
Matthew Sullivan is a civil litigator in Toronto. He blogs weekly here on lawandstyle.ca. The Short Cellar column also appears in the print edition of Precedent. Matthew can be reached at matthew@lawandstyle.beta-site.ca. Follow along on Twitter: @shortcellar.
Photo courtesy of the Minnesota Historical Society