Silence, dust mites, an absence of Thai cuisine, and a homonymic similarity to unprotected sex in a public washroom: what good can be said of cottaging? If it has any pleasures, I didn’t locate them after spending a harrowing 36 hours in a cabin in Prince Edward County. All that fresh air getting into my lungs nearly made me ill.
Mercifully, it being Prince Edward County, there was plenty of wine around to dull the pain. While others frolicked wetly or sunbathed on the deck, I resolved to do something productive with my life by scamming free samples at one of the local wineries. As I wrote about in my last column, the County is Canada’s newest official wine region. I wanted to see for myself how the wines measure up to a more established benchmark like Niagara.
I found myself at Huff Estates, a winery opened by the Huff family in 2004 (although the family’s roots in the area go back to the 1820s when they helped settle Prince Edward County as United Empire Loyalists). Not only do they have 40 acres of vines and a French winemaker, but several other rustic amenities: an adjoining inn, a lunch patio with live jazz, an excellent art gallery, and their very own helipad.
Their wines are excellent and are particularly well suited to summertime since they are so fresh and agile. Here are my tasting notes:
- Huff Estates 2008 Riesling Off Dry ($17.95, Vintages #155606)
- Sweet Rieslings have a bad name in Canada because so many teenagers earned their first hangover by drinking cheap German sugarbombs like Blue Nun. However, this nicely sculpted bottle shows what an off-dry Riesling is supposed to be: a balanced, well-rounded wine with lots of gulpability. It has the fleshy character of ripe apricots and Seville oranges, making it a perfect summer sipper. 88/100
- Huff Estates 2007 South Bay Chardonnay (
$29.95[Ed. Note: 2007 no longer available], Vintages #88955)
2007 was a fantastic vintage that created juicy, intense grapes all over Ontario. For their flagship Chardonnay, Huff decided to frame this high-quality fruit with a luxuriant dose of oak, viz. 18 months in French barrels. The result is quite special — a wine that is rich but also surprisingly light and easy. It has Chardonnay’s classic notes of spice, mint and nuts. This is a polished and delicious Chardonnay that is drinking well now and will age nicely until at least 2015. 90/100 - Picard MacLaurin 2007 Pinot Noir (
$28.95[Ed. Note: No longer available], from winery)
This Pinot Noir is not officially a Huff wine. It’s made in small quantities (just 5 barrels) by Huff’s winemaker (Frederic Picard) and Sales Manager (Karen MacLaurin). Hats off to this sort of extracurricular experimentation, because this is an excellent bottle with great value for the Pinotphile. Lifted, tangy fruit is layered with notes of bitter cocoa, roses and tree-bark. The tannins are dusty and promise several years of improvement in the cellar. 90/100
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 by Gary J. Wood