Buyers Guide to Vintages April 11th Release

New Zealand Less Travelled, Conspicuous Can Con, and a rare “Wine of the Month” Alignment

By John Szabo MS, with notes from David Lawrason, Sara d’Amato, and Michael Godel

Predictable New Zealand, impressive Canadian content, and a rare agreement on the Wine of the Month — that about sums up the Vintages April 11 release. There is much love for the wines of New Zealand at WineAlign headquarters, given the country’s genuine green credentials and lively, pure, cool climate-influenced wine styles, though the selection on offer failed to elicit much excitement from the WineAlign Crü this week. Ten of the 14 wines included in the New Zealand thematic hover around the $22 mark, the new $18.95 it seems, with predictable, safe and standardized flavours. Exploring the release will do little to broaden your knowledge of Kiwi wines. Marlborough sauvignon blanc is notably absent from our picks, though we do have a couple of worthy recommendations from other roads less travelled. Back home, Canada plays a strong hand in the release with triple alignment earned by one organic riesling, and four more making the cut, including three chardonnays, Canada’s strongest suit.

The Vintages Wine of the Month — a pay-to-play distinction bestowed in exchange for an advertising “program fee,” in LCBO parlance — scored a rare triple alignment. In this case, quality and price do indeed line up nicely, making the wine worthy of singling out. France, Spain, Italy and Greece all contribute pairs as well. Read on for details.

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New Zealand

As we moved through a handful of correct but not exciting sauvignon blanc samples, David and I stopped to consider an organic pinot gris from Marlborough that stood out for style, quality and price. The names behind the wine will likely be familiar: Kim and Erica Crawford, the couple behind the hugely popular Kim Crawford brand. The Crawfords sold the brand, including the rights to their name, to the wine behemoth Constellation over 20 years ago and are not involved in any way in the wine that bears their name. After their non-competition period was up, they set about building a small, quality-focused operation in the cool Awatere sub-region of Marlborough called, appropriately under the motivational circumstances, Loveblock.

In addition to producing excellent sauvignon blanc, the Crawfords have also made a very fine Pinot Gris, here from the 2023 vintage in the Awatere Valley ($24.95), which David describes as “a lovely, ripe, quite lush NZ example, with generous peach, wildflowers, fine fresh herbs and clover honey.” I focused more on the “sharp, stones-forward, fruit backwards style,” finding plenty of satisfaction.

Sara singles out the Rabbit Ranch Sur Lie Chardonnay 2023 from Central Otago ($29.95) praising it as a “lively minimal-intervention chardonnay, reminiscent of Chablis despite its very delicate oak treatment.” In the deep south of the South Island, Central Otago has built a reputation for excellent pinot noir and chardonnay over the last quarter century, a region which one could liken to the Okanagan Valley with its dry climate and short but intense growing season.

I found fantasy in the Craggy Range Te Kahu Gimblett red blend from Hawke’s Bay in the North Island ($34.95), enjoying its “juicy acids and the ease of drinkability while still being a ‘serious’ wine.” The blend is in the Bordeaux style, composed of merlot, cabernet sauvignon and cabernet franc. These varieties are, unsurprisingly, well suited to the discreet patch of thick greywacke gravels (sandstones) on the Heretaunga Plains that were deposited by the Ngaruroro River and exposed abruptly when it changed course last century in 1867. Thus, the Gimblett Gravels, named after an Englishman from Devon who bought land here in 1904, was born. It was once thought to be a useless, unfarmable strip of stones, and very nearly sold to a mining company to extract them. Then, in 1981, the hopeful Chris Pask of CJ Pask Winery planted the first cabernet sauvignon, merlot and cabernet franc vines, followed by syrah in 1982. The gamble paid off, and the region has since become the premier source of Bordeaux and Rhône-style reds in New Zealand. Craggy Range, established by the Peabody family in 1998, has emerged as one of the quality leaders from the region.

Can Con

Harald Thiel of Hidden bench gets a two-page spread in the Vintages catalogue this month, highlighting his “award-winning organic wines using 100% estate-grown fruit while upholding a deep commitment to environmental protection.” Established in 2005, Hidden Bench has been certified organic since 2013, one of just a handful of Ontario wineries to have the accreditation, and also practices biodynamics. “We make our own compost. We try to reduce the amount of tractor work in the vineyard. We have animals on the vineyard,” says Thiel. The winery uses geothermal energy for heating and cooling and installed solar panels in 2007, all laudable actions and important for us here at WineAlign.

Ultimately, however, the wines must be good, and here Hidden Bench also delivers. We found triple alignment with the 2022 Riesling VQA Beamsville Bench, Niagara Escarpment, in this release ($26.95) generating a couple of exclamation marks rarely found in our tasting notes (“What a classic nose!” – DL; “Such intensity on the nose!” – JSz). Michael appreciates “the wine being released when at its most complex,” while David observes that it’s now maturing and “showing all kinds of petrol, oyster shell, yellow pear/plum, honey, lemon and spice…channeling Alsace more than German, but notably Beamsville as well.” Less descriptively, I stop short at writing “This is a a shockingly good riesling.” Considering that this is Hidden Bench’s “entry-level” riesling, the excitement for value grows further.

Hidden bench also has a 2023 Gamay in the release that also has strong support from the Crü ($29.95).

And look for a pair of chardonnays from the indefatigable Thomas Bachelder, Ontario’s most dedicated terroir researcher with a far-reaching range of single-vineyard vines from across the Niagara Peninsula. Bachelder uses only chardonnay, pinot noir and gamay as his terroir vectors of choice, and in this release, you can compare and contrast his 2023 Les Villages Bench Chardonnay — a blend of vineyards from the Escarpment area, ($34.95) selected by David — and the single site Werner York Vineyard Chardonnay 2023 from St. David’s Bench ($45.00), selected by Michael.

Wine of the Month Triple Alignment

One of the two Wines of the Month for April is the Château Plaisance Bordeaux Supérieure 2019 ($24.95). I can’t remember the last time we found triple alignment on a WOM, a placement usually reserved for more commercial products and producers with the pockets to pay for the placement as well as sufficient volume to supply the large listing, a minimum of a thousand cases.

It’s not the first time we’ve seen this wine; it was first released three years ago, and is ageing more slowly, and better, than I originally anticipated. There’s some idle speculation that it might not be the same bottling, however, perhaps a wine that was kept longer (and fresher) in tank. It’s worth noting that the bottle itself is a different shape to the one it arrived in before, and so there’s every chance it’s not the identical wine. Whatever the case, it’s a fine wine from a fine vintage, and undervalued to be sure, a wine I’d be pouring by the glass in a wine bar to encourage repeat customers. Sara agrees, describing it as a “classic Bordeaux that is holding up impressively well — a testament to an excellent vintage, while David finds “charm, plaisance and Bordeaux authenticity at a very good price,” and suggests enjoying now with some decanter aeration.

And with that, on to the Buyer’s Guide with all of the picks.

Buyer’s Guide Vintages April 11: White Wine

Château Roquefort Les Roches Blanches Sauvignon Blanc 2024, Bordeaux, France
$15.95, Woodman Wines & Spirits
John Szabo – Good, clean, juicy fun here in a ripe and fleshy, regionally accurate Bordeaux Blanc, more Bordeaux than Sauvignon indeed, and with more than respectable depth at the price. Drink over the near term.
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