This light gold wine grabs your nose right off the bat with a unique bit of spiciness and ginger. I emphasize “a bit” because it does not detract one from the baked apple with cinnamon and brown sugar, the pear, the mango and the pineapple. Positively tropical old man! On the palate it strikes one as a laid-back Chardonnay with well integrated fruit and oak. The palate I would call clean with lemon, clementine and pear notes. I would not say this wine has a creamy texture but twenty minutes after it is opened there is a small creamy texture that sneaks in.
The Liquor Control Board of Ontario Vintages catalogue suggests matching the wine with fish and chips, pasta primavera or roast turkey. I won’t debate that but the tiny ginger influence has me thinking of my famous Sino Italian fusion dish which involves wokking garlic, ginger, snow peas, cashews and shrimp with a drizzle of sesame seed oil and fish sauce. Serve over bucatini bathed in pesto. Sounds odd but it works. I think this is a wine best consumed with food.
45% of the wine was aged in neutral oak and I can only detect a tiny amount of oak.
(Malivoire 2020 Estate Grown Chardonnay, VQA Beamsville Bench, The Malivoire Wine Company Limited, Beamsville, Ontario, $17.95, Liquor Control Board of Ontario # 573147, 12.5%, 750 mL, RKS Wine Rating 89/100).
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