RKS 2024 Wine: Susana Balbo Rarely Gets Her Malbec Wrong

We try a Susana Balbo 2022 Signature Malbec. 96% Malbec and 4% Petit Verdot. From grapes grown at 1150 meters and aged for 13 months in French oak.

Aroma: This wine, verging on purplish, flashes its blackberry, blueberry, black cherry and lavender soul in a smoky frame. Classic lush and plush Malbec.

Palate: Smooth and smoky full of black fruit and a gentle burn. Tannins are creeping and full almost creating a chewy wine. There is a seam of acidity running through the wine but thank goodness it, barely, takes a back seat to the fruit.

Food Match: Grilled flank steak with a chimichurri sauce and a red onion salad on the side. Vegheads might enjoy it with boiled butter beans tossed in oregano pesto. The wine suits food more than sipping due to its acidity.

Personality: Strong, forceful but not intimidating with a vision quite like Susana my creator.

Cellarbility: Drink now or hold until 2026-year end.

Price: $23 CDN (Ontario).

RKS 2024 Wine Rating: 91/100. Patricio Tapia 94. Wine Align 88.

(Susana Balbo 2022 Signature Malbec, Valle de Uco, Mendoza, Argentina, Domino Del Plata, Mendoza, Argentina, 750 mL, 14.5%).  

RKS 2024 Wine: Riverview Estate Winery 2021 Pinot Noir

So far Riverview Estate Winery 2021 Merlot and 2021 Rosso have failed to impress. Incredibly cheap cork that crumbles whilst opening the bottles. Expectations are low for their 2021 Pinot Noir.

Aroma: Thank goodness it smells like Pinot Noir. Off to a roaring start but so far aromas of the Merlot and Rosso have been decent but the aroma does not migrate into the palate. Raspberry, cherry and sweet blackberry.

Palate: Moderate tannins and insipid fruit that struggles to speak to the palate an unfortunate Riverview characteristic.

Personality: I am like my 2021 Merlot and Rosso brother and sister. Drinkable but far from impressive. Please don’t pit me against Chilean red wine at this pricepoint as I do not want to get pummelled.

Cellarbility: Nada.

Food Match: A Friday night wine if you know what I mean.

Price: $25.15 CDN (Ontario).

RKS 2024 Wine Rating: 81/100.

(Riverview Estate Winery 2021 Pinot Noir, VQA Four Mile Creek, Riverview Cellars Estate Winery, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, 750 mL, 13%).

RKS Literature: Non-Payment of Rent and the Testicular Itch (J.P. Donleavy)

“Things here are a bit desperate. You see, a man gives you a key and you go into this house and start to carry on your life and at the end of the week you give this man three slips of paper with redeemable London written on them and the man lets you stay where you are. If you don’t give this man little pieces of paper you find that he is outside the window watching you scratch your balls and as you may realize, to have impersonal eyes on you while dealing with testicular itch is a most awkward state of affairs.”

J.P. Donleavy, “The Ginger Man”, 1955.

RKS 2024 Wine: Riverview Estate Winery 2021 Rosso: The Great Rosso Mystery!

Unfortunately, there is no indication on the label what grapes are used in this red blend Rosso I purchased at the winery this week. Not only that there is no “Rosso” wine on their website but there is a Rosso Cabernet yet its bottle picture does not say “Rosso Cabernet” but “Rosso”. Let’s assume, if we can recover from this dizziness, we are drinking the Rosso described on the website. In that case it is a blend of 40% Merlot, 34% Cabernet Sauvignon, 13% Syrah, 9% Cabernet Franc and 4% Pinot Noir. Not to flog a dead horse but if the wine is described as Rosso Cabernet on the website why are only two grapes comprising the blend in the Cabernet family?

In face of this dizzying confusion let us try a 2021 Rosso as described on the bottle in front of me.

Aroma: A good dose of blueberry and blackberry complimented by black licorice and plum.

Palate: Moderate creeping tannins. Again quite like the 2021 Merlot with a pleasant if not enticing aroma which on the palate more or less disappears. Some of the fruit leaks weakly into the palate.

Personality: I am a bit of everything that fails to translate into much of anything worth remembering. At least with the 2021 Merlot the Merlot character was lurking and identifiable. There is no identifiable variety you can trace in this wine.

Price: $20.15 CDN (Ontario).

Food Pairing: Let’s hide under “a Friday night wine”.

Cellarbility: Nada.

RKS 2024 Wine Rating: 83/100.

(Riverview Estate Winery 2021 Rosso, VQA Niagara-on-the-Lake, Riverview Cellars Estate Winery, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, 750 mL, 12%).

RKS Literature: A Massive Vista of My Total Ignorance (J.P. Donleavy)

“In the front gate of Trinity. At least this is a bit professional with all these notices tacked up here. Must admit to an overwhelming fear when I think of exams. I hear these students say they haven’t done a scrap of work when their eyes are bloodshot. But me. I see a massive vista of my total ignorance. The weeks left before the little white paper. Can’t afford failure. A man like me has to get through. Must have my offices of the law where I come in at ten o’clock and hang my hat. And when they come in to see me I smile with reassurance. A great thing, that, in the law.”

J.P. Donleavy, “The Ginger Man”, 1955.

RKS 2024 Wine: The Great Ontario Merlot Search Continues: Riverview Estate Winery 2021 Merlot

Finding great Ontario Cabernet Franc is not that difficult. The same can’t be said for Merlot. Most of the time it is bland. Merlot from Niagara’s Two Sisters and Featherstone Estate are bright beacons for Ontario Merlot.

So what about the 2021 Merlot from Riverview Estate Winery? The back label states it has been aged in a combination of French and American oak for two years. Deft use of oak seems to bless cooler climate Merlot whether from Ontario or New York.

Aroma: Blackberry, plum, cranberry, black cherry with some very minor chocolate notes. No fear on my part in proceeding further. It has some character on the nose.

Palate: Moderate tannins that come on slowly. Unfortunately most of the fruit on the nose has gone AWOL. Some acerbic cherry and blackberry trapped in peppery sourness. There is a hint of excellence but it is a hint and does not nimbly transcend into reality.

Personality: Was it Marlon Brando in “The Waterfront” that said “I coulda been a contender!” I suppose that’s me.

Food Match: To borrow an LCBO euphemism this is a “Friday night wine”.

Cellarbility: Nada.

Price: $20.15 CDN (Ontario).

RKS 2024 Wine Rating: 84/100.

(Riverview Estate Winery 2021 Merlot, VQA Niagara-on-the-Lake, Riverview Cellars Estate Winery, Niagara-on-the-Lake, 750 mL, 12%).

RKS 2024 Travel: Canada Day Cake Parade at Niagara-on-the-Lake

On 1July2024 I had the surreal pleasure of marching in the annual Niagara-on-the-Lake Cake Parade. It has been a Canada Day fixture for some two decades now.

Queen Street is cordoned off and several thousand line it. Yes the drums of the 41st Fife and Drum Corps Regiment can be heard way down Queen Street and the excitement mounts. Finally the drum corps appears in period costume flutes a piping and drums a banging. A huge cake that required some 17 hours of baking by Willow Cakes and Pastries (at their own expense) is right behind the corps and the parade twists into Simcoe Park and I find myself marching right behind the cake! How did that happen?

The 41st Fife and Drum Corps leads the parade: Photo Robert K. Stephen

In front of the bandstand the town crier announces something but there is so much happy noise what did the man say? The cake comes to rest and the crowd breaks into the national anthem “Oh Canada” and there is tremendous applause.

Niagara-on-the-Lake is a small town overwhelmed in summer months by week-end tourists, mostly day trippers slurping ice cream, and on the week-ends loses much of its small town identity and the Cake Parade injects some true small spirit into its busiest week-end of the year.

Just put marching in the annual Niagara-on-the-Lake Cake Parade on your bucket list.

You may have missed the Cake Parade but it is still not too late to make plans for the Niagara-on-the-Lake Cherry Festival on 6July2024 and Peach Festival on 10August2024.

RKS Literature: The Waging of the Russian Holy War: The Russian Jihad (Nikolai Gogol)

“It is common knowledge how a war for the faith is waged on Russian soil-no earthly power is stronger than the power of faith. It is insurmountable and ferocious, like a rock rising from the depths of a stormy ocean, fashioned from a single unshatterable mass of stone, towering into the skies, seen from vast distances and glaring into the waves that roll past. And woe unto the ship that is hurled onto this rock. Its rigging will be torn to shreds, the battered wind resounding with the piteous cries of the drowning men.”

Nikolai Gogol, “Tarus Bulba”, 1835.

RKS Literature: A New Russian Czar Will Spring Forth! (Nikolai Gogol)

“So you thought you caught us, you damn Poles. Do you think there is a single thing in this world that will frighten a Cossack? Just wait, the time will come when you will understand the meaning of the Russian Orthodox faith. Word has already spread through every nation. A Russian Czar will spring forth from the Russian earth, and there will be no power in this world that shall not yield to him!”

Nikolai Gogol, “Tarus Bulba”, 1835.

RKS Literature: Execution by the Poles of Cossacks: Entertainment (Nikolai Gogol)

“The square on which the execution was to take place was not hard to find: the whole town was streaming there from all directions. In that grim bygone era an execution was considered one of the most engaging spectacles, not only for the masses but also for the aristocracy. Devout old women, matrons and timid young girls refused to pass up the opportunity to satisfy their curiosity, though they would afterword dream all night of blood drenched corpses and shout in their sleep as only drunken Hussars can. On the square, many were to call out in feverish hysteria, “Oh how they torture them!” covering their eyes and turning away, yet none were prepared to forgo the gruesome spectacle.”

Nikolai Gogol, “Tarus Bulba”, 1835