Hey, Erica here – welcome to our inaugural #winewednesday!

We’re going to taste, review, and feature one wine a week. For you Ontario folks, the plan is that all of our selections will be available at LCBO stores – but we’ve already broken that rule because our first pick is not your everyday wine. If you want some, you’ll have to head on over to Southbrook Vineyards in Niagara-on-the-Lake and pick it up from the source!

We picked up Southbrook’s Poetica Chardonnay 2007 at a winery visit earlier this year (that’s right, this wine was made the year I graduated high school, which must be symbolic of something beyond the fact that 2007 was 12 years ago…eek).

I love Southbrook. It has the honour of being Canada’s first biodynamic winery, having earned both its organic and biodynamic certifications back in 2008. Apart from having serious sustainability cred, this winery is experimenting with some really cool new products – like wild ferment cider.

The “Poetica” label denotes Southbrook’s high-end, limited-edition wines. Inspired by Robert Louis Stevenson’s quote “wine is bottled poetry”, each wine features Canadian poets on the label. Here’s ours:

Put simply, this wine has matured into something beautiful!! Here are our tasting notes:

• Visual: deep yellow tones but vibrantly toasted caramel, like a light scotch
• Nose: ripe apricot and peach with earthy tones, with deep caramel once it opens up
• Palate: rich and smoky, like a grilled peach with hints of vanilla and very balanced acidity that evaporates once it has a chance to breathe (alternatively, pair it with some sharp white cheddar if you’re impatient – cuts right through the acidity)

We paid $70 at the winery. This wine is a testament to the value of buying a current release and letting it age 10 years – something not a lot of us “millenials” can or are willing to do – but it’s made us think twice about building our own little cellar!!