Bachelder “Northslope, Starry Skies” Chardonnay, 2019

Regular price: $65.00
Regular price
Sale price: $65.00
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Another great surprise of this release, (especially to me 😉) is the Grimsby Hillside Northern Slope Escarpment block. (In future releases, we will simply call it “Frontier Block,” as I am told it is the first producing vineyard within Niagara, if you are coming east from Hamilton/Stoney Creek!) A grand and strikingly beautiful ‘Big Sky’ site just east of Hamilton, it has a tangible identity. It is cooler and tends to be harvested quite late, retaining a slatey gunflint purity, and ethereal freshness with lacey yet weighty texture, finishing with a marked marzipan-inflected minerality. Just 122 metres above sea level, it feels much higher than it is, betraying the incredible legacy of the visible vestiges of the escarpment in the vineyard. On September 25th, 2009, a 4.6-billion-year-old meteorite hit Grimsby Hillside, so the farm likely has fragments of soil much older than anywhere in Niagara! Made in smaller quantities, like Bai Xu at the opposite side of the Peninsula, this is truly a wine, a terroir to watch. NB It is a travesty that this vineyard must be labelled “Lincoln Lakeshore” when it is so clearly “Bench” in flavour, terroir and location. Locals are hoping for a new sub-app: “Grimsby Narrows!”
Thomas Bachelder