Thirty Bench Winery

1998 Thirty Bench Reserve Chardonnay Reif Vineyard VQA, $35.00 Can.: Pale straw, with a big hit of toast that almost obscures the pear fruit both on the nose and the palate; good acidity, finishes with some bitterness. Nothing special.

1999 Thirty Bench Benchmark Reserve Cabernet Franc VQA, $45.00 Can.: Ruby garnet, with big smoky oak on the nose; the brochure describes "blueberry and currant with a hint of black olive in the taste," and while I got the currant, I also got a bit of dill pickle that was odd, if not necessarily unpleasant. I’d never pay the money for this.

Sad to say, I found these wines pleasant enough, but utterly forgettable. We hopped back in the car and the Zinfan had us stop just down the road at Crown Bench Estate, almost on a whim, saying he’d heard good things about this winery, but again, I wasn’t all that impressed.

Crown Bench Estate Winery

2000 Crown Bench Chardonnay VQA, $15.60 Can.: Pale, with little color and a hint of candy on the nose, along with noticeable oak; slightly sour, with a hint of herb and little intensity.

2000 Crown Bench Chardonnay Vintner’s Reserve VQA, $24.95 Can.: Almost no color, with toast on the nose and unimpressive fruit on the palate. Where is this winning medals with so little intensity?!

1999 Crown Bench Cabernet Franc Vintner’s Reserve VQA, $24.95 Can.: Smoky ruby garnet; almost sweet smelling, and alcoholic at that. Tastes oxidized.

1999 Crown Bench Merlot (Regular Lot) VQA, $NA.: Ruby garnet, with an alcoholic varnish-like "bouquet;" tastes oxidized.

1999 Crown Bench Merlot Vintner’s Reserve VQA, $24.95 Can.: Ruby garnet, with a faint oak and berry bouquet; much better than the Regular Lot, but that’s not saying much.

1999 Crown Bench Beamsville Bench VQA, $29.95 Can.: Ruby garnet, not much on the nose; decent red currant, raspberry and cherry flavors. A so what kind of wine.

Crown Bench Hot Ice, 375 ml, $36.95 Can.: Medium straw, tasted like dill pickles and hot peppers. No mas!

1999 Crown Bench Cabernet Franc Icewine VQA, 200 ml, $49.95 Can.: Ruby garnet, with some tannins still showing through the sweet plum and red fruit flavors. Odd, but interesting.

2000 Crown Bench Vidal Icewine VQA, 500 ml, $32.95 Can.: Medium gold, with syrup-like apricot flavors. Pleasant enough.

2001 Crown Bench Eros, 250 ml, $34.95 Can.: Almost the color of water, with a note of cat pee on the nose; cat pee, sweet grapefruit and melon syrup flavors, with low acidity and a fairly long finish. Made from Chardonnay, so where does the cat pee come from? Perhaps I shouldn’t go there…

2000 Crown Bench Livia’s Gold VQA, 375 ml, $24.95 Can.: Pale color, with a hint of sweet on the nose; now here’s some intensity! Apricot syrup on the palate, with a finish that lingers long. From Botrytis Affected Chardonnay, and easily the best of this bunch for my tastes.

I got the impression that some of the bottles that were poured had been open for some time, which may have contributed to my mostly poor impressions. And to be fair, a small winery like this doesn’t have an unlimited supply to open for any bunch of yahoos with a website who come walking in. Still…

From there, we continued on to Malivoire to see what they’d come up with since our last visit.

Malivoire

2001 Malivoire Chardonnay VQA, 375 ml, $13 Can.: Pale straw, with an odd nose; earth and pear flavors and aromas that lack intensity.

2001 Malivoire Ladybug Rosé VQA, $15 Can.: Salmon-strawberry pink, with a slightly dusty strawberry bouquet; flavors echo with decent intensity.

2001 Malivoire Pinot Noir VQA, 375 ml, $15 Can.: Ruby garnet, with a toasty, dusty black cherry nose; the dusty quality obscures most of the fruit. Watery flavors echo, more or less, but lack intensity.

2000 Malivoire Chardonnay Moira Vineyard VQA, $36 Can.: Pale straw, with a toasty oak and pear bouquet that follows through on the palate, but lacks intensity. Pleasant, but…

1999 Malivoire Chardonnay Moira Vineyard VQA, $54 Can.: Pale straw, with considerably less toast on the nose than the 2000 model, but it’s still there; toast and pear on the palate, with plenty more intensity than the newer version, with a good dose of mineral and a hint of bitterness on the finish. Good, but not as good as I remember from last year.

2000 Malivoire Old Vines Foch VQA, $21 Can.: An inky garnet breakfast wine, with a big toast and coffee nose that echoes on the palate. Significant tannins give a hard, earthy edge to this; needs time, but shows the most promise of these. A perennial favorite of the Kerr-dog’s.

2000 Malivoire Honsberger Vineyard Riesling Icewine VQA, 200 ml, $36 Can.: Pale gold, with effusive toasty apricot on the nose that follows through on the palate with just a little less intensity. Very viscous, but the concentration gradually diminishes as it proceeds through the mid-palate and on to the finish. Good but not great, and sorry to say, overpriced.

I really wanted to like these wines better than I did, especially after our tour of the winery last year with Martin Malivoire and being so impressed with much of what we tasted. What’s more, we couldn’t have been given better treatment than we were by Tammy Kruck and Elena Galey-Pride, but while nothing sucked, nothing really stood out, either, with the exception of the Foch.

On to Niagara - Day 2