by Zoltan Szabo

2010 Pinot Noir ‘The Silver Line’ Stone Road Vineyard, G. Marquis, Niagara-on-the-Lake
Magnotta, the nowadays entirely family owned and Toronto-based winery, has recently launched its top tier line of wines under the G. Marquis label. This is a Pinot with deep ruby-purple colour; aromas of red and black cherries, black raspberries, nutmeg, floral, sweet smoke and toast-vanilla; medium plus weight with savoury freshness and tidy tannins; there are blood orange and mineral notes underlying the juicy fruit core; it is extremely well balanced with a very good length and mint-soy-tobacco nuances lingering on; further bottle age will just flesh it out more; 12.5% alc.; not to try comparing it, but to give a sense of understanding the style, it reminds me of Pinot produced in the Nuits-St.-Georges. It’s recently released by Vintages (LCBO# 258673) and I certainly recommend tasting it at $19.95.

I tried it with spaghetti and lamb ragu in tomato sauce and grated Parmigiano Reggiano cooked for me by the ragazzi at Nove Trattoria, it worked very well; noticed that the wine just got better with aeration, so decant if drinking now, otherwise this red can handle short term cellar time and benefit from it; ‘The Silver Line’ Barrel Aged Chardonnay is also very good and is $16.95.
4.5 apples out of 5

All scores are out of five apples.

Read more of sommelier Zoltan Szabo at zoltanszabo.org and follow him at twitter.com/zoltanszabo.