2017 Adamo Estate Winery “Legacy” Viognier/Roussanne, “Bock Vineyard”, Ontario (13% Alcohol, 3g/l Residual Sugar) Winery and website $21 (750ml bottle)
This intriguing Bock vineyard-sourced blend of Viognier/Roussanne (82.3% Viognier/17.7 % Roussanne) is a wonderfully refreshing start to 2019. Not to be confused with the well-known Bosc vineyard, Bock is also located in the St. David’s Bench sub-region, with soils alternating between a mix of clay, sand, and loam on limestone. Note that this is not a VQA wine as Roussanne is not yet a VQA recognised grape varietal in Ontario.
I found this wine to be wonderfully lively and expressive, capturing the very essence of cool climate Viognier, with a healthy dose of Roussanne thrown in, adding its own blend of delicate aromatics to the mix. 15% of this wine sees nothing but stainless steel, with the other 85% spending time in both one and two year oak for approximately six months. This allows the expressive aromatics of the Viognier and Roussanne to fully display themselves in the glass, whilst giving the complete wine considerable body with a lovely slippery texture.
The nose is deliciously fragrant and pretty with honeydew melon, red apple, ripe peach, orange zest, ripe pears, a whiff of oak spice (echoed on the palate) and an incredibly lifted floral character that seduces and entices in just the way I like a good Viognier to seduce and entice. In the mouth the wine has a fair bit of weight and some gorgeously rich texture whilst retaining a remarkably bright freshness and crispness that really makes this wine stand out. The sustained finish stretches out the peachy elements, making for a very satisfying aromatic white.
This is certainly a well-crafted wine, and one that I recommend you grab a few bottles off if you are interested in something a little different, but don’t delay as Adamo only produced 800 bottles of this particular small-batch lot.
(Four and a half apples out of a possible five)
Edinburgh-born/Toronto-based Sommelier, consultant, writer, judge, and educator Jamie Drummond is the Director of Programs/Editor of Good Food Revolution… And he thinks that is a refreshing change.
