What’s inside this glass (of an episode):

🍷 From Waiters to Winemakers
Andrew and his wife started as restaurant pros in Calgary and took the ultimate leap—quitting their jobs, selling their house, and buying a rundown 10-acre farm in Ontario. Ten years later (and lots of hard lessons), Back 10 Cellars is now celebrating a decade of selling wine they’re proud of.

🛠️ Fixer-Upper to Fan Favourite
The property was a dump (Andrew’s words, not ours!), but they poured their hearts into restoring it. “No one wanted this place,” Andrew says. Now, it’s a must-stop on the Ontario wine trail.

🍾 Meet Your New Crush: Smitten Pink Sparkling
Their iconic pink bubbly, Smitten Pink, is as delightful as it is limited. Made with Gamay and Pinot Noir, it’s all about strawberry macaron aromas and summery vibes. Warning: it sells out fast. (And yes, Andrea admits she wishes she could keep it all to herself!)

🎨 Style, Consistency, & Creativity
Whether it’s pink sparkling, crisp Riesling, bold Cabernet Franc, or the “gateway red” Gamay, Back 10 Cellars is all about letting the fruit (and the fun) shine. They don’t chase fads—just delicious, honest wine.

💡 Wine Wisdom for All
Andrew proves you don’t need a chemistry degree or a French accent to make great wine (but a sense of humor helps). From the science of harvest timing to the stories behind each bottle, this episode is packed with approachable insights.

🎉 Fun Fact: Tattoo Your Love for Free Wine!
One superfan even tattooed the Back 10 Cellars brand on her arm—for free tastings for life. Now that’s commitment.

Andrea Morris [00:00:00]:
Hello, friends. I’m Andrea Morris, and welcome to another edition of spill the wine, the podcast that debunks theories that wine can’t be fun and that you have to know everything about wine in order to enjoy it. So speaking of fun, we are here today with Andrew from Back 10 Cellars with another caveat, one of my favorite wineries.

Andrew [00:00:21]:
Well, you did buy 4% of our gross production last week.

Andrea Morris [00:00:24]:
Well, you know, I thought it was 3, but, you know, mister embellishment here.

Andrew [00:00:28]:
It’s nice to be here.

Andrea Morris [00:00:30]:
Thank you for thank you for, being a guest on our podcast. So, Bactam, tell me a little bit about where you well, how you started. Where does the name come from?

Andrew [00:00:39]:
Right. It’s a long story, really. I’m I’m just a hungover waiter from Calgary. You know, I shouldn’t be here at all. My wife and I worked forever in the restaurant business in in Calgary. We’re in a fancy restaurant, that would do winemakers’ dinners from time to time. And we met this guy, Rick Small from Walla Walla, Washington. He owns a a winery called Woodbury Canyon.

Andrew [00:01:00]:
His wines are now the top ten wine spectator. He’s a rock star. But he told us his story. He bought a parcel of land. He put the post in himself. He shovel planted his farm, and we were just so taken with that. We decided to quit our job and sell our house and move

Andrea Morris [00:01:14]:
to wine country and try.

Andrew [00:01:15]:
And that was 20 some years ago. I mean, I was 28 when we bought a rundown old farm. I’m 50 now. In about 15 years from now, I I may have the lifestyle people think we’ve had the whole time. So it has been a journey with ups and downs. Absolutely. But I think we’re still having fun. We’re just coming up to our 10th anniversary of the retail store being open.

Andrew [00:01:37]:
And, yeah, light the heat is still on, and we’re hopefully still making some interesting wines, and we’re still enjoying it.

Andrea Morris [00:01:43]:
So why the name back 10?

Andrew [00:01:44]:
Well, we are 10 acres here, and it took 10 years to make the first vintage.

Andrea Morris [00:01:48]:
Wow. Yeah.

Andrew [00:01:48]:
So we’re a long time grape growers just selling fruit. And after about 6 years of doing that, we realized commercial farming kinda sucks, especially on our scale. If you can imagine, cash flow required to keep a vineyard going is is significant. And in drought, then it just yields go down. They don’t go up. So 2 years within that 6, we made no money here. Like, we work for free all year. So we really needed to start making wine to edge off the peaks and valleys of the farming.

Andrew [00:02:17]:
So yeah that’s that’s why we’re called back 10 I guess.

Andrea Morris [00:02:23]:
When you initially bought the property, was it ready to plant, or did you have to do a lot of work on it?

Andrew [00:02:28]:
Yeah. We got a dump here. We got a deal for a reason. You know? It was

Andrea Morris [00:02:33]:
Fixer upper?

Andrew [00:02:34]:
Oh, big time. Yeah. No one this place sat vacant for months months.

Andrea Morris [00:02:38]:
Really?

Andrew [00:02:39]:
Yeah. We originally looked out in the Okanagan Valley, and to be honest, we just couldn’t afford the land out there. Like, for viticulture out that way, you’ve to irrigate, because it’s so hot and dry. It’s like this like, we’re having hot weather today, of course, but it’s like that all the time. There’s rattlesnakes there. Like Ew. You have to, yeah, irrigate. So, you know, you had to be close to water, to be honest.

Andrew [00:03:00]:
We just couldn’t afford anything. It was way beyond our reach. After looking around here, we we had a site we really liked up near Flat Rock. We might be neighbors now to Westcott Winery, but it was a competing situation, and we just couldn’t again, beyond our budget. And then this farm, I remember the real estate agent’s like he’s like, you know, there’s this other place around the corner. I it needs too much work. I don’t think you’d be interested in it. I’m like, you know, what’s it what’s it cost? Perfect.

Andrew [00:03:27]:
So, yeah. But, basically, the farm came to 2 homes, and, we still live on-site on one of the in, on on, the house next door to our retail store. And, yeah. So it’s been a journey.

Andrea Morris [00:03:39]:
So when you first started making wine here, were you the winemaker yourself or did you hire someone?

Andrew [00:03:45]:
No. Not at all. I mean, just because you own a restaurant doesn’t mean you should be the chef.

Andrea Morris [00:03:50]:
Good point.

Andrew [00:03:51]:
Yeah. So, we’ve long been mentored by Dave Johnson and Louise Engel up at Featherstone Estate Winery. We were exclusively selling fruit for them to them for a long period of time. And for, over a decade, we had this amazing relationship where we would sell them excess fruit. We would keep what we needed for our little lots. And then Dave Jocelyn was our winemaker. So they believe just recently announced they’ve sold, and, so we have a new consultant now at, Vianney Estates. Oh.

Andrew [00:04:20]:
Mauro Salvador and Lorenzo Farro.

Andrea Morris [00:04:24]:
Sounds Italian.

Andrew [00:04:25]:
Oh, they’re very Italiano up there. I like it. I I I don’t know what they’re saying half the time. It’s perfect.

Andrea Morris [00:04:30]:
Will that change the direction

Andrew [00:04:31]:
of your wine? I don’t think so. I mean, they’ve, Mauro has always, managed our sparkling wine portfolio since day 1. Mhmm. So he’s taking over some of the barrel program. And Christina and I have a very specific idea of exactly how we want these finished wines to taste both from structure and texture, etcetera. But, and and I think they’re being receptive to that, because it is a bit concerning switching up your your back of the house staff.

Andrea Morris [00:04:59]:
Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Especially when people become familiar with after 10 years, become familiar with what you’re doing. Yep. So then go like, hey. New guy.

Andrew [00:05:07]:
So the fundamentals will not change here. So we’re always gonna be wild fermenting chardonnay. We’re always gonna be crop reducing in the calves. We’re always gonna be, neutral oil gating for the Gamay. Like, those fundamental steps, will not will not deviate. I I often joke with guests, that come here, like, something’s changed around here since their last visit. Vintages might be new, but stylistically, nothing changes. We’re so worried.

Andrea Morris [00:05:30]:
You have the paintings.

Andrew [00:05:31]:
Yeah. We have the paintings. We do we do the paintings in the retail store every once in a while gets shuffled about, but that I have nothing to do with that. Yeah. But we we’ve come to have I think when people see our brand back then, they have to trust us. Right? So there’s a certain style and a certain, like, if if it’s not good wine, we’re gonna throw it out. I can’t I can’t do it. I’ll put it back in the field.

Andrea Morris [00:05:50]:
Well, let’s taste some. Let’s do this. Let’s taste some of this good wine. So, yeah,

Andrew [00:05:54]:
we, we’ve been playing around with pink sparkling for some time now. Maybe I think probably this is the 5th vintage we’ve done of it. And sparkling wine is a big part of our sales here. It represents maybe 1 third of our our program, as far as sales glass are fantastic. They add to the flavor. They they do. It’s all good. Cheers.

Andrea Morris [00:06:18]:
So so what is the this is your pink sparkling.

Andrew [00:06:21]:
Smitten pink. Smitten. So we like a fruit forward style. So we this is a blend of, Gamay and Pinot Noir, and we skin contact for an extended period of time. This, I think, is around 36 hours. Then we ferment it twice to capture the bubble and this beautiful kind of, strawberry. I just want because you ever eat macarons?

Andrea Morris [00:06:40]:
Yes.

Andrew [00:06:40]:
You know what I mean? Like, that It’s strawberry macarons. Yeah.

Andrea Morris [00:06:44]:
It does have that smell. Yeah.

Andrew [00:06:45]:
Yeah. And that’s become a signature.

Andrea Morris [00:06:47]:
Or the nose as we

Andrew [00:06:49]:
The aroma, the raw fruit character. Yes. Yes. Yes. So

Andrea Morris [00:06:56]:
I must say, I hate to say how much I love this because then people will buy and I will never get any.

Andrew [00:07:01]:
It is quite a small lot. We we don’t make a lot of this.

Andrea Morris [00:07:06]:
It tastes like vomit. No.

Andrew [00:07:08]:
This is

Andrea Morris [00:07:09]:
so gross. Kidding, listener. This is actually like it’s like bubbly strawberries.

Andrew [00:07:14]:
Yeah.

Andrea Morris [00:07:14]:
It’s so good. It’s like the wonder it flies off the shelves because it’s like it’s just the summertime favorite. Yeah. It’s light. It’s delicious. It it makes you it all makes the heat level outside go down.

Andrew [00:07:29]:
Exactly. Yeah. We we started making pink sparkling because Christina, loves pink bubbles, and I think we drank maybe 5% of the gross production of the Rosalie from Q Vineyards. We like this really kind of fruit forward style. So we’re like, we have to start getting high on our own supply around here. So we we’ve been making it. Our first batch was a couple, I think, 2,000 18. So it’s we’ve been at it a little while now.

Andrea Morris [00:07:55]:
Oh, so the reason the supply is low is because you take the majority for your I suppose. Snettles. Is that

Andrew [00:07:59]:
what we’re saying? Summer water. You know?

Andrea Morris [00:08:03]:
She bathes in it. Yeah. It’s good.

Andrew [00:08:06]:
And we make a lot less of it. If you could imagine what comes in out of the field for, a regular Gamay, which we do make red and pinot noir, and see what’s left over, and that becomes the base of our our rose. So every year, the the the the blend is a little bit different, but, we’re still trying to achieve these kind of berry super fruit forward in the aromatic. There’s so many wineries in the area, and they’re making beautiful sparklings, but they’re more kinda creamy and rich, more autolytic. We’d we’d say in the nerd world, these these, almost grilled bread, like brioche aromatics. We we want the opposite. We’re trying to amplify bright and crisp

Andrea Morris [00:08:42]:
It’s really crisp and bright and just Super fruitful. Like, really it’s really that strawberry feeling just really hits you. It’s just so lovely.

Andrew [00:08:51]:
Yeah. No. It’s good. And Do you

Andrea Morris [00:08:52]:
ever think but I was gonna say, do you ever think about planting more, but you only you only have 10 acres. So Right. We we do. In fact, we we’ve been talking to our neighbors. They have 4,

Andrew [00:09:00]:
acres just, east of our our property, and,

Andrea Morris [00:09:03]:
we’re a young couple from the city.

Andrew [00:09:05]:
They don’t know anything about making wine or growing grapes, but they they’d like to. So we’ve kind of reached the verbal agreement where, we’re gonna help them plant.

Andrea Morris [00:09:12]:
Mhmm.

Andrew [00:09:13]:
We’re gonna take care of the property, give them an invoice for that work, and we’ll give them a check for the fruit we buy. So in essence, we’re leasing it, but we never bought the property here. Oh. There’s no formal agreement yet, but

Andrea Morris [00:09:22]:
Right.

Andrew [00:09:22]:
But, a bit of an interesting things happening in the in the wine universe for young vines for replants. I’m not sure if you’ve heard out what’s happened out in British Columbia.

Andrea Morris [00:09:32]:
Yes. That their whole crop has been Yeah.

Andrew [00:09:34]:
There’s been tremendous. Yeah. So I think nurseries are gonna be overrun with orders for the next half a decade. So we currently have some plants on order, but I wonder if we’re gonna get bumped. It’s happened to us before where you you, you place your order, you leave a deposit, and then a year goes around and you’re expecting your plants and, like, oh, I’m sorry. We can’t satisfy your order. But then I hear that a bigger player has planted 30,000 new vines of the exact ones that we wanted. I think that can happen in our industry where a big player ends up getting what they need and we get what we’ll do next year.

Andrew [00:10:06]:
Maybe they’d know somebody. They must. I don’t know. There’s a lot of that goes on, but that’s okay. We are a small player. So, we’ll be patient because we’re trying to wait for a very specific clone of gamma out there. So we we will be patient because, it matters what’s in the glass, those flavors. Right?

Andrea Morris [00:10:22]:
Yeah. Well, that is that is absolutely spectacular. And I and it’s interesting looking at past, smitten pinks. That’s a lighter pink

Andrew [00:10:34]:
than the last than last year’s It is a bit nerve wracking making pink sparkling because, like, during the secondary fermentation, color precipitates out. So it’s not dark enough going in. It could be clear coming out. And that’s a problem when your brand is called Smitten

Andrea Morris [00:10:49]:
Pink. Oh, it’s

Andrew [00:10:50]:
still pink. It is. Yes. But a little paler in color, but that’s okay. But It was a little bit darker than the still rose going in, and that’s the finished color if you can imagine.

Andrea Morris [00:10:58]:
Yeah.

Andrew [00:10:58]:
So, and we’re not allowed to put any kind of food coloring in there. If you can imagine when we’re getting ready to bottle, we have to send samples to the VQA and they’ll they’ll, the LCBO goes to the lab and they’ll put it into this $1,000,000 machine that spits out every organic and inorganic component. And if there’s any number 7 red dye in there, I need a lawyer because you’re gonna lose my ticket.

Andrea Morris [00:11:19]:
So you

Andrew [00:11:19]:
can’t manipulate with that kind of, everything’s natural.

Andrea Morris [00:11:23]:
So you could just put more could you more skin in

Andrew [00:11:25]:
there? We could, but the danger with skin is there’s tannic structures in there. Oh, and then it would change the yeah. It might make it harder. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. So Yeah. Yeah.

Andrew [00:11:35]:
We we we defer to all things bubble when, when we’re talking to marrow up there. There. So there’s a whole other biochemistry going on too. Like, I don’t wanna say that making regular wine is simple, but really the yeast eats sugar in the in the fruit to great alcohol. And then in, you know, maybe 11 to 14 days, somewhere there, it’s finished wine. But when we’re making sparkling, we have to capture the carbon. You know? It’s it’s and there’s a whole other biochemistry going on at these levels. Like, when they’re talking about what’s happening in there, I’m like, I’m really quiet.

Andrew [00:12:06]:
Because these kids have been to, you know, a fancy sparkling wine making school in Italy for 5 years and they they understand what’s happening in a molecular level. So, but yeah. No. We’re gonna keep going with it. Customers love it and it sells well. So

Andrea Morris [00:12:19]:
It’s funny how, like like, we’re talking about how people think, like, oh, I can’t enjoy wine if I don’t know anything about it, and now we’re getting into chemistry. But it is true, though. There’s so much particularly with sparkling, and then you go into the whole, like, is it gonna be done the traditional French method where you put it in the bottle and you turn it and you have someone in a cave that goes in every day and that’s their job, to turn the wine. Or Yeah. How is it, like Yep. So I I imagine yours is bat fermented.

Andrew [00:12:42]:
Well, yeah, it is with intention, however. I mean, it’s often in fact, the it’s interesting piece of information that VQA has just ruled on this. Oh. So when you look, for example, you look at our bottles, you’ll see, that all of our brand and our our Smitten Sparkling, and it’ll say VQA Ontario. Mhmm. Well, typically, if you look at all of our other bottles, you’ll see Lincoln Lakeshore. And that’s our specific DVA here. But it’s been long felt that the bulk method, the Charmat method, the the couve closed method of the The turning oh, no.

Andrew [00:13:11]:
That’s the the I mean, the tank.

Andrea Morris [00:13:13]:
Oh, that’s

Andrew [00:13:14]:
the tank is the couve closed. Seemed to be as a lower

Andrea Morris [00:13:16]:
category. It

Andrew [00:13:20]:
was for leftover products or whatever. For Yeah. Yeah. For them, maybe a bit

Andrea Morris [00:13:25]:
You know, for the peasants in the field that just want some bubbly Yeah.

Andrew [00:13:29]:
The powers that be in the VQA, they really wanted a traditional method to become a thing in Ontario. But, the next one we’re gonna try, the Smitten is made from riesling, and there are a bunch of folks that have tried traditional method in bottle fermentation with riesling as a great variety. And we, to be honest, found over time, we don’t love the aromatics, the long term lee aging, the dead yeast on there that can give champagne that beautiful grilled bread, almost brioche aromatic. We found riesling as a great variety. You can get kind of reductive, almost these cabbagies sauerkraut y kind of aromatic. And we’re trying to preserve these beautiful bright lemon lime, apple y pear kind of aromatic, and we find with the larger format, it’s a benefit, not a negative. And this this week, just got an e blast about it, the, the sparkling wine and cucoast method. We’ve been now named the single vineyard designation and the DVA on the label.

Andrew [00:14:22]:
So I’ve been pounding on that for half a decade because I often thought VQA, its purpose you know, they’re they’re trying to regulate quality from, for a consumer. Right? When you see VQA, no, there’s

Andrea Morris [00:14:32]:
a standard held. But just for the listeners Right. In case this is their first time listening, VQA is Vinta’s

Andrew [00:14:38]:
Quality Alliance.

Andrea Morris [00:14:40]:
Alliance. Yes. And this is an Ontario thing.

Andrew [00:14:42]:
Right. Any wine producing on the a region on the planet that takes themselves seriously has to control, AOC in France, DOC in Italy, DO in Portugal, and the list goes on and on. They’re basically telling us what we can do from a quality standpoint in the vineyard and in production to protect the consumer. Perhaps you guys have been over to the Finger Lakes or, Ohio or Pennsylvania and tried some wine over there. Like, you’ll visit a winery, and it’s like, oh, wine was pretty good. And then you go to another winery, and it’s like, oh my god. That’s the worst homemade wine I ever had ever. Yeah.

Andrew [00:15:09]:
Because there’s no one telling them that you cannot do that because it hurts our industry. So years ago, the industry got together and they’re like, we have to draw a line in the sand here for quality and it’s it is important. There’s a rigorous, process, of course, but I as as as funky as that can be sometimes, it’s important.

Andrea Morris [00:15:27]:
Yeah. Sometimes rules are

Andrew [00:15:29]:
Yeah.

Andrea Morris [00:15:30]:
Are there for a reason. Absolutely.

Andrew [00:15:32]:
Yeah.

Andrea Morris [00:15:32]:
So we As a Catholic school girl, I like to break those rules.

Andrew [00:15:35]:
Right. But I like to bend rules.

Andrea Morris [00:15:37]:
Yeah. I like to bend the rules. But in this case, I applaud the rules.

Andrew [00:15:40]:
And I’ve often thought she has some of to you.

Andrea Morris [00:15:43]:
This is

Andrew [00:15:44]:
the the Smitten. Original, yes the Smitten clear we often call it too, the Smitten sparkling. And riesling is the grape variety here and we’re trying to preserve these beautiful kind of aromatic of,

Andrea Morris [00:15:56]:
animals. Riesling is of aromatic.

Andrew [00:15:58]:
Oh, big time. When this is first released, I almost smell cantaloupe in there. I don’t know Interesting. Like melon, like fresh melon.

Andrea Morris [00:16:05]:
Kind of melon y. Yeah. I don’t know cantaloupe because I don’t know that cantaloupe actually smells but Right.

Andrew [00:16:09]:
Does a cantaloupe not smell?

Andrea Morris [00:16:11]:
No. Let’s go buy 1.

Andrew [00:16:13]:
Yeah. Let’s

Andrea Morris [00:16:13]:
Let’s send Lucas out to the store to get one and cut it in half and see if it smells.

Andrew [00:16:18]:
Yeah. We’re trying to preserve that. We don’t want any of that earth driven. We were all on the fruit forward side.

Andrea Morris [00:16:23]:
It is very fruity, but also very light

Andrew [00:16:26]:
Mhmm.

Andrea Morris [00:16:26]:
And very like delightful. Yeah. This is our best selling product. Well

Andrew [00:16:32]:
There is a woman that lives locally in Fonthill that is Oh, I thought you

Andrea Morris [00:16:35]:
were gonna talk about me. I I do buy a

Andrew [00:16:37]:
lot of that. She is a she is a wine club member. She’s been a club member for years, but she is. She has tattooed this brand on her arm.

Andrea Morris [00:16:44]:
Are you kidding me? And then,

Andrew [00:16:46]:
actually, it’s a bit frightening. I’m not sure I wanted the responsibility, but I I I You

Andrea Morris [00:16:51]:
should change the name now.

Andrew [00:16:52]:
Maybe just doing that, I can’t do that. So,

Andrea Morris [00:16:56]:
Change the label. Wow. Yeah.

Andrew [00:16:57]:
I mean, I can I’m gonna say this on air. It’s, it’s an unofficial rule around here. If you tattoo our brand on your body, it’s free tastings for life.

Andrea Morris [00:17:07]:
Oh, well, there you go. Quite a commitment.

Andrew [00:17:11]:
It’s awesome. So, yeah, this has become our best selling product by far. It outsells some other wines here 3 to 1. So

Andrea Morris [00:17:18]:
Does it well, if you had more of the pink, the pink definitely is

Andrew [00:17:22]:
a You know, there is some residual sugar with riesling. Like, riesling is a great variety. We find it benefits from a little higher residual sugar. Not too much. Not over

Andrea Morris [00:17:30]:
But it’s not sweet. It’s not a it’s not it’s not a cloyingly sweet bubbly. Exactly. It’s got a it’s got a nice, it’s got a really nice kind of, like, mixture.

Andrew [00:17:43]:
Right. We we want the sugar present to feel more like a roundness or a fullness or a smoothness on the palate, not just an avalanche of sweet. A big issue with our whole Niagara

Andrea Morris [00:17:52]:
region You make it to want someone to want to tattoo it on your

Andrew [00:17:55]:
I did to be honest, it caught me off guard. I did not see that coming at all. Wow. We we did that is not in the original business plan. You know? Like, wow.

Andrea Morris [00:18:04]:
So Company goals.

Andrew [00:18:07]:
Get people to brand our brand on this.

Andrea Morris [00:18:10]:
You could sell you could sell back 10 brands in the store. I know.

Andrew [00:18:16]:
Around west in Calgary. Right? I’ve been to a cattle branding before. Maybe we should just have one here. We’ll put the iron in

Andrea Morris [00:18:20]:
the bottom of your list.

Andrew [00:18:22]:
You know? Free bottle of Smitten if you if you wanna get branded. We’ve gone down the dark web, ladies and gentlemen. Yeah.

Andrea Morris [00:18:29]:
See, wine tastings can be fun, listeners. This is what happens.

Andrew [00:18:33]:
So riesling is a big lot on the farm, and, we just made still riesling, like, non bubbly version for years. And we had some excess 1 year, and we’re like, well, maybe we should make it sparkling because, the listeners may have heard of a product called Henkel Henkel Trocken Yes. Called Zett, spelled s e k t, I believe, if hopefully, I’m not wrong. Henkel Trocken? Henkel Trocken, Zett, which is sparkling riesling, and it’s a big, you know, international monster brand around the globe. So why why don’t we try this? And it’s become a big deal for us over time. So, you know, I have a great quote from our friends down there at Henry Appelham. Dan Speck is the youngest brother there. He does all the sales and marketing.

Andrew [00:19:10]:
And he said to me, Andrew, how do you sell Riesling in Ontario? And I’m like, how? He’s like, you call it something else. Because Riesling is a world class wine, but when people see the word reasoning, they’re like, oh my god, it’s sweet.

Andrea Morris [00:19:23]:
Yes. Yes. Exactly. But it’s not necessarily.

Andrew [00:19:26]:
Not necessarily.

Andrea Morris [00:19:27]:
No. I mean, I’ve had very dry rieslings in this area.

Andrew [00:19:30]:
Yeah. For sure. So what we do to combat that, that sugariness You

Andrea Morris [00:19:34]:
just hit them on the head?

Andrew [00:19:35]:
Well, no. You know, a big issue with our whole region here is there’s about 550 grape growers that sell fruit to wineries, and they’re paid by the ton, but they’re paid a bonus on higher sugar levels. Oh. So if they’re apt to leave that riesling, the sugar takes off exponentially in the grape. But, unfortunately, in riesling as a grape variety like, typically, high sugar is better in everything. We want higher sugar in all kinds of red grape varieties. But as that sugar rises exponentially in riesling, it it falls on the acid on the other side, and then that acid can fall off a cliff. So you’re at a wedding or a party, and your aunt, Jeanie, is like, oh my god.

Andrew [00:20:08]:
This is so good. And you’re like, I’m gonna have a diabetic coma tonight because all I can taste is this avalanche sugar, sugary sweet.

Andrea Morris [00:20:16]:
You’re like, thanks, aunt Jeanie. I’ll have another.

Andrew [00:20:19]:
Yeah. Exactly. So, if you could imagine to to combat that, we don’t track sugars that rises in the vineyard right before harvest. We track the acidity as it falls. And when acid hits 10 grams a liter in the TA, that’s our tradable acidity, when hits that number, we pull it regardless of the sugar because I want this crunchy fresh energy. Really, the sugar that’s present should feel more like that round smooth that’s not just the avalanche of syrupy, unctuous. Sweet.

Andrea Morris [00:20:45]:
It’s so cool to hear you talk about that because it’s like, you know, people just drink wine and think I’m just drinking wine, but knowing the thought and all of the the, like, almost the chemistry that goes into it

Andrew [00:20:57]:
Right.

Andrea Morris [00:20:57]:
Is like I find that really interesting and really makes me appreciate wine

Andrew [00:21:01]:
a lot more. Used to be, like, maybe 30, 40 years ago the farmer would walk the field and they would, like, spit seeds in their hand. And if the seeds were brown, they would, like, okay. She’s good to go. They’d pull it off. When they’d see birds attacking the fruit and then they call it parchonic convergent. Much mother nature’s interested, it has to be right. So about 20 years ago, everyone was using, you know, like, a refractometer.

Andrew [00:21:22]:
So imagine this thing looks almost like the end of a microscope with a glass plate on it, and you point it to the sky as a as a source of light. You squeeze juice from a grape on it, and it kinda gives you this rough sugar level. It’s it’s fairly inaccurate. So what we do now is we take physical, cut it. It’s about 20, 25 clusters from a block, whatever riesling, chardonnay, whatever you wanna pull, in a fancy ziplock bag. They go off to the lab. In a couple hours, you get back the sugar, the acidity, and the pH. We mark those numbers on a dry erase board, and you keep taking samples.

Andrew [00:21:53]:
You keep watching the weather. You call, is accrue available? And then if all the planets line up, it’s coming off. So there’s more science than ever. And what that helps us to do is is to create more consistent styles year in, year out. So you don’t make great wine 1 year and mediocre the next. Great wine. So, like, this vintage that’s shaping up, 2024, to be awesome and, because we’re so hot and dry. Reminds me of 2020, but in cooler vintages, we need to leave the fruit longer.

Andrew [00:22:18]:
Right? So you can’t just pick a day and pull it off. It doesn’t work like that.

Andrea Morris [00:22:21]:
But if it keeps being hot and dry for, like, another 2 weeks, is that gonna be bad?

Andrew [00:22:25]:
Nope. That is awesome. Really? Hot typically, in Ontario, it can’t be hot or dry enough. And our site here, we’re in a heavy red clay soil. If you can imagine clay holds water. In fact, we’re always trying to get rid of water here. There are some more well drained sites in the region certainly that we’ll need to irrigate in time, but they’re few and far between. Typically, we want hot and dry weather.

Andrew [00:22:46]:
We want 2020 back. You know, the vines were COVID free. They had no idea what was going on. So 2020 hot and dry because our biggest pressure in the vineyards here isn’t insects. It’s powdery and downy mildew. Really? Yeah. Like, on a day like today, I can practically hear the powdery trying to do its work. Like, the backs of your knees are sweating on the patio.

Andrew [00:23:04]:
The fear is that that that mildew will settle inside the cluster and and, a vitis vinifera, chardonnay, cabernet, merlot, those grape varieties that we like to drink. They’re notoriously tightly packed together in the cluster. Pinot is the worst. And the fear is that that mold will settle inside. It’ll rot from the inside out before it ever makes it to harvest. Oh. So hot hot dry years are amazing because it’s like like, 2020, I’m like, you couldn’t screw it up There’s a grape So if it’s hot

Andrea Morris [00:23:31]:
and dry, the grapes are, like, get away from me on the street. Much is

Andrew [00:23:34]:
just the the milk pressure down, and and they’re they’re loving all this sunshine and this heat. It’s excellent. So, yeah, hot and dry. I was kinda hoping with global warming. You know, we were on Cabernet and only sound by now, but I’m still waiting.

Andrea Morris [00:23:50]:
Well, speaking of riesling, I see we have some to taste here. Yeah. For sure. So this

Andrew [00:23:54]:
is our still riesling. You might the first thing that people notice about it is its color. They’re like, oh, they often say, I thought it

Andrea Morris [00:23:59]:
was water. It’s so clear. It is very clear.

Andrew [00:24:01]:
So this riesling see you through it. Yeah. For sure. From the, 22 vintage was

Andrea Morris [00:24:06]:
hand picked.

Andrew [00:24:06]:
And we we handpicked riesling here because we we don’t want the skins to interact with the juice before it gets to the press. Like, it’s common for people to go to a winery, in the area, and they they pour out the riesling. It’s a bright yellow or a bright green color. That’s from skin contact. It was pulled by a machine for sure, and it’s sitting in a bin waiting to get to the press.

Andrea Morris [00:24:25]:
Yep. So the skin contact

Andrew [00:24:26]:
is Yeah. Taints the color. But more importantly for us, we don’t care about the color. We feel that in the skins of riesling are undesirable compounds that give us aromas we don’t like in the finished wine. So we bother with this handpick, and it and the cluster goes in the press full. So it spills out as this super clear, gorgeous perfumed juice. And it’s really important that the juice quality be amazing coming off the press because all we do to riesling is ferment it in a tank and bottle it.

Andrea Morris [00:24:48]:
Really?

Andrew [00:24:49]:
Everything else we’re about to try, we manipulate. You know, we tinker in a barrel over years trying to make better, with riesling. It’s like a moment in time you’re capturing. So picked on acid and whole berry pressed.

Andrea Morris [00:25:01]:
It’s got a very fresh smell to it. It’s good. It’s crispy.

Andrew [00:25:08]:
Crunchy, fresh, lower alcohol.

Andrea Morris [00:25:10]:
We started here slightly sweet, but not but not, like, that cloying sweet. It’s just got that little bit of, like, little lemony Totally.

Andrew [00:25:18]:
Little Like, my mouth is watering like crazy right now. It’s like, oh, man. What’s

Andrea Morris [00:25:21]:
Yeah. It’s like there’s got that little bit of lemon zest that I feel, and, like, it’s just, like, almost like a lemon meringue pie.

Andrew [00:25:26]:
Oh, yeah. Yeah. No.

Andrea Morris [00:25:27]:
It’s That was good. Wasn’t it?

Andrew [00:25:28]:
Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Andrea Morris [00:25:29]:
We can use that.

Andrew [00:25:30]:
A lemon meringue pie.

Andrea Morris [00:25:31]:
I love that. Meringue pie in my mouth. That’s good. It’s a party in my mouth.

Andrew [00:25:35]:
Yeah. That’s what we want. We want energy. Now when we

Andrea Morris [00:25:38]:
It’s really, really delightful. You know I love this. It’s like

Andrew [00:25:41]:
Especially in the summer heat, you know, like, it’s really warm day today. We’re at 32 degrees plus humidex. It’s supposed to feel like 41 or whatever. And when we started here, we googled the the best riesling in the world, and we make this the way it was the Germans do because they’ve been making it for 1200 years. They know what they’re doing.

Andrea Morris [00:25:57]:
So Like, some rieslings are, like, overly sweet, but this one has, like, that nice blend between sweetness and and citrus. But I don’t like a super citrusy riesling. Right. But I like this one. Listener, this is spectacular. Right. And Lucas just pounded it back. So

Andrew [00:26:12]:
I’ve just met Lucas. He’ll drink anything.

Andrea Morris [00:26:14]:
He’s like Mikey.

Andrew [00:26:16]:
Yeah. For sure. This has been in bottle now about 18 months, and I’m starting to almost pick up like a limestone, like a mineral, like a wet rock. I know you’re licked a wet rock when you were a kid.

Andrea Morris [00:26:27]:
I don’t know. Never did.

Andrew [00:26:28]:
Or have you been, like, hiking down your, riverbed in the fall and the sun is on the wet rocks? Like, you can kinda smell that dusty. Yes. And that’s signature for our site here. It, when it’s young, it’s really super fruit forward over the top and over time, these mineral notes kinda move forward. So It’s really lovely. Yeah. Cool. So next one, rose? Rose all day? Oh, Rose all day.

Andrew [00:26:50]:
You can take it all day if you don’t start in the morning. Right, kids? That’s right.

Andrea Morris [00:26:55]:
Why not?

Andrew [00:26:56]:
Yeah. Why not? So and again, we do take Rose seriously. It’s it’s not uncommon for a winery in the region to blend white and red. It’s very common because mother nature can give you unusual amounts of things. Yeah? But, what we do is what we’ve done since day 1 is we soak skin on juice till we get color from red grape varieties. We pull the skins off, and then we ferment this cold like the riesling. Like, we’re trying to trap these summer berry flavors in there. You might know the first thing you note about our our rose is the color.

Andrew [00:27:25]:
It’s quite dark. Yeah. And there’s a misconception in Ontario. Strawberry color. Totally. Yeah. Yeah. There’s a misconception in Ontario that

Andrea Morris [00:27:33]:
And it

Andrew [00:27:33]:
smells like strawberries. Yeah. Big time. Right? I almost smell like candy, the aromatic.

Andrea Morris [00:27:37]:
I know. It’s like it’s like straw it’s like Jolly Ranchers. Yeah.

Andrew [00:27:39]:
Almost like this hard candy. Yeah. I think that’s from the the maybe a combination of the yeast we’re using or the gamine skin contact. This is made from gamete and

Andrea Morris [00:27:47]:
But it really does smell sweet.

Andrew [00:27:48]:
Yeah. Exactly. And, deceiving, I think, because you think, oh my god. It’s gonna be sweet. But

Andrea Morris [00:27:54]:
there’s My teeth are gonna hurt.

Andrew [00:27:55]:
Residual sugar left. We’ve fermented all of it out. It’s 12 and a half percent alcohol. I think it’s barely off dry around 7 and a half grams. Wow. I know. So it’s deceiving this this wine for sure.

Andrea Morris [00:28:05]:
Still have that little bit of watermelon slight sweetness when you taste it, but it’s like, again, the, the nose on it makes you think your teeth are gonna hurt when you drink it.

Andrew [00:28:16]:
I’m supposed to, like, cotton candy. I’m sorry.

Andrea Morris [00:28:17]:
What the heck? It’s like the carnival. Like, you’re like, I wanna play that game. Yeah. I wanna play whack a mole. Yeah. Let me whack a mole, and then you’re like, no. Shut up and drink your rose.

Andrew [00:28:28]:
Yeah. Exactly. Drink a fucking

Andrea Morris [00:28:32]:
end. Okay. Wait. I just hit you. That was a weird thing on the end. Right? No. Totally.

Andrew [00:28:38]:
And rose is a pretty small run that we do here. We kinda joke if it doesn’t sell out by Thanksgiving, we just have a big party and we drink it all. I know. There’s gonna be a new one with springtime again. So

Andrea Morris [00:28:48]:
I know. But it’s sad because I have come here and you’ve been out of Rose, and it’s made

Andrew [00:28:52]:
me sad. It’s probably these small lab products that do sell out. I know. Quietly, I’ll confess. I think we’re trying to get to a place where every product’s available year round because we have guests that come to visit. We retail 95, 96 percent of product right off the farm. We’re with very little bit in restaurants, but no LCBO just yet. So we’re you know, sometimes guests come at a great distance to pick up something and we’re sold out.

Andrew [00:29:13]:
I’m like, I’m sorry.

Andrea Morris [00:29:15]:
You’re like, I’ll go make more.

Andrew [00:29:16]:
Yeah. We are. The problem with making wine is it takes so much time. Yeah. You know, I’m jealous of the guys in the beer business because every couple weeks, they got a fresh batch of brew coming off the lawn. Right? You’ve gotta grill grapes for a year. I have to make some of these products for a year. And then you never know what’s gonna happen with the weather or with Mother nature hits us with the polar vortex and then where yields

Andrea Morris [00:29:38]:
are Or there’s, like, a hurricane that comes in in.

Andrew [00:29:41]:
You know, like Rain right before harvest and it damages crops. Like, it’s it can happen. So, like, a customer asked me a while ago if I like to gamble at the casino, and I’m like, yeah. No. I’m a farmer.

Andrea Morris [00:29:53]:
I gamble every day.

Andrew [00:29:54]:
I got 10,000 vines open in the sky right now.

Andrea Morris [00:29:57]:
It’s like money. Yeah. I’m on FanDuel. Yeah. The craps table.

Andrew [00:30:01]:
Let’s do this.

Andrea Morris [00:30:02]:
You went on GrapeDuel. That should be you should have a thing. You should open up a website, a gambling website for all the farmers in the Niagara region and call it grape duel.

Andrew [00:30:12]:
I think it sounds awesome.

Andrea Morris [00:30:13]:
Thank you very much.

Andrew [00:30:14]:
And I

Andrea Morris [00:30:14]:
get a cut of that.

Andrew [00:30:15]:
It was my idea. At you.

Andrea Morris [00:30:17]:
Thank you very much. Oh, man.

Andrew [00:30:19]:
So, what about Chardonnay? Are you a Chardonnay drinker?

Andrea Morris [00:30:23]:
You know what? I am

Andrew [00:30:24]:
it’s one

Andrea Morris [00:30:25]:
of those wines that, you know, like like, every person I think that started drinking wine, you start with Chardonnay. Mhmm. And then the more you drink wine, you kinda, like, go, like, chardonnay. That’s, like, beginner level. But, but I have been going back to it lately because I’m Yeah. Some good. Because when the weather gets warmer I want, I seem to want a white wine and not a red wine.

Andrew [00:30:46]:
For sure, yeah. We often call Chardonnay in our industry it’s like a white wine for a red wine drinker. A gateway wine. Well, yeah, I mean, we we basically treat it like a red wine. Like, we we ferment it in a barrel. We age it in a barrel. There’s all different styles, of course, across the region, but, we ferment and age this in a Canadian oak barrel.

Andrea Morris [00:31:05]:
But see, I like an oak Chardonnay. Yeah.

Andrew [00:31:07]:
Absolutely. I mean, a lot of folks shy away from it because they they do a wedding or a party, and they’ve had an Australian or a California chardonnay, and it smells like sawdust. You know, have you been to the lumber department at Home Depot lately? It’s like, oh my god. This thing is so woody. So this Canadian oak barrels that we’re using, this wonderful kind of coconut coconut milk, coconut cream is this unusual tropical aromatic that we get finished, finished consistently from these barrels.

Andrea Morris [00:31:32]:
You see, I think I find the stainless steel sometimes doesn’t have any character to the wine.

Andrew [00:31:35]:
Right. It’s almost like they’re trying to make it more like sauvignon blanc or pinot grigio. Right? Like fresh chardonnay is It’s like Costco wine. Wine maker’s wine.

Andrea Morris [00:31:42]:
To Costco wine.

Andrew [00:31:43]:
Yeah. Exactly. Not to knock the the chard, the pinot grigio, and the pardon me, the sauvignon blanc, yeah, we like a fatter, richer style. So I’m not sure if you’ve seen chardonnay from

Andrea Morris [00:31:54]:
You know what? Funny that you said that because I can actually smell coconut on that.

Andrew [00:31:57]:
Yeah. Big time.

Andrea Morris [00:31:58]:
It’s like, seriously, I can smell coconut just coming right off that.

Andrew [00:32:02]:
No. I gotta give kudos out to

Andrea Morris [00:32:04]:
Lucas, our producer, says the same thing. He’s nodding his head at the coconut. It So we’re alright.

Andrew [00:32:10]:
Derek Barnett, from Laley, way back in the mid 2000, was experimenting with this Canadian oak, and we just loved it. Dave Johnson at Featherstone had adopted that program. We love these aromatics. So, yeah, we adopted it here and we’ve used exclusively Canadian oak and chardonnay since day 1.

Andrea Morris [00:32:27]:
It smells amazing. It’s like, I love like, for me, it’s like I love coconut. So just the smell of that would make me wanna buy it.

Andrew [00:32:34]:
It’s different, but hopefully not so different. It’s weird. You know, it’s still in the chardonnay wheelhouse. I mean No.

Andrea Morris [00:32:39]:
But it doesn’t taste coconut.

Andrew [00:32:40]:
No. For sure.

Andrea Morris [00:32:41]:
Because it’s initially, because it has that aromatic coconut, but it doesn’t taste coconut. It smell it tastes it doesn’t have that buttery chardonnay taste that most that most chardonnays have in a in a different oak, like in that California oak

Andrew [00:32:55]:
or in a touch tone. Where the butteriness comes from before? I don’t know if it has. Maybe you’ve seen I’m not sure if you’ve seen chardonnay fermenting, but almost looks like a wheat beer. Like, it’s a that hazy IVA. That’s almost what it looks like. And and the haze is the yeast, and the yeast is working away on the sugar, creating alcohol. You mentioned the alcohol gets up to a place where it kills all that yeast and it drifts to the bottom of the tank or the barrel, whatever you’re fermenting in bottle. We ferment in barrel.

Andrew [00:33:17]:
So imagine that we have this weird stainless steel hockey stick looking thing with these shark fin things on it, and we stick it in the barrel. We stir up that dead yeast. It sounds gross, but it does kinda give us this richer, rounder, buttery, almost popcorn butter mouthfeel. The French give it a sexy name. They call it. Butternard. It sounds better than stirring slime in tank or barrel because if you saw it going on, you never drink shark. Yeah.

Andrew [00:33:41]:
Yeah. Butterno. But, yeah, that that wonderful round richness. And these this one is the polar opposite. I don’t

Andrea Morris [00:33:47]:
have butternoge tattooed on my leg.

Andrew [00:33:49]:
Butterno. Tasting. Batonage. Yeah. So some of those, you

Andrea Morris [00:33:54]:
know listeners. If you wanna have free tasting Batonage. Batonage. Just have that little tattoo, and you’re you’re good for life here. Yeah.

Andrew [00:34:04]:
And some guests will say this, oh, you know, I hate oak. Is it possible is gonna make an oak version? But we’ve always

Andrea Morris [00:34:09]:
been this one. Taste super oaky. It doesn’t have, like, it doesn’t have that overly oaky taste to it. And the, like, the coconut smell doesn’t translate to the taste.

Andrew [00:34:20]:
Right.

Andrea Morris [00:34:20]:
It’s just like it’s like and and it’s not super buttery. It’s just like

Andrew [00:34:25]:
We want a balance of things. Yeah. Like, sometimes I have these Australian or California chards, and they’re just over the top. Like, it’s it’s all I can taste is butter.

Andrea Morris [00:34:34]:
Right? We want a balance of things. If I wanted

Andrew [00:34:36]:
butter, I’d put it on my bread. We wanna balance between the fruit, the oak, the alcohol, everything.

Andrea Morris [00:34:41]:
And it’s got that lovely balance. Yeah.

Andrew [00:34:43]:
Really nice. Barrels do another thing for us. Here we

Andrea Morris [00:34:46]:
go, butternage.

Andrew [00:34:48]:
Butternage. Barrels do another thing for us. They can give us what the wine nerds call micro oxygenation. This idea that a bit of oxygen moving through the stage and the entry can soften this mouth. It’ll make it feel more rich. You’ve had a a wine, like, the Gamay is a good example. You’ve had a wine entry level at a party or a wedding and it kinda wound up like a spin top. I guarantee you that’s from stainless steel.

Andrew [00:35:12]:
There’s no oxygen transfer, and that little bit of oxygen in the barrel kinda gives us this soft, plush, easy drinking. So, a richness.

Andrea Morris [00:35:19]:
It’s like a warmth. A warmth. A warmth.

Andrew [00:35:21]:
Yeah. It’s like a little a little Not alcohol warmth. Or maybe maybe combine it a bit with the alcohol. Yeah. So it’s a little, like, little

Andrea Morris [00:35:28]:
bit of a blank. Like like a like a little cashmere throw.

Andrew [00:35:31]:
Yeah. Like a cashmere throw. Yeah. Mid September eve.

Andrea Morris [00:35:35]:
Yes. Yeah. It’s like

Andrew [00:35:37]:
Yeah. Nothing. So we’re we’re,

Andrea Morris [00:35:40]:
I’m helping you with your marketing here.

Andrew [00:35:42]:
I love it. This is good.

Andrea Morris [00:35:44]:
Oh, yeah.

Andrew [00:35:44]:
Moving on to red wines. Oh, yes. Gamay. We kinda joke it’s like the the pinot noir without the attitude. A little softer, plusher.

Andrea Morris [00:35:54]:
I always think of Gamay as like the entry level to reds. For peep you know, like, because a lot of people start out drinking wine and they they start with Chardonnay and then they’re like, I don’t like reds. That’s fair.

Andrew [00:36:04]:
I know.

Andrea Morris [00:36:05]:
And then but, yeah, again, you can go like, just try this.

Andrew [00:36:07]:
We have a lot of young wine drinkers here. They’re like, oh, red wine. I’m like, let me guess. What you don’t like is the mouth drying sensation. Like, that what we call those tannic structures. Have you ever left a tea bag in way too long? You take a sip and all that moisture is pulled off your gums. That’s tannin. And of the index of tannin, gamma is the lowest.

Andrew [00:36:24]:
So we often in our industry call it the gateway red.

Andrea Morris [00:36:27]:
That’s what I

Andrew [00:36:28]:
said. These people.

Andrea Morris [00:36:28]:
It’s what I just said.

Andrew [00:36:29]:
Oh, did you just say this?

Andrea Morris [00:36:30]:
I just said it. God.

Andrew [00:36:32]:
It gets people into drinking red wine.

Andrea Morris [00:36:35]:
He obviously doesn’t listen, listener.

Andrew [00:36:37]:
I hope you are because

Andrea Morris [00:36:38]:
I said it gateway red. You said

Andrew [00:36:40]:
it first, the gateway red wine. Yeah. Because if you don’t like tannin, the next wine or Cabernet is your worst nightmare.

Andrea Morris [00:36:48]:
But it’s funny because, like, I, as a red wine drinker now, I tend to, like, be, like, with red with gamet sometimes. I’m like Right. Gamet, you know, but then I drink it and I’m like, oh, I like it.

Andrew [00:36:59]:
In our industry we often joke gamay is called the suicide grape. I’m not sure if it’s Like I’d

Andrea Morris [00:37:05]:
rather kill myself than drink gamay.

Andrew [00:37:07]:
Well no, not at all, though the opposite in the vineyard as a grape grower. So, we could talk about vine development for an hour hour but it’s really boring. So I’m going to give you a 20 seconds. I’ll skip over that. So you can imagine Cole’s note. Yeah, Cole’s notes, 20 seconds. In the winter, we approach the vine to prune it and we cut everything off, everything except for the trunk and we leave a couple of canes swinging in the wind boat chest high. In March, it gets warm enough where the sap starts to run.

Andrew [00:37:32]:
Like, on a sunny day over 10 degrees, it’ll drip like a faucet from the cut end, much like a sugar bush, you know, from maple syrup

Andrea Morris [00:37:37]:
or whatever.

Andrew [00:37:38]:
And that energy allows you to bend that cane down to the lowest wire, and we tie it to that because the buds on there bear fruit and the fruit grows within 6 inches of it. So you see the grapes dangling perfectly in the fall because the canes were tied in the spring. As the shoots kick up as they are now, they’re growing inch a day in this heat. They’re exploding. There’s so much work to do. Each of those shoots is really like a solar panel driving energy to 2 clusters of grapes. Like, if you walk through our reeds, like, midsummer, the shoots are perfectly straight, and the fruit set is just dead even from the top of the property to the bottom. It’s amazing.

Andrew [00:38:12]:
You love it. Riesling’s never let me down. Gamay, they often call it the suicide grape because each shoot is pushing 8 clusters. It’s like trying to injure itself with its fruit load. So, grape growers in the area, they love

Andrea Morris [00:38:25]:
to give them birth control.

Andrew [00:38:26]:
Well, a little bit. What we do is we go through if you could imagine the week after next, we’ll be out there in the field. We’re gonna cut off about 25% of the clusters. Wow. That’ll leave the energy of the summer in less fruit, so we have more kind of raspberry brambleberry kind of aromatic. What do you do with the fruit you cut off? Well, we just drop it in the field and let it compost and just pop back.

Andrea Morris [00:38:45]:
You don’t make jam from it or anything?

Andrew [00:38:47]:
Well, it is Is it too

Andrea Morris [00:38:48]:
is it because it’s not ready yet?

Andrew [00:38:49]:
Yeah. The acid is so high it’ll strip the enamel right off your teeth. I wouldn’t do that. It’s misery, and the clusters aren’t well formed yet. But, this idea of less is more, you know, grape growers love Gamay to grow it because it’s very prolific. It makes tons and tons of stuff that they can sell off to bigger wines that might blend it away. But we reduce the crop a little bit. We put it in barrels a little bit.

Andrew [00:39:12]:
We we treat it like almost like Pinot Noir. So Interesting. So the aromatics are more, these raspberry cranberry, like a tart kind of red fruit, but the mouth feels soft and plush and easy drinking. And you know what?

Andrea Morris [00:39:24]:
Gamay It does have a Yeah. Cam a cranberry con cranberry,

Andrew [00:39:27]:
like, almost a sour cherry, maybe?

Andrea Morris [00:39:29]:
Yeah. Yeah. It had that cranberry kinda nose to

Andrew [00:39:31]:
it. Yeah. And, we love getting in the summer heat. Like, it’s 32 degrees today, and, maybe you don’t wanna drink a a glass of Cabernet poolside. But you’re having something that you would like red wine with for dinner. This is a nice accompaniment to that. And because of its low tannic structures, it’s great for all kinds of even seafood can work with it because it’s not very tannic. The tannin doesn’t overpower, like, even grilled salmon.

Andrew [00:39:53]:
I like to, put pesto all over prawns and throw them right on the grill. That that works really well.

Andrea Morris [00:39:58]:
Could you

Andrew [00:39:58]:
throw an ice cube in that? Well, I don’t use an ice cube only because it the water might dilute it, but I put it in the fridge

Andrea Morris [00:40:05]:
for a couple 3, 5 minutes. I was gonna say, like, a a little I think a little chilled would be, like, in this weather, would be really palatable.

Andrew [00:40:11]:
And it takes the heat of the kitchen off that bottle and kinda brightens up that raspberry.

Andrea Morris [00:40:15]:
Yeah. I was gonna say, like, I think that a little bit of chill would would actually bring that raspberry ness, like, right in your face.

Andrew [00:40:21]:
Like, I’ve had the m a cold cold, like, from the fridge cold, and I think, I don’t love it that cold. Like, I think serving is really important. You know, when I was a young sommelier, going to my classes, we were called into class really early, and the professor said, okay. Sit down, pop quiz. Three wines, name the grape variety, the country of origin, justify your reasons. Let’s do this. So the first one I put to my nose, and I couldn’t smell a lot of aromatic. And I’m like, took a sip, like, oh, it’s really tannic.

Andrew [00:40:50]:
I’m like, oh, that’s young Bordeaux. I’m like, expensive, probably north of $50. The next one I try, oh, it smells wonderfully like cassis and crewne. I’m like, oh, that’s California Cabernet all day long. $40. 35 to $40. We’re all guessing. The last one I I put to my nose, and it’s almost warming like this and usually higher alcohol and red wine is a dead giveaway from Northern Italian wines, like Amarone, Repasso.

Andrew [00:41:12]:
You’ve had those maybe. So the bags come off. Guess what, dum dums? It’s all the same wine. What? One is from the fridge. 1 is 18 degrees, and one has been warmed up.

Andrea Morris [00:41:23]:
Oh my god.

Andrew [00:41:24]:
Yeah. My brain is exploding. So tech like, serving temperature can affect structure, texture, kinematics. So just when we’re getting all brave and cocky 3 months in, like, we know what’s going on, we You’re, like, shotgun. Not. Me. We are dumb. Yeah.

Andrew [00:41:39]:
We well, we just it’s like

Andrea Morris [00:41:40]:
Listen, there. Isn’t this great? Because now you know that even people who think they know something don’t.

Andrew [00:41:46]:
We don’t. Well, it’s a steep learning curve,

Andrea Morris [00:41:48]:
but Yes. It is. So nothing is wrong.

Andrew [00:41:50]:
Sure. Yeah. I always cringe. You know, we get, magazines and, real estate things delivered to the house so they come in the mail. And I’ll I’ll flip through it, and I’ll see, there’s a kitchen, a brand new kitchen. And right above the refrigerator is the wine rack.

Andrea Morris [00:42:06]:
You’re like, no.

Andrew [00:42:08]:
That’s a heat pump, kid.

Andrea Morris [00:42:09]:
You’re picking that wine. You’re putting that wine. Yeah.

Andrew [00:42:12]:
Don’t do it. So Yeah. Right on.

Andrea Morris [00:42:14]:
Yeah. So, yeah,

Andrew [00:42:15]:
Gamay soft, pleasurable, fun, and juicy.

Andrea Morris [00:42:17]:
It’s really, it’s got that cranberry, like, like, overtone, but it’s actually really lovely. Yeah.

Andrew [00:42:25]:
I mean, if you want, not to promote other wineries, but if you wanna have a real exercise in Gamay, Malavar, incredible what’s going on in their Gamay program. Really? Oh, yeah. They make 6 or I think now 7 different Gamay. Wow. Gamay is the great grape of Beaujolais, of course, and we made many different styles. So soft and plush. Quietly, I’ll confess, we’re trying to recreate their small lock Gamay. I’m gonna break into their lab and steal that paperwork.

Andrew [00:42:50]:
I’ve sent you

Andrea Morris [00:42:50]:
I know when I lived in England, like, every it was like it was fun because everyone was like, it’s Beaujolais time. It’s time for the Beaujolais. And everyone was like, Beaujolais, Beaujolais. And I and I got into drinking Beaujolais Sure. Which I had never drank before I moved to the UK. Yeah. It’s And then I was like, oh, Beaujolais. I suppose Beaujolais, Tom.

Andrea Morris [00:43:06]:
I’m like, now I’m like, posh, posh,

Andrew [00:43:08]:
posh. Mark and I know genius that Beaujolais Nouveau because what they they were basically oversupplied as a region. I can’t remember the name of the guy that came up with this idea. He’s like, we’re gonna release it on the 3rd Thursday of November every single

Andrea Morris [00:43:19]:
year. Exactly.

Andrew [00:43:20]:
Fresh wines right off their ferment. They’re really designed to put in a pint glass, get in the hot tub, and get it in. Yeah. Like, it’s really designed for

Andrea Morris [00:43:26]:
But everybody in the UK would go nuts for it. They’d be like, it’s Beaujolais.

Andrew [00:43:29]:
Yeah. Beaujolais. But there are true Beaujolais that you can even find here in Ontario, the LCBO, where they’ll name the village. On there, they’ll name

Andrea Morris [00:43:36]:
the village.

Andrew [00:43:37]:
So Moulin and Vaux is a big popular one. What they’ll what they’ll do is they’ll crop produce in the vineyard like we do, and they’ll put it in really expensive French bariques. Mhmm. And they’re trying to make it, like, high end Burgundy, basically. And they’re more dense, more weight, more ageability as well. So Gamay’s super versatile. I know Thomas Batchelder is also leading the charge on, on Gamay’s single vineyard Gamay. So

Andrea Morris [00:44:00]:
It’s funny. It’s still not my favorite red, but there are times when I do enjoy it. Sure. But, like, sometimes with the wine club, I’m like, oh god. Another

Andrew [00:44:09]:
Get me all

Andrea Morris [00:44:10]:
day. Yeah. No.

Andrew [00:44:11]:
Who needs rose? Yeah. It’s all good.

Andrea Morris [00:44:13]:
Yeah. And when I’m like So this is

Andrew [00:44:14]:
our Cabernet Franc, and our big claim to fame in Cabernet is green harvesting. So imagine that summer’s end, August 31st is a hard deadline. Like, if a cluster hasn’t completed its color change and the Varees on it, if it ain’t turned purple, we take it off. Really? And we do that because if it hasn’t turned its color by the end of summer’s heat, it’s like it’s never gonna cross

Andrea Morris [00:44:35]:
the finish

Andrew [00:44:35]:
line. Really? Oh, it’s never ripe enough come Halloween

Andrea Morris [00:44:37]:
when I must have put a

Andrew [00:44:39]:
fire under it? We we could we could hold out or or pray to god for warm weather in the fall, but as

Andrea Morris [00:44:44]:
you know Sweet baby Jesus, just make it happen.

Andrew [00:44:47]:
Exactly. I’m praying anyway. So, yeah, go figure.

Andrea Morris [00:44:52]:
Dear sweet baby Jesus, please make it be warmer.

Andrew [00:44:55]:
So just like the gamete in reducing the crop, it lose more energy and less. We have inky dark black fruit that harvest to make bigger gutsier, more powerful Cabernet. Like, when I walk that field before we harvest, if I spit seeds into my hand, they should be brown. And if I chew them a bit, they should almost taste like a walnut, like bitter, but not astringent. There’s a difference. Yeah? And brown seeds typically ensure full phenolic development. That that grape is ripe all the way from the skin to the core. And that that idea that it’s gonna give us these, aromatics of, like, cassis and currant and plum and jam.

Andrew [00:45:28]:
Like, all those things that red wine drinkers adore about red wine. And then we put this in American oak for a year. We’re trying to achieve the barrel program like this kind of cedary tobacco aromatic. And I don’t mean de Morier behind the woodshed when we were kids. Did you have an ancestor that smoked a pipe? No. Because I’m Yeah.

Andrea Morris [00:45:46]:
I’m I’m American. So

Andrew [00:45:48]:
Right. I have Camel Cigarettes.

Andrea Morris [00:45:50]:
That’s right. That’s right. I wasn’t smoking a dart. They were smoking I I get it. It’s like it’s like, you know, that whole Elizabeth Taylor thing? I need

Andrew [00:45:59]:
a I

Andrea Morris [00:45:59]:
need a cocktail and a Viceroy.

Andrew [00:46:01]:
There there you go.

Andrea Morris [00:46:02]:
A Viceroy. I mean, a cocktail and a Viceroy.

Andrew [00:46:06]:
Have you been to Cuba and seen them rolling, like, fresh tobacco, like wet, damp tobacco? That’s what we want in that Cabernet.

Andrea Morris [00:46:13]:
Yeah. Well, also those Cuban cigarettes are like a dollar for Yeah. Exactly. A good dollar for a back. And and

Andrew [00:46:19]:
we really designed the cab here to be, like, consumed with steak and roast and powerful food for powerful wine. So that’s our big red. That’s what we’ve got. The big red. The big red.

Andrea Morris [00:46:29]:
It smells like it’s got I I you know what? I was saying this when I was at Casaba, I’m like, I never smelled tobacco. I freaking smelled tobacco on this. Yeah. For sure. Got Mhmm. Like, all of a sudden, I’m like, I mentioned tobacco, and you’re talking about tobacco. Now I wanna smoke, but it’s like, oh, I’d smell it in the wine. We have, It’s got that it’s just hearty.

Andrew [00:46:48]:
I think it comes to the American oak. We It’s ballsy. Yeah. The the the Cabernet franc is broad showroom to stand up to the wider grain of American oak. Almost everyone in the area uses French barrels for their really high end reds, but we don’t I don’t know. I’d I we love this kind of scenery tobacco. We were in Napa Valley years ago, and we were tasting Napa up and down the the valley and everybody uses French brewing, French brewing. We last stop last day, I went to a place called Silver Oak.

Andrew [00:47:15]:
I don’t know if you know the brand. There’s a million down there. They use exclusively American oak, a certain percentage brand new, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 year old. We’ve adopted that program and we just love this this aromatic. As long as I’ll have, hot shot sommeliers here from from, Toronto and they’re like, oh, American. And I’m like, we love it, and our customers love it. So we’re gonna keep doing that. That’s

Andrea Morris [00:47:37]:
it. What is the difference between the French

Andrew [00:47:40]:
and Americans? Tighter grains, certainly from the from the Frenchy and, more expensive to big cut. Like, we think, like, if we were to put American oak on the Gamay, all you would smell is

Andrea Morris [00:47:51]:
powerful work. Really lovely.

Andrew [00:47:52]:
Yeah. We wanna balance the the the fruit character is so big and monster in our cabin. We feel the American oak is the right choice.

Andrea Morris [00:47:59]:
Really, it’s got almost like a cherry Mhmm. A very deep cherry fruit.

Andrew [00:48:03]:
Right. Like, black cherry, not red cherry.

Andrea Morris [00:48:05]:
Don’t No. Not not yeah. Definitely black cherry. It’s got that black cherry with that little bit of hint of tobacco in the back of your mouth. It’s like it’s really lovely. It’s even it’s like literally one of my favorite reds.

Andrew [00:48:16]:
Awesome. Well Yeah. You take your money every time.

Andrea Morris [00:48:21]:
Yes. I

Andrew [00:48:22]:
know. We’re like crack dealers. You know? It’s like the first sample’s free, and then you gotta have it.

Andrea Morris [00:48:29]:
Don’t have that tattoo, you are not gonna get any more. Okay? Exactly. That’s right. How much do you love it? Yeah. Exactly. Commit. Come on.

Andrew [00:48:39]:
Come on. You commit. Well, I guess Well,

Andrea Morris [00:48:42]:
you know, you should have a tattoo person on, you know, on the weekends here. At your when you’re spinning house, you should also have, like

Andrew [00:48:48]:
I guess. I don’t know. Yeah. We’ll see. Well, when it’s not booked with a party, we’ll have a tattoo artist in there. Free ink today. We’ll put a sign out on King Street, and we wind up open the door. Oh my god.

Andrea Morris [00:49:01]:
Free ink, but only if it has something to do with the winery. You got it.

Andrew [00:49:04]:
I think, you know, we’re just trying to make wines that are interesting and delicate or powerful, and they mean something to somebody. Because as you know, there’s an ocean of mediocre wine out there. We’re just

Andrea Morris [00:49:13]:
trying to

Andrew [00:49:14]:
do something that matters.

Andrea Morris [00:49:15]:
But you guys have been very successful, and I drive by on the weekends, and Smittenhouse is packed. And so you’re doing something right.

Andrew [00:49:21]:
No. We work that for sure. We have a hospitality background, and, I realized something about myself during the pandemic. I am an extrovert. Being around humans, why does me like, sometimes after a long service, I kinda feel like I have a natural high. Like, I just stepped off the stage almost. You know? A lot of the staff are like, oh my god. I’m going home to put my feet in an ice bag on my head.

Andrew [00:49:42]:
They’re like, I’m gonna go on to dance. I could keep going. Let’s go. I love it. So I

Andrea Morris [00:49:47]:
wanna dance. Yeah. Damn it. Right.

Andrew [00:49:50]:
Yeah. Well, thanks for inviting me. This was fun.

Andrea Morris [00:49:53]:
Oh my god. It was so much fun. It’s like, you

Andrew [00:49:54]:
know what? It’s always a pleasure

Andrea Morris [00:49:56]:
to be here. So I’m so happy that you consented to be a part of this podcast. And listeners, I really hope that you enjoyed this wine tasting with Andrew and Bakten. It’s absolutely fantastic. If you’d like to know more about the winery, visit our show notes because we’ll have some photos, and we’ll have pictures of the wines that we drank, and we’ll have some pictures of the vineyard. And we’ll also have all of their social media info so you can you can get in touch with that. And be sure to like and follow spill the wine. And, also, if you have any comments or suggestions or any other wineries that you want us to look for, be sure to contact us at pod castspillthewine@gmail.com.

Andrea Morris [00:50:39]:
Once again, podcastspillthewine@gmail.com. Now raise your glass. Cheers.

Andrew [00:50:47]:
Cheers,

Andrea Morris [00:50:47]:
Alex. Cheers, and we’ll see you next time.