Cave Spring 1997 CSV Estate Bottled Chardonnay

Found June 2011

It's not often that you get a chance to talk with the winery owner a few days after trying a bottle of his wine, but that is just what happened here:  I tried this bottle on a Sunday and (by happenstance) was speaking with Tom Pennachetti about it the following Friday.  My findings on this wine were very poor, but there were a lot of unknown factors to me before I acquired this bottle.  It was given to me by a friend who `found` it their basement.  The friend in question did not have proper storage for the bottle and has moved a number of times in the interim.  Needless to say the bottle was questionable at best.  I opened this bottle up with a number of wine-loving friends and they were excited to sip on a bottle of 13 year old Ontario Chardonnay.  The cork was crumbly and ended up falling into the bottle, after filtering enough of it out to get a proper sample we found the smells and flavours to be off-putting, tertiary in nature with little sign of fruit; there was some butterscotch and vanilla notes but it all got lost in the heavy oxidative and maderized flavours of the wine.  When I told this to Tom he said he had tried a bottle not too long ago and his experience had been much better, but then again (he pointed out) his bottle had been kept under pristine cellaring conditions. A bottle this old will show signs of its adventure to your glass, and this one`s adventure was dodgy at best.  Lost & Found Rating:  Trash (though possibly not the wines fault)

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Hillebrand 1997 Trius Red

Found December 2010

It's a little bit of a misnomer to call this wine a "lost and found" wine, because a friend brought it over on New Year's Eve, hence it was never lost in my cellar - but on the other hand it was lost to me (I did not have it) so it is not too far a stretch ... in any case I hope you will indulge me.  For a wine that is 13 years old it was surprisingly youthful on the nose mixing in a blend of dried and fresh sour cherries, quite surprising indeed.  The palate showed a lot more complexity, the dried cherries were there along with dried leaves which turned into pipe tobacco on the finish.  One of those in attendance said they tasted bitter cocoa (powder-like) in the mouth ... and who can argue with something like that - I sure didn't, especially since I had already finished my ration.  Lost & Found Rating:  Treasure

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Southbrook Winery 1997 Triomphe Cabernet / Merlot

Found November 2008

Years ago, when Southbrook was a young winery, and still resided in Maple / Richmond Hill (just north of Toronto), a buddy and I used to hang out there quite a bit. It was actually he and his wife who found the place, and knowing my love for wine started taking me there. I remember quite a few Sunday afternoons sitting in the tasting room talking with Nick or bumping into Derek Barnett, the winemaker, who talked passionately about his "hobby" or even Bill Redelmeier, owner, who could speak for hours on the history of the area. That was many moons ago for me and what seems like a lifetime for other principals of this story. Today, Southbrook finds themselves in the heart of Niagara, with a newfangled winery, an acclaimed winemaker and plenty of press about their new digs ... but they can't escape their past - which in truth is pretty good.

That brings me to this bottle of wine - seems I have a few older vintage Southbrook wines from the days of sitting in the old tasting room; those who manned it said the wines were meant for aging and it seems that I took that to heart. On a quiet evening in November I pulled out one of these elderly bottles with the burgundy label, popped the cork and gave it a try.

I tried a number of things with this wine: straight from the bottle, decanting and big glassware. Upon popping the cork I poured the wine directly into a Bordeaux Spiegelau glass and got dried fruit, wet grass, green pepper and dried cherry on the nose. The palate had wet leaves, and an earthy quality complete with a leatheryness and ... a metallic finish that changes into a Vick's cherry cough drop linger, but that metal is still there. I then decanted and let it sit - the nose improved and became a beautiful spiced dried cherry, but the palate did not seem to change, and over the next 30 minutes the wine completely collapsed, turning smoky and cedary, retaining the greeness and metallic finish. After 11 years this wine had become old and tired. Lost & Found rating: Treasure to find an 11 year old wine - became trash pretty quickly.

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