Could Nova Scotia be the champagne capital of Canada?
Pop. Splash, fizz… gush.
Over the past three years, Nova Scotia wineries have been charming wine lovers with their exceptional traditional method sparkling wines. (TM sparkling is code for champagne-style wine—see “Sparkling Methods,” page 51—produced outside of France.)
In 2010 Benjamin Bridge Winery released approximately 960 bottles of its 2004 Brut Reserve and 300 bottles of ‘04 Blanc de Noirs, priced at $74.50 and $119.50 respectively. They were sold out in two weeks
In 2012, traditional method sparkling wines from Gaspereau Vineyards, Domaine de Grand Pré and Luckett Vineyards took medals at the Canadian Wine Awards. This May, Blomidon Estate Winery was invited to an event called Rediscover Canadian Wines in London, England, to pour its sparkling wines alongside Benjamin Bridge and L’Acadie.
Avondale Sky will release its first traditional method sparkler this fall.
Currently, more than half a dozen of the 18 licensed wineries in Nova Scotia are making a range of traditional method sparkling wines, a percentage that exceeds any other Canadian wine region.
The curious case of Benjamin Bridge
Up until 2010, Benjamin Bridge had been a bit of a mystery. Unlike other Nova Scotia wineries, it wasn’t open to the public, and it didn’t enter wine competitions. Its portfolio of wines—from Nova 7, first released in 2008, followed by Taurus Red, Borealis icewine and Vero white—were limited in quantity and more expensive than most, but received rave reviews from the critics, who implied greater things were yet to come.
Mining executive Gerry McConnell and his late wife, Dara Gordon, had bought the Gaspereau Valley property in 1999, with a dream of making world-class wines. They spared no expense to ensure that happened. Leading Canadian wine consultants Ann Sperling and Peter Gamble were brought in to determine the best choice of grapes for their soil and growing season.
They discovered how similar the growing conditions were to Champagne, France, and recommended organic sparkling wines. In 2002, Raphaël Brisbois, a French expert in making traditional method sparklings, was contracted as a consultant. The winery hired Quebec-born Jean-Benoit Deslauriers, who had been working in California, to be its resident winemaker in 2008.
The first full estate harvest was in 2003, but given world-class champagne-style wines must go through a secondary fermentation in the bottle for at least two years—longer for vintage—they waited six years before their first release, in 2010. Their other wines were like the warm-up acts before the headliner at a concert, and some of them, like Nova 7—developed by Gamble, who was recently involved with Nova Scotia’s new wine appellation Tidal Bay—have developed a cult following of their own. Meanwhile in the cool of the winery’s state-of-the-art bottle room, the racks reach to the ceiling, filled with bottles of still fermenting wine waiting for their year to bubble forth.
With the resources available to Benjamin Bridge success was almost guaranteed—but proof of Nova Scotia’s suitability for sparkling wines has come from other wineries that couldn’t afford to hold their wines for six years. They offer quality traditional method sparklers after 18 months to four years of bottle fermentation.
Bruce Ewert’s dream of organic sparkling wines
Lest it be argued, 2010 was a good year for other wines as well. For example L’Acadie Vineyards’ 2007 Prestige Brut won gold, and the highest score of 91, for a traditional method sparkling wine at the Canadian Wine Awards. It went on to win silver and the only North American winery to get an award at the French Effervescents du Monde in 2011.
Owner Bruce Ewert had been making wine for 18 years in California, Australia, Ontario and BC, where he had specialized in organic sparkling, before buying L’Acadie Vineyards in 2004. Unlike Benjamin Bridge, which primarily uses the traditional champagne grapes of pinot noir, pinot meunier and chardonnay, Ewert chose to make his wine primarily from hardier l’Acadie grapes that were better suited to survive Atlantic Canadian winters. The hybrid grapes and the shorter fermenting times are reflected in the $40 price for his Prestige Brut.
While he was waiting for his wines to ferment, Ewert consulted for other wineries, giving courses on traditional method winemaking.
“I wanted to get the other wineries on the right path making quality TM sparklers so that Nova Scotia would be known for the real deal,” he says.
Do beer loving Maritimers have champagne tastes?
According to Nick Jennery, executive director of the Winery Association of Nova Scotia, beer sales have been decreasing (with the exception of craft beer) across the province in recent years, while wine sales have increased, as the population ages. The sharpest increase has been in local wines, up 18 per cent in 2012 over the previous year alone.
Jennery points out that Nova Scotia’s grape growers can’t keep up with the increasing demands for wine grapes. Given the fruit can’t be harvested until the third year after planting, the industry has to carefully study market trends to decide what to plant now for the future.
Wine tour operators like Laila North, of Go North Wine Tours, say that Girls Day Out and Bacherlorette Party wine tours are becoming extremely popular, and almost always include a stop at L’Acadie Vineyards for a lesson on traditional method wine making—and a pre-requisite glass of bubbly.
How do you know if your bubbly is a TM sparkler?
Bruce Ewert tells the story of a winemaker from Champagne who had visited him recently. He was interested in starting a winery here—but had needed reassurance that there would be regulations controlling the labelling of sparkling wine to ensure that the traditional method sparklers could readily be differentiated from wines that are artificially carbonated, like the popular Jost Muscat Prost or Petite Riviere’s Wedding Dance.
As a result, Donna Sears, director of the newly formed Atlantic Wine Institute, has been commissioned to study the marketability of sparkling wines.
Winemakers like Simon Rafuse, of Blomidon Estate, are optimistic. “I think sparkling wines in Nova Scotia have the potential to drive and shape our industry,” he says. “It’s a product that we can do very well consistently, and we’re starting to see that recognition across the country.”
Sparkling methods
Traditional method refers to a process developed in Champagne, France, whereby natural fermentation in the bottle produces a sparkling wine. In contrast, many mass-produced effervescent wines are artificially carbonated—injected with carbon dioxide prior to bottling. There are also Charmat and transfer methods: Charmat wines are naturally fermented in a closed tank and then bottled; transfer refers to wines that are naturally fermented in the bottle, then emptied, the yeast filtered out, and rebottled.
Back to traditional, the so-called champagne of all methods: The grapes are picked early when the sugar levels are low and the acidity high. The juice is pressed off quickly to keep the wine white, even when made from red grapes, hence the term blanc de noirs. After the primary fermentation, a cuvée, or blend, is created using several wines and a liqueur de tirage of sugar and yeast, then bottled and stored horizontally on its lees—sediment consisting of dead yeast cells and grape solids—for several years, gaining in complexity and value each year.
When the aging is complete, the bottles are shaken by hand and turned daily for several weeks, increasing the incline of bottle from 45° to 90°, moving the lees into the bottle neck. The neck is then frozen and the cap removed. The pressure in the bottle disgorges the plug of lees and a small quantity of wine with a pop. The bottle is topped up with the base wine, and sugar, then sealed.
The term brut, used by Benjamin Bridge and L’Acadie, indicates a dry sparkling with little sugar. The term Natural Brut, on the Gaspereau Pinot Noir 2009, means no sugar in the dosage. Sweet types are labelled doux.
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