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Fruit
Wines | Sunnybrook Farm Wines |
Fruit Wines of Ontario | Health
Benefits | Serving Temperature |
Storage
How Much Do I Need | Wine
Tasting | Iced Wines | Competitions
| Fortified | Corked
| Organic
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Fruit Wines
Fruit wines were the first
wines made in Niagara-on the-Lake. In the 1700’s British
soldiers garrisoned at Fort George in Newark (what is now
Niagara-on the-Lake) made wine from apples and other locally
grown fruits. The wife of Lieutenant Governor John Graves
Simcoe, when Newark was the capital of the newly created
province of Upper Canada (Ontario) in 1792/1793, wrote down
her recipes. In this document at Fort George she included
instructions for making Apple Wine.
There are over 25 fruit
wineries in New Zealand and Australia, 200 in the United
States, and 180 cideries and fruit wineries in the European
Union. Like the fruit wineries in Canada, these are small
wineries although some of the large wineries are now also
making fruit wines.
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Sunnybrook Farm Wines
Unfortunately, many people’s
perception is that fruit wines are heavy and syrupy, reminiscent
of the stuff old Uncle George made in the basement and abandoned
years ago because he didn’t know what he was doing and
didn’t like it either!
The
typical reaction of customers in Sunnybrook Farm Estate Winery’s
store is “WOW!”. Our 100% fruit wines are light
and balanced and a pleasure to drink.
Grape
wine offers several varieties of one species of fruit, whereas
other-than-grape fruit wines are made from many different
species of fruit, each with its own unique characteristics
and a wonderful variety of flavours.
Our
wines are made from 100% fruit, not grape-based and not fortified.
The fermentation process is similar to that of grape wine
although more care must be taken during the process to avoid
undesired fermentations. We do not age in oak because we want
to maintain the true characteristics of each fruit.
You
may let Sunnybrook Farm wines age for three to five years,
but no longer.
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Fruit Wines of Canada
- Fruit Wines of Ontario
Fruit
Wines of Ontario is an association of wineries whose mission
is to promote the sale of wines made from fruit other than
grape. Some members produce 100% fruit wines while others
also produce grape wines or blends of the two.
The
association has developed a set of Quality Certified (QC)
standards, which is regulated by the national body, Fruit
Wines of Canada. The QC program is modeled on the VQA regulations
and functions with the co-operation of the Liquor Control
Board of Ontario (LCBO) who taste and test fruit wines on
the same basis as VQA grape wines.
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Health Benefits
of Fruit Wines
A recent study at the
University of Guelph shows that fruit wines are low in headache-causing
histamines. None at all were detected in the Cherry, Apple,
and Plum wines, so you may be able to enjoy fruit wines
if you are allergic to grape wines (especially oak aged
Whites and Reds). Fruit wines are also high in antioxidant
capacity and minerals, resveritrol (the antioxidant, anti-cancer
and cholesterol lowering compound found in red wine), and
catechins (a heart protection compound).
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| Wine Serving
Temperature |
| 7 C (45 F) |
- Most White wines and Iced wines.
- Place the bottle in the refrigerator to cool for an
hour. |
| 10 C (50 F) |
- Fruit wines and full-bodied, high quality White
wines.
- Place the bottle in the refrigerator to cool for about
half an hour. |
| 15 C (60 F) |
- Red wines.
- Place the bottle in the refrigerator to cool for ten
minutes. |
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Term Storage
An unfinished bottle
of Sunnybrook Farm Estate Winery fruit wine has a life span
of about two weeks in the refrigerator if the bottle is
re-sealed with the cork or another tight closure. White
grape wines have a life span of about 4 days, reds, two
days.
If you are purchasing
large quantities of wine, a cool cellar or closet where
the temperature remains around 12 to 18 C (55 to 65 F) degrees
is best. Avoid areas that get any direct sunlight and keep
the bottles on their sides, so the corks do not dry out.
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How Much Do I
Need?
A standard
serving of wine is five ounces (150 ml.) and you will get
5 glasses from a 750 ml. bottle.
- For lunch, allow 1/3 bottle per person.
- For dinner, allow ½ bottle per person.
- For a Wine & Cheese party, allow ½ bottle per
person for a party lasting two hours, more for an extended
party.
- For a larger social function, assume that one 750 ml. bottle
will pour 5 glasses.
- It’s a good idea to have an extra bottle or two on
hand.
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Wine
Tasting
The art of wine tasting
and appreciation is not complicated. All you need is a desire
to better understand wine and a willingness to sample. Enjoy
developing your palate and be open to discovery. Trust your
instincts.
A few basic
tips that will make your wine tasting more enjoyable. White
wine should be served chilled, but not cold. If it’s
too cold, the flavours will be stifled. Red wine should be
served at cellar, not room, temperature. If you’re serving
a younger wine that’s not yet at its peak of maturity,
decanting the wine will infuse it with oxygen, bringing it
into a better balance.
Conduct
your wine tasting in comfortable surroundings and remember
that it’s a subjective experience. There are no right
answers. Use a stemmed, tulip-shaped glass with a rim diameter
smaller than the diameter of the bowl. Fill each glass of
wine about one-third full. Pick up each glass by the stem.
Holding the glass around the bowl will change the wine’s
temperature and obscure your view of the contents of the glass.
The first step in
wine tasting is to examine the wine and note its colour and
clarity. Next, raise the glass to your nose and smell the
wine. Do this twice. The first time, do it without swirling
the glass. The second time thoroughly swirl your glass letting
the wine mix with oxygen. Note the aroma. Finally, taste the
wine. This should be done slowly. Hold the wine in your mouth
as you assess its characteristics, including body and fruit
character. As you swallow the wine, notice how long the flavour
stays with you. That’s the length of the wine.
If
you are tasting several wines, cleanse your palate between
the wines. Drink water or eat some bland crackers between
wines that you are trying.
Trust
your instincts and drink what you like, not what you think
you should like. with
Thomas Mathews
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Icewine and Iced
Wines
Icewine
is a late-harvest wine made from grapes pressed while frozen.
To make Icewine, the grapes are left on the vine until after
the first frost hits. These grapes are harvested after being
naturally frozen in the vineyard and then, while still frozen,
they are pressed. During both of these processes the temperature
cannot exceed -8 degrees C. At this temperature the grapes
will freeze as hard as marbles. While the grape is still in
its frozen state, it is pressed and the water is driven out
as shards of ice. This leaves a highly concentrated juice,
very high in acids, sugars and aromatics.
Tree
fruits and berries are harvested much earlier in the year
than the grapes varieties used for icewine and so do not survive
on the plant until winter. The fruit used to make Sunnybrook
Farm Estate Winery’s Iced wines are artificially frozen
and then pressed to make the sweet dessert wines. The easier
process is reflected in the price of the wines.
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Competitions
Some competitions have
specific classes and others do not. The wines are judged by
experts who rate the wine on precise criteria and award scores.
A wine must achieve a certain score to win a Gold, Silver,
or Bronze medal. If several wines score high enough to be
awarded (for example) a Gold Medal, each wine will receive
a medal. If none of the wines are good enough for a gold medal,
none will receive one. The best wines in each class will win
a Double Gold or a Trophy, or some other designation named
by the competition. Competitions also give a coveted award
for the Best Wine of the competition, a Grand Award. Competitions
with no specific classes award medals based on scores only.
Some wineries enter many
competitions, some only a few. Wine judging is subjective
– a wine may win a medal in one competition, but none
in another. This is why we say ”You be the judge.”
Don’t let someone else tell you what you should like.
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Fortified Wine
Is there a difference between a table wine and a fortified
wine?
Yes. A
table wine can contain anywhere from 7% to 14.5% alcohol by
volume. A fortified wine will contain 16% to 22% alcohol.
Wines are fortified by the addition of grape spirit (brandy)
usually to stop the fermentation – as in port –
which leaves a significant amount of residual sugar in the
wine. Tony Aspler
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Corked Wine
The beautiful, ruby-hued
wine streams into your glass. You swirl it and take a deep
whiff. What you expect is a vibrant blend of fresh-fruit aromas.
Then you smell something more like wet cardboard or moldy
bread. That wine is "corked" -- contaminated by
mold growing in the cork.
The
condition, which can affect new bottlings as well as old ones,
has nothing to do with tiny bits of cork floating around in
the bottle. A corked wine is one with a fouled cork, and it
happens with astounding frequency. Estimates place the incidence
of corked bottles anywhere from 1 in 20 to 1 in 10! No wonder
the wine industry is increasingly drawn toward the use of
plastic corks, or even screw caps.
Checking
for corkiness is the main reason for examining a wine before
it's decanted or served to your guests, at home or at a restaurant.
(Sniffing the cork itself won't tell you anything.) Just a
splash of wine swirled in a glass will do.
No
need to taste it; just smell. If it's "off," it's
done for. Good restaurants replace bad bottles without indignation
or debate. Besides, there's no way you can (or should) drink
a wine in spite of its tainted smell. And once you've experienced
a corked wine, you never forget that telltale scent. Lawrence
B. Johnson
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Organic
Wine
The word 'organic' is
one that we can find increasingly on our food products and
it's becoming more common on wine labels as well. Let's be
clear on one thing here; the word 'organic' is as much a marketing
tool as any other sop to consumer demands.
So let's begin at the
beginning. The French association of organic growers is called
'Terre et Vie'. Its rulebook is almost entirely devoted to
the growing of the vines rather than the vinification process.
It is primarily an association of organic vine growers, with
the winemaking coming a very poor second. While the vines
are in the process of growing throughout the spring and summer,
growers all over the world use two sprays universally: sulphur
sprays to keep fungal infection at bay and copper sulphate
sprays to stop mildew. Organic growers use both these sprays.
All organic wine-makers
need to add sulphur dioxide to their wines. It's virtually
impossible to produce a stable wine without it, whether during
fermentation or before bottling or both. It's especially true
if the grapes have had no sprays to counter micro-bacteria,
since bacteria and unwanted yeasts can affect the fermentation
adversely. So you need sulphur during fermentation and then
again at bottling to prevent oxidization, and possibly more
as an organic grower than a conventional one.
Paolo Tullio
The Food and Wine Net,
2004 (the site for Irish Gourmets and Wine Lovers)
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