Renata and Eugene Roman purchased 40 acres of land in 2000, which is now home of Rosewood Estates Winery and Meadery. Their goal was to start a small-batch artisanal winery and meadery.  Winemaker Natalie Spytkowsky tells it, wines and meads are all about “small and natural”. This philosophy is what allows selective hand harvesting of grape clusters, extensive sorting of grapes to get the best of crop and whole cluster pressing of grapes in gentle cycles. There is no crushing. Grape clusters go straight to the tank and are allowed to settle in cold temperatures. As much as is possible, Natalie naturally ferments the red varietals rather than introducing commercial yeasts. She explains that it takes more time to complete the winemaking process, but in six or seven months after fermentation, it is her opinion that “the wine opens up better and shows more richness and complexity”. Of course this winemaking approach takes passion, patience and commitment.

The meadery side of Rosewood takes on the same philosophical and practical approach. A second generation beekeeper, Eugene realized a longtime dream by teaming up with Natalie to produce mead (honey wine). Mead is made by fermenting honey and water. There are three apiaries attended by the Rosewood team that are positioned throughout the Beamsville Bench. As you might expect, the bees are busy travelling throughout the region.  Natalie explains that one bee will visit one million flowers to produce one pound of honey. It may fly a distance as far as 4 times around the world collecting the raw materials for honey. Just think of all the choices it has in the Niagarawine and fruit region?

When we featured Rosewood in our Savvy Selections wine of the month club, we sampled 3 of Rosewood’s meads & were blown away by the Ambrosia Grand Reserve 2006.  Savvy Sommelier Wayne Walker sums it up: “Ambrosia was like nothing I have ever tasted before – an incredibly delicious, smooth & unique wine.”

Cheers & Enjoy!

Rosewood Ambrosia Mead 2006

$36 for 375mL bottle - makes a unique gift too!

Savvy Sommelier Tasting Notes: Full bodied, rich & warm is the best way to begin to describe this unique wine. Straw yellow in colour, the aroma & taste of fresh ripe stone fruits (think nectarine, peach) orange marmalade, sweet spices, white flowers & clover. A honeyed texture with a long pleasant finish that lingers on the tongue with one of the sweetest wood flavours that you will ever experienced.  There is no other taste quite like it!

Food pairing suggestions: If you have a sweet tooth, you will enjoy this mead with aged cheeses, pates, foie gras & fruit or nut based desserts.  On the sweetness level it is a 10 – compared to icewine that is usually in the 30’s

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Rosewood Estate Winery & Meadery has been a feature winery in our Savvy Selections wine of the month club. Like this wine? Subscribe & it’ll be delivered to your home or office!

What Is Mead?  

Courtesy of Rosewood Estates website

Mead (also known as honey wine) is made from the fermentation of honey and water. Honey is flower nectar collected by domesticated honeybees (apis mellifera). Honey is a remarkable product which contains a complex mixture of sugars, enzymes, proteins, organic compounds and trace minerals. These compounds give honey its distinctive flavor and aromas. These carry over into mead production and lend a distinctive flavor to the finished mead.

Mead was the first fermented beverage enjoyed by modern mankind. Mead first showed up as a beverage almost 10,000 years ago. It is a deep part of human history and a link to our forefathers. In ancientGreece, Hippocrates used mead as a tonic. Vikings believed that honey and mead had magical properties and were a gift from the heavens (Valhalla). In Celtic tradition, no wedding was complete without a mead toast to the young couple…FOR A SWEET MARRIAGE. It has been claimed that the word honeymoon comes from a tradition where a newly married couple drank mead for a full moon to ensure a long life and a happy marriage. We find it an intriguing and historical product which links us to human history.

Honey - Nature's Original Sweetner 

At Rosewood, we produce and sell natural un-pasteurized honey on the Estate. Our busy bees Apis mellifera – fly the Beamsville Bench andTwentyValley to gather nectar from the flowers to produce sweet golden honey for your enjoyment.  Honey is known to provide us with many health benefits and provides instant fast burning energy. Honey can be used extensively in cooking from making smoothies to honey baked hams.

When people refer to AVA's (American Viticultural Area) in Oregon, they usually think of two designations: Willamette and Walla Walla. But the Wine-Jedi would say, "There is another." It is designated as Southern Oregon and is comprised of Umpqua Valley, Red Hills Douglas County, Rogue Valley and Applegate Valley.

The modern era of grape growing in Oregon began in the Umpqua Valley just North of Roseburg in 1961 with the first planting of commercial vines. The complex topography of this area is marked by the convergence of three different mountain ranges. Where there's mountains, there's valleys and where there's valleys at this latitude with Oregon's potential for rich soil and greenhouse effect; there's wine! It is identified as having 2,001,430 acres. A good deal of the agricultural part of this is vineyards.

I headed South about 65 miles today to have a look and was very impressed by the size and development of the vineyards in this area. Rather than stop at 3 or 4 wineries, I decided to
let GPS take me on a tour. She decided we didn't have to get too far off the I-5 South. It was a very comfortable, scenic drive through the mountain ranges and valleys all draped in their cloaks of vines. Some vineyards are as large as in the Willamette, but for the most part, terroir-driven artisanal wines are predominant.

Of course, I couldn't go by every tasting room so I chose to stop at a winery called Abacela, which is an almost-obsolete verb meaning "to plant vines" in three Iberian based languages, Spanish, Portugese and Galician. My reasoning was to taste the Iberian wines they were growing: Albarino, Garnacha, Tempranillo and Port. I thought they would be the best way to test the stories I'd heard about the warmer micro climates in the South.

The winery and the vineyard are very impressive. Preparations were being made via nets for the
soon-to-be-arriving bird migrations, in particular the droves of Cedar Waxwings that come down from Canada and fill up on vineyard grapes on their way to the Baja Peninsula. In evidence were the rows of grapes covered with nets, one of the many deterrents used to save the harvest. Last year, Abacela served up 1/3 of its crop to the migrants.

As for the wines, they all had the aroma profiles you would expect of the same varietals grown in the Signature countries. They were all quite young and needed a bit more bottle aging. The Tempranillo was a good drink but lacked the texture of its Spanish twin and a Dolcetto that was made onsite showed some good promise but was a bit woody. The Albarino however was a winner with nice light body, great acidity, and lemon, pineapple, wild flowers, and honeysuckle all present and accounted for both on the nose and on the palate. I could hear the echo of Pacific white fish coming up the valley as I tried to capture it's fleeting finish.

Abacela boasts three different terroirs on their property: cool North Slopes where they grow Albarino, warm bench lands where they grow Tempranillo and hot South facing slopes where they grow Port (I assume that would be Touriga Nacional or Xarel-ho).

There is a great deal of difference between the heat needed for Port as compared to Albarino and since the Reds were good I think it shows the vineyards amazing micro climate diversity. I also tasted a Syrah that was quite good with a lot of potential to be part of a full-bodied red blend.

A return Northward with a brief respite for a coffee and a 6 inch Sub delivers me to Rancho Rustic for my last night in Oregon. Got some packing to do as I leave for my return to Seattle tomorrow and some King Size overnight comfort at Holiday Inn. Off to scale the Space Needle, but more importantly, to experience the Pike Sreet market, one of the best seafood markets in America. With that will come the occasional glass from Washington Vines. Then back to Victoria on the Ferry and to Vancouver on another Ferry to tell my friend Hugh how the Ducks played.

One of my overall goals was to visit a smaller production winery where wines are few in number, but high in quality. Hence my highly anticipated pilgrimage to The Witness Tree Vineyard, a 52 acre sight kneeling at the foot of the hillside pedestal where the real Witness tree has stood for over 200 years. It is owned by Dennis and Carolyn Devine.

It produces 6,000 cases of wine a year, primarily Pinot Noir; however, it does produce a very good Pinot Gris and a respectable Chardonnay. I tasted 7 wines including a very interesting dessert wine called Sweet Signe that is actually made by freezing the grapes then pressing them. The resultant concentrated slush is melted and becomes the must that is then fermented and aged into wine that tastes a lot like Late Harvest White Blends from Ontario.

My Pinot Noir experiences were:

"Chainsaw Pinot Noir" 2009 crafted from a field of Chardonnay that had been chainsawed to the stems and then had Pinot Noir grafted onto the trunks of the old vines (a la phylloxera grafting techniques that saved the wine industry in the 19th century from being wiped out in Europe). As well a 2008 Estate Pinot Noir that benefited from a very good harvest year. A 2007 Vintage Select that is the true expression of Witness Tree terroir and the 2008 Benchmark PN that needs a little more aging to give it the required PN finesse.

And for me the winner is...the 2007 Vintage Select whose grapes were selected from all around the Witness Tree, both upper and lower blocks and whose dark, ripe depth of flavor rode high on a balanced, intense, silky structure. Besides, it is fabulous with Wild Pacific Cedar Plank Salmon smothered in Maple Syrup!

CONFESSING TO ST. INNOCENT:
After my benchmark visit to the Eola Grail, I drove about 1/2 mile around the corner on Zena Road to the very baptismal-looking St Innocent and its impressive water fountain in the courtyard.

A very impressive, well-groomed, 72 acre vineyard that produces 8 to 10 thousand cases a year. Here, as almost everywhere in The Aeola Hills designation, Winemaker and President, Mark Vlossack is philosophically dedicated to having the terroir of the region reflected in the wines made here, particularly as they contribute to the pleasure of food.

Again, the focus is Pinot Noir with, again, a good Chardonnay and a very impressive Pinot Blanc. Temperance Hill, Vitae Springs, Zenith, Justice, Shea and Freedom Hill were all different Pinot Noirs I tasted from different sites and different vintages. My favorite? I have about 4, all for different reasons. But if you're going to corner me into a choice, I would say it was Shea over Justice by a nose. I'm a sucker for big, ripe fruits, floral hints and sweet spice all delivered on a caramel, creamy, layered finish. And to pursue Mark's raison d'être, this is a no-brainer match for one of my favorite full-on red meat dishes...lamb shanks with mint sauce served with green beans, caramelized onions and boiled potatoes smothered in creamery butter with fresh ground pepper!

DWARFED BY THE KING ESTATE:
One hour and 45 minutes South on the winding Territorial Road outside of Eugene, a sharp turn out of the foothills off a blind curve and King's Castle appears on a mountain above you. With 470 acres of vineyards, notwithstanding orchards, berry patches, vegetable gardens, flower and herb gardens, wetlands and oak savannah, driving up the mountain to the Winery is like leaving Lilliput and entering Brobdingnag! Big is everywhere.

With 1,033 Certified Organic acres, King Estate can produce anywhere from 120,000 to 200,000 cases of wine a year and all of it is naturally irrigated. This has all been achieved in 20 years (Founded in 1991) by the King Family who still own and run the property. Three winemakers with very different backgrounds collaborate to produce some very good wines despite the quantity of production. A busy restaurant that features foods using on site produce and a tasting room that puts you in mind of pilgrims at The Holy Grail, is also a part of a royal welcome at King Estate. Tours through and around the facility reveal that the production process is so large and successful that tastings, dinners and even weddings take place in the production and aging areas, much to the delight of the participants.

Despite its size, it produces some very fine wine. Sourcing grapes from lesser known areas in Southern Oregon where sun hours and heat is noticeably longer and warmer and also tapping the warmth of Walla Walla in Eastern Washington, King Estate produces some very good Cabernet blends and a very nice Syrah under the NxNW (North by Northwest) label. Of course their real winner is their Domaine Pinot Gris. Their Signature Pinot Gris is even better. Similar profile: more intensity.

I was fortunate enough to taste all of these as well as some Signature Pinot Noir and the more economical Acrobat wine series that are a great value for Oregon Pinot Noir. By this time in the Odyssey I was incapable of discriminating any one wine as better than another, but as I was leaving I saw a couple drinking a bottle of 2009 Signature Pinot Noir with a menu item called Grilled Chinook Salmon with Champagne Marinated Apricots. They looked satiated and the aromas coming from their table were amazing! You can find the recipe on King Estate website.

A phenomenal day today... so much so that I must create two entries because things developed in two directions...the wonders of wine and the magnificence of the Oregon Coastline.

A one hour and fifty seven minute ride led by my British tour guide, GPS, began to take on a disastrous character when her shortest distance programming (rather than shortest time) told me to leave I-5N and take secondary roads to get to my first destination, Domaine Serene, the winery Robert Parker refers to as the Chateau LaFite of Oregon Wineries.

What a great faux-pas, if that's what it was, because we took a trip through countryside I may never have seen and it let me discover things like the huge acreages of hops that are grown here in Oregon, as well as the row upon row of orchards dedicated to the growing of hazelnuts. The Babe and I also got to scale the Willamette River in a cable-powered ferry on Wheatland Ferry Road. Pretty awesome for $2.

To be quite honest, apart from the hazelnuts and the hops, the agricultural landscape in most of the area looks a lot like Southern Ontario except for the backdrop of the Cascade Mountains. Corn is in full swing as well as all the apple orchards, blueberry farms, market gardens and various mixed farm produce. There is one other big difference today, the Willamette was 86 to 92F depending on where you were. The harvesters were not happy.

Domaine Serene is what everyone dreams of when they fancy their winery dream: Hispanic architecture on the top of a mountain surrounded by rows of Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Syrah.

I tasted a very good Chard, two Pinots I was already familiar with (Yamil and Eventstad Blocks) and then a cross tasting of Rockblock Syrah, the 2007 and the 2008. This proved quite interesting as they showed the differences 2 different years of weather can make as well as 2 different blending styles. The 2007 was much creamier and more fruit forward with overtones of caramel while the 2008 shone in minerality and elegance and showed good acidity. Both were more than 14 per cent alcohol that provided a warm toasty impression and made both appropriate for some nice Lamb Shanks.

I was supposed to meet Grace Evenstad at the winery today, but she was suffering on a Mediterranean Tour so I left her message at the office to say I would see her this Winter.

Then a 45 minute ride to The Ponzi Vineyards with a brief lunch stop at Subway in Dundee.
As much as Domaine Serene is chiseled out of the landscape, Ponzi Vineyards is a pastoral function of the landscape, right down to the structural reality of being built on the side of an incline that feeds the harvested grapes in the high end of the facility and distributes the wine from the lower end of the facility so that gravity eliminates the need for pumping and cycling the must and the effluent.

Anything Pinot is what this tasting was all about... Blanc, Gris and Noir. All were creamy and delicious with good acidity and thirst quench and they screamed to be mated with some pan-fried Halibut steaks cooked in butter and seasoned with orange juice.

I was supposed to meet Maria Ponzi as well, but she was off site and the Tasting Ambassador assured me she had not vacated to the Med, at least not today.

I'm very disappointed in my ability to happen upon good food recipes to go with these great wines I'm experiencing although my next adventure for the day showed promise in that regard.

Since it was only 3:30 and my touring was complete, I decided I could trust my guide to take me on the legendary tour of Highway 101 down the coast of Oregon from Lincoln City to Florence...it was breathtaking...a drive everyone should put on their "Bucket List".