Spill the Wine Episode 12: A unique experience – tasting wine from the tank! A visit to 16 Mile Cellar Vineyards & Winery - Spill The Wine

Episode Transcript
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Andrea Morris [00:00:00]: Hello, friends. I'm Andrea Morris, and welcome to another episode of Spilled Wine, the podcast that's all about wine and debunking the myths, like, wine has to be expensive in order to be enjoyable, and also that you have to know a lot about wine. However, the more you listen to this podcast, you will know more and more about wine, and you'll also know about some really fantastic wineries that you may have never heard of, like the one we are visiting today, sixteen Mile Cellar. And I'd like to say hello to Morgan, who's the winemaker. Woo hoo. Woo hoo. Hi, Morgan. (00:00):
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Morgan [00:00:29]: Thanks for (00:01):
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Andrea Morris [00:00:30]: being here today. (00:02):
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Morgan [00:00:31]: Yeah. I'm really happy you guys, want or wanted to invite me and and, yeah, come here. It's awesome. (00:03):
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Andrea Morris [00:00:35]: Well, I've always enjoyed my visits to your winery, and I was blown away by your Chardonnay. So I'm really excited that we're gonna get to taste that today. And I'm also really, really interested to share share your story to our listeners, particularly, like, it's such a small winery. But how did when did it first get started? (00:04):
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Morgan [00:00:53]: Yeah. So Susan and Joe, the owners, they bought the property in 2011. And at the time, this was one of the oldest, like, table grape properties in Niagara. So there was Concordes, Dushanac, a whole bunch of old school, you know, table grape varieties. They bought it, and they replanted most. They left, a block of Concordes. And up until two years ago, we actually still had that block. Like, it was one of the oldest Concord blocks in Niagara. (00:05):
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Morgan [00:01:25]: But they replanted Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, and Gamay over, like, six years. But they also, you know, built the the the winery and the house and the barn. So it was like a slow kind of project that evolved from 02/2011, and then they got their they didn't get their retail license here until 2016. So it was kind of like a slow evolution, of becoming just, like, a a property with just grapes to becoming, you know, a a small winery and, with its own, functioning vineyard. So the whole idea of this project, we're in the Creek Shores sub appellation, which is in the Niagara Escarpment area. The idea is to produce wine only made from fruit from our farm, creating a Creek Shores Chardonnay, Creek Shores Pinot Noir, Creek Shores Gamay so we can really find out our expression of this unique little spot. And we're called 16 Mile Cellar because the 16 Mile Creek, which is 16 miles from Niagara Falls, the small creek at 16 Mile Creek, not the 16 Mile Creek in Oakville. That's often something people get confused by. (00:06):
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Morgan [00:02:34]: But, like, in in the Peninsula, a lot of people don't know these creeks like 12 Mile Creek, 14 Mile Creek, it's all miles from Falls. Oh. (00:07):
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Andrea Morris [00:02:42]: So right (00:08):
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Morgan [00:02:42]: now, we're 16 miles from Niagara Falls, and the 16 Mile Creek is just on the other side of the property. Then we have a small creek, a sub creek from that creek that meanders through our property diagonally. So the there's the tree line that, kind of separates our Pinot Noir block, the original Pinot block, and our Chardonnay, our main Chardonnay block. And that's where the creek kind of meanders through the whole property. So, yeah, that's kind of the story behind the name, which I think is really important at first. Because everybody's like, why 16 Mile? So yeah. And then, I came here in 2017. Been here since. (00:09):
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Andrea Morris [00:03:17]: And is this your first gig as a winemaker, or had you been a wine winemaker at other places previously? (00:10):
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Morgan [00:03:22]: So I've been I've I've been in the industry since 2012. I first started I did the Niagara College program, and then, I worked at TAWS. And I kind of immediately started specializing in organic and biodynamic agriculture, wine growing, and, winemaking. And then from there, I had a few opportunities where I went overseas. I lived in Australia for three years, working under David Lowe. He's kind of like a an a biodynamic pioneer in Australia, and I helped basically create an in house biodynamic program where all the preps were done in house with, you know, all of our own biodynamic gardens that created all the preparations, going into the work back into the soil and all the sprays. Spallodynamics essentially is like, organics on crack. A better way to describe it. (00:11):
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Morgan [00:04:14]: It's, taking organics, which gives you a box, a box that you paint yourself into, like, that we have to stay within this box. Know this, know that, know this, know that. Biodynamics is like an add on on top of that that helps bring in positive and yes. So it's, you know, no pesticides, fungicides, or herbicides for organics. Then biodynamics is going, okay. Let's look at this at a broader scale where we're taking, soil health, the the the lunar calendar, and also looking at our farm as its own entity. So bringing creating things on the property that allow a rhythm innate like, that work with the rhythms in nature and really focusing on soil health, which in Australia, soil health is, like, really important. So I went there, learned an incredible amount in three years. (00:12):
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Morgan [00:05:04]: And then, from there I was also his assistant winemaker on top of the biodynamic farm manager. And then from there, I got an opportunity, to work in Alsace, France, and I was there, two different wineries for two years. I worked for Domaine Christian Vinier. You can find his wines, at some bottle shops in Ontario now. And, I worked for Domaine Leon Busche, which his wines are mostly sold within France. You won't see them exported. And both were natural winemakers, biodynamic, wineries as well, family small family run wineries, which has kind of always been a focus of mine. I've only ever worked for small family run wineries and made wines in small scale environments. (00:13):
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Andrea Morris [00:05:44]: Do you find that gives you more freedom (00:14):
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Morgan [00:05:45]: as a winemaker? Yeah. Definitely in in many ways from, like, more freedom as to, yeah, having less risk when you wanna take risks. Right? So smaller batches. So if you wanna try something new, you know, start a in the vineyard, do a wild ferment, or, you know, don't add not add sulfur to a batch and try to make a natural wine rather than having a 5,000 liter batch or a 10,000 liter batch, you're dealing with a thousand liters. So what the risk is that it's a little easier on the winemaker, taking less risk, with smaller volumes. But also, with smaller batches, you can take one block of fruit. So Pinot Noir, for example, we've got a a five acre block, and we've got four different clones. Well, when we're small batch driven, we can separate we we can do five different picks at five different times, different ripeness levels, different, you know, balances of sugar and acidity, and experiment with kind of the different clones. (00:15):
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Morgan [00:06:46]: And so it, it gives you more playful freedom in that sense, definitely. And then also with, like, managing your tank and your barrel space too, it's a lot different when your barrel seller only has, you know, 50 to 75 barrels versus a barrel room with thousands of barrels. It also allows me to be, like, more hands on with the wines. I'm tasting every barrel every month rather than just looking at a set of lab numbers and going, okay. You know, barrels in the Eastern block, we need to, you know, maybe add this because the total acidity is off or whatever. I'm I'm a winemaker based on my emotions versus laboratory data, which that's something I learned in France. There's really, you know, in an essence, when you break it down two styles of winemaking. There's emotional winemaking, and there's, there's lab driven winemaking, where you're making decisions based on quantitative data or you're making decisions based on your senses. (00:16):
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Morgan [00:07:40]: So I really feel more in touch with the emotional side of winemaking versus, you know, the the more technical side. But both are very important in winemaking. (00:17):
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Andrea Morris [00:07:49]: Have you found sometimes when you're making wine that you have an idea of where you want it to be and the wine is like, nah. I think I'm gonna do something different. (00:18):
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Morgan [00:07:57]: Yeah. Always. You're always reacting in that way. Like, that and that's a big part of emotional winemaking where you're like it the this often happens during a lavage, so during aging. So we're in the barrel cellar, and we're topping every month. And sometimes I have, like, I call them my problem child. So I'll have barrels where and I'm I'm really my way of doing this is I mark with chalk on my barrels, so I have my own little coating system. And I'll go through and I'll top, and maybe there's a barrel that I'm like, you know, this tastes like it could be, you know, developing volatile acidity or it's a bit, you know, leezy or a chardonnay barrel that's like, maybe this is unhappy on these because the leeze is starting to get a little bit more reductive. (00:19):
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Morgan [00:08:42]: So you kind of put that on a watch list or, you know, you have to also learn, you know, when to react and when not to react. So sometimes we're too quick to react. Something might seem like a bit more of a problem. Okay. Hey. Let's fix it. What are we gonna do? We gotta move it out of the barrel. We gotta do this. (00:20):
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Morgan [00:08:57]: We gotta do that. Sometimes you just have to step back and go, let's give it another couple weeks. Unless there's, like, a really big problem, nothing is really going to drastically happen, and let's do this with intent. So if we're gonna move it out of the barrel, we need to know why we're doing it, know what the problem is, and make sure there's an intention if we're gonna take it from one place to another. So I don't know if that really answered your question. (00:21):
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Andrea Morris [00:09:19]: Yeah. It does. Yeah. Yeah. I suppose it's kinda like even, like, with, like, having kids, they go through a phase and you're like Yeah. I'm I'm not gonna kill you today. Yeah. (00:22):
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Morgan [00:09:28]: Exactly. Or or, like, even, at the beginning of you can have, like, all these ideas at the beginning of harvest of where you wanna go with the wine. And then sometimes, you know, you have to pivot because, like, maybe, you know, it's not the batch for wild ferment. Or maybe the the the natural yeast that are abundant in your cellar and the vineyard on your fruit, they aren't, you know, strong enough to start quickly, and you don't wanna take the risk of waiting and waiting and waiting and then a bunch of other bacteria developing, before you want spontaneous fermentation to start. So you decide to inoculate. So you have to really like, what is most important for me is not being dogmatic. Like, not being like, this is the way I do things, and I only do it this way. It's for me, it's all about what's best for the wine in that year. (00:23):
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Morgan [00:10:15]: In that moment, you just have to be prepared to make the decisions for the wine, not for, like, what your beliefs are in winemaking. So when it (00:24):
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Andrea Morris [00:10:22]: comes to this winery, was there the decision to just do Pinot Chardonnay and Gamay? Was it because that's the grapes that are most suitable for this land? (00:25):
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Morgan [00:10:31]: Yeah. So Thomas Botchelder was a big part of the beginning of this winery. He, (00:26):
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Andrea Morris [00:10:36]: He was just at his winery on Sunday. (00:27):
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Morgan [00:10:38]: Yeah. So he's Spectacular. I know. Everybody who goes there always leaves, like, with such a positive, like, experience. And usually, you are there for hours because (00:28):
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Andrea Morris [00:10:49]: he's We were there for two hours. (00:29):
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Morgan [00:10:50]: Exactly. He's a very passionate person, and a real champion for the industry, in my opinion. And so he helped Susan and Joe, kind of start, the start the winery, really, with helping with with basic building design and help guiding them with varieties that might work well. And, like, it is known in this region that Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, and Gamay, those are three varieties that work really well here. I will say, though, it was only Pinot and Chard when I first arrived. So the idea was kind of like the Burgundian approach And why those varieties work well is because, you know, they're early ripeners, so we don't always have the longest growing season. So they're kind of a safe bet on getting fully fully ripe and, being able to pick, you know, to make the best kind of quality wine possible. And they're typically wines that have a higher varieties that survive the winters a little better than other varieties. (00:30):
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Morgan [00:11:49]: You know, they're not as cold sensitive. They're still cold sensitive, but, like, not as as, like, Shannon, for example, or, Merlot or, yeah, a Sauvignon Blanc. (00:31):
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Andrea Morris [00:12:00]: What's the fussiest grape? (00:32):
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Morgan [00:12:03]: Well, the ones that aren't grown here. And there's been a lot of people, you know, a lot of growers over the last you know, since the industry, you know, really evolved in the last, like, thirty, forty years, I guess, that have tried all sorts of varieties that just don't work well here. And, like, my father-in-law famously said to me, you know, do you want a vineyard or do you want a vine hospital? Because you gotta pick the if you want a vineyard here, you have to pick the varieties that are gonna be best suited for our climate. If you wanna get experimental, that's great, but you have to accept that some varieties you're going to be, you know, managing a vine hospital rather than vineyard. So these cold sensitive varieties, you know, include especially like Chenin, which is a variety you can find around here, and there are some growers, but you ask those growers, you know, how often they're replanting, you know, they'll probably say there's lots of replants every year. Even Sauv Blanc is, quite winter sensitive. I should say Riesling is a great variety as well. Great. (00:33):
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Morgan [00:13:00]: The Riesling Chardonnay, are really two white varietals that do really well here. They grow well. They're winter hardy, and we can ripen them almost every season. And then Gamay, Pinot Noir, and Cabernet Franc. So I think, like, in my opinion, those are those five varieties that work really well here. (00:34):
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Andrea Morris [00:13:21]: Great. Well, let's let's get this some tasting. (00:35):
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Morgan [00:13:24]: Yeah. So I think first What are (00:36):
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Andrea Morris [00:13:26]: we gonna start with, Morgan? Yeah. (00:37):
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Morgan [00:13:27]: I know. We've got lots of yummy wines, and I've got some barrel samples of the most recent vintage, which is always so much fun. (00:38):
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Andrea Morris [00:13:33]: This is our first podcast where we're our episode where we're doing barrel samples, so I'm really excited about that. (00:39):
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Morgan [00:13:38]: Well, I guess I guess it's unfair to say barrel samples. They're tank samples right now. They haven't been barreled down, and the rose that I I took out won't ever see a barrel. The white Pinot might. But, anyway, we've got two Chardonnays, two Pinot, a Pinot Noir and a Pinot Gamay, and then we've got two little special, new vintage wines. So I think what we'll do (00:40):
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Andrea Morris [00:14:00]: Exciting. (00:41):
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Morgan [00:14:01]: Is we'll dive into the finished wines and bottle first, and then we'll finish with the fun stuff. (00:42):
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Andrea Morris [00:14:06]: That sounds great. Okay. Okay. (00:43):
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Morgan [00:14:08]: So we're going to start with the 2020 Rebel Chardonnay. Now we make a few different kind of tiers to our our lineup. Our first tier is we call our Rebel wines. So rebel really means we're these I like to describe them as wines made in the vineyard. They're wines focused on showcasing the primary fruit characters from the fruit in which they're coming from. So how I achieve that as a winemaker is really being very gracious in the approach of letting it develop in my cellar, but not overshadowing with winemaking techniques that might that might add to the flavor or interfere with the natural flavors. So this is a handpicked fruit from our vineyard in this is the 2020 Revelle Chardonnay. Twenty twenty gave us near perfect vintage conditions for optimal ripeness. (00:44):
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Morgan [00:15:09]: But in really warm years, you have to be be careful not to get it too ripe as well. So it was the picking was really important in '20 not to overshoot. So we wanted to pick when we still had nice structured acidity with ripeness, which we achieved and we're really excited about. So we handpicked, brought it in, sorted sorted all the, like, the took the fruit across the sorting table, sorted the imperfect, you know, imperfect stuff out, as well as letting the ladybugs drop to the table if there were ladybugs. We'll get into that after the wine. (00:45):
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Andrea Morris [00:15:42]: Yeah. It's a really beautiful color. It's such a strong yellow. (00:46):
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Morgan [00:15:47]: Yeah. So this this was a so it comes into the the, winery. It's pressed, and then the juice is fermented in barrel. In this particular year, I only settled so the juice goes into a tank first, and I put the tank on, like, minus three degrees, and I cold settle the juice. And what happens is we the the lees, the gross lees, we call it, settle to the bottom. So you imagine, like, home style orange juice with pulp, how the pulp settles to the bottom of the carton. Our lees, which is what we call our pulp, l e e s, settles to the bottom of the tank. And then sometimes we'll we'll with our, like, stability, we leave it on heavy lees through ferment. (00:47):
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Morgan [00:16:30]: But with the rebel, we settle it out in a cold tank and then rack it into neutral oak barrels. Neutral oak meaning these barrels have seen at least five vintages. And at this point, we're no longer extracting, oak tannin, oak flavor. We're just using this as a vessel for graceful micro oxygenation through its aging and fermentation. So the this color is kind of indicated or indicative of, the the cellaring. It was an oxidative environment through cellaring. (00:48):
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Andrea Morris [00:17:01]: It's got a really beautiful nose. Kinda smells pineapple y a little to me. (00:49):
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Morgan [00:17:05]: Yeah. So another reason for this is through the barrel aging. I'll leave it on its light lees, or it's almost its entirety of aging. So what that does is Lee's also helps naturally protect the wine in when it's healthy Lee's from, oxidation and also creates more of, like, a, the effect of creaminess on the mouthfeel in the palate. So I don't want this to be our biggest, boldest Chardonnay, but I want it to be expressing the fruit in which it came, like the vineyard and the fruit where it came from. (00:50):
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Andrea Morris [00:17:46]: So I got a tropical kind of flavor to it as well. I like I I I, like, I smelled pineapple on it, and I kinda tasted a little bit of pineapple, make me like and it's interesting because I don't get that from sardonnay a lot. And as a caveat, I will say that, listener, you could come here and not taste the same thing because we all have completely different palates. So this is, like, my experience. Yeah. (00:51):
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Morgan [00:18:07]: And that's what I love about wine. It's funny. My dad always said to me, he's like, I'm certain I know the reason why you're in wine because no one can ever tell you you're wrong. Because it is so personal, how what you think, what you feel based on your own tastes. And that's what is special about wine. You know, what something I might enjoy, you know, someone else may, you know, not enjoy as much at all. And there's so many different styles in which we can make especially Chardonnay. So another interesting thing I find with our vineyard, doesn't matter the vintage condition, the way we pick it, how we ferment it, an underlying kind of, character I always get in our Chardonnay is apricot. (00:52):
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Andrea Morris [00:18:47]: Yes. Yes. (00:53):
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Morgan [00:18:49]: So it's that's just something I've kind of only really in the last few years recently kinda come to light with because I've been also discovering what makes, you know, 16 mile Creek Shore Chardonnay, 16 mile Creek Shore Chardonnay. And it's kind of been a discover like, you know, every year kind of figuring that out. So I've so I've been here since 2017. And, I'm really just starting to now understand the the rhythms of it all. And and that also the longer you are in a cellar at a winery working, you know, with the vineyard manager, Bill Varenix, our vineyard manager, you know, I try to work closely with him to better understand, you know, what he sees when he's out there. And, it takes a long time to really get the rhythms of a place and understand the the behaviors in certain vintage conditions, and also how the wines react in your cellar. It takes a lot of trust, but it takes a lot of time to gain that trust too and to start to understand that. So the rebels have truly kind of been an evolution of how do we make this the most fruit driven wine, But in a way, it's we don't wanna make an unoaked Chardonnay. (00:54):
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Morgan [00:19:58]: We still want something that's evolved and and gracious and and full of flavor and really kind of, yeah, making the best wine we can in within the price range we want it to be. And we always want this wine to be, like, sub $28. That's great. Yeah. So this one, the 2020 Rebel is $26.95. And, like, as you're looking at it now, like, we've got this under screw cap. It's in a lightweight burgundy bottle, and, our labels are quite simple. You know? We're not getting, like, crazy with embossing or we're just really focused on some yeah. (00:55):
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Morgan [00:20:34]: The wine. Exactly. We don't want gimmicky stuff. We don't you know? It's just all about focusing on the wine and delivering value on that too. (00:56):
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Andrea Morris [00:20:43]: I like that. And that that's a really beautiful Chardonnay. Thank you. So now we're gonna try another Chardonnay? (00:57):
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Morgan [00:20:49]: Yeah. So now we're going to move on to our civility chardonnay. So our civility chardonnay, we also make every year, and this is our reserve chardonnay. This is the chardonnay where it's the winemaker's play, building on what so the rebel is taking the, as I said, the wine made in the vineyard, taking the the fruit the flavors from the fruit in the vineyard and giving them expression in the bottle. And our civility is taking that as a baseline and then getting the winemaker involved and adding to it. Build It's a wine that we build. So what I mean by that is in this most vintages and in this particular vintage I mean, this is the 2018 stability, and this was always made to be bottle aged and released at a later date. We didn't actually release this until this spring. (00:58):
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Morgan [00:21:38]: So it's a newer release of an older vintage. And what I did was it was handpicked, wild barrel fermented on high solids, so we didn't settle the juice. We just took the fruit, pressed it, and the juice went straight into 500 liter French oak puncheons. So the one the the rebels aged in neutral oak French oak barriques. Barriques are 228 liters. The 18 civility Chardonnay is, French oak puncheons, which are 500 liter barrels. This was made from four French oak puncheons, 500 liters, so it's a 2,000 liter batch, so quite a small batch, and one of the barrels was brand new. So it's a 25% new oak chardonnay. (00:59):
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Morgan [00:22:23]: Again, that's kind of the first play into it is the oak is a winemaker influence. I personally, with with the chardonnay, new oak, I like larger format barrels, these 500 liter formats, because they have, it's all about the surface area. Right? So if you take a smaller barrel, there'll be more oak to wine, so you're gonna get more of, like, a strong integration. Whereas the when you have, the larger surface area and more wine volume to oak, you're going to get a softer integration. And then I also like to use extra light, extra long toast on my oak. So, essentially, it's meaning the longest time, the the the because what happens with with oak barrels is they they take raw oak, and they don't treat it with anything. They just put it under a flame and toast it. So you can determine if you're doing a special order, how much toast you want and how long you want it toasted for. (01:00):
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Morgan [00:23:22]: So on the other end of the spectrum, we got, like, a high char toast, like a whiskey barrel. And then what I like in my oak is a extra light, extra long. So the furthest away from the flame for the longest amount (01:01):
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Andrea Morris [00:23:34]: of time, essentially. Picturing marshmallows in (01:02):
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Morgan [00:23:36]: my head. Yeah. Right? But imagine, like, a giant oak barrel hanging, you know, above a above a giant open flame. That's, like, what you would be seeing. And, and one end of the barrel is open. So what that the extra long, extra light, it means, it's just a a gentle soft integration of that toast oak flavor into the wine, and also a little less oak tannin. So I don't want anything that's overpowering my wine. I want an oak, that is integrated in helping build the wine, not taking over the flavor because I'm very respectful of the flavor of the fruit. (01:03):
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Morgan [00:24:15]: So the the barrel influence is one influence of this ability. And then I also, with the wild ferment as well, I mean, that inherently has its risks, but it also has its benefits because the benefits are you often get more expression in a wild ferment because there's hundreds of yeasts naturally abundant. Right? But there's only ever one that survives to the end through alcoholic fermentation, and that is the strong, the mighty Saccharomyces cerevisiae. And when you're inoculating with, like, a store bought yeast, it's almost always that single strain, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, a single strain kind of taking over. But with wild ferment, the important part is in the first third of fermentation. When all of those yeast are active and working and consuming and, creating byproducts, including, you know, the good and the bads, You know, some bad byproduct of, wild fermentation or any fermentation would be, acetic acid bacteria, so BA. Or you could, in certain cases, diacetyl, which is, like, the really buttery kind of, like, almost sometimes rancid butter if there's too much. And then there's environments where you get brettinomyces bacteria, which is bread, which is a common wine taint. (01:04):
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Morgan [00:25:31]: But a little bit of bread isn't always a bad thing in my opinion. It's like the line tight rope walking between fine and feral to a very dangerous tight rope. But, anyway, the my point is is that with a wild ferment, you can get a lot of expression in the end result as long as you're really focused on making sure, you know, it it finishes strong. So oftentimes, what I'll do is knowing that even if it's wild all the way to the end, there's only that one yeast that will be producing or not producing story, metabolizing that sugar into alcohol in those higher ethanol, higher alcoholic environments at the end as the alcohol gets higher and higher towards the end. Saccharomyces cerevisiae is the only yeast strong enough to live and metabolize in those environments. So if it's starting to slow down, again, you make the decision as the winemaker, let's take lab yeast and inoculate now to make it finish strong. You're not doing a disservice to a wild ferment, so sometimes I'll have to make that call. I didn't in 2018. (01:05):
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Morgan [00:26:32]: They were all very well behaved, surprisingly. Sometimes they're not very well behaved, so you have to make those calls. But, so it finishes the wild ferment. And then what I do is I'll often fermentation leaves that's at the bottom of the barrel. All of those dead yeast bacteria and, you know, all the other solids that are cloudy during ferment, they settle out to the bottom. Your wine becomes clear, and then you get, like, the I know it's not a very glamorous way of putting it, but it's like a big sludge at the bottom of your barrel. And in our Chardonnay from our Vineyard, the healthy lees in the barrel, I'll take a sample from the bottom of the barrel and I'll taste it. And a healthy leaves will almost be like a fuzzy peach. (01:06):
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Morgan [00:27:15]: It's like super fruity, but, like, really tart. Right? So I'll decide if it's healthy, if it tastes like that, I'll leave it in there on its leaves. If it's unhealthy, it starts to be a little bit reductive, almost like, do I smell a bit of a hard boiled egg in here? Like, is there some funny, you know, gassy, you know, reductive characters? Then I would decide to rack the wine off the leaves after ferment and, keep it clean. But, in 2018, all the leaves were really healthy, so I left all four of these puncheons on their gross leaves. And then I, I do batonage, which is, you know, the French have a word for literally everything. And batonnage essentially means to aggressively whisk, not just whisk, but aggressively whisk. I'm not whisking the barrels, but I'm taking, like, this long stainless steel stick, getting it in the barrel, and I'm stirring the lees back up. So bringing those solids back into suspension. (01:07):
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Morgan [00:28:11]: And, again, I mentioned it's like a fuzzy peach, so we're kind of taking those flavors and that structural acidity and texture of the lees and integrating it back into the wine, letting it settle out for a month, and then stirring it up again and letting it settle out. And in 2018, I did that for six months over the first year of aging in the cellar, first winter. And then I just let it sit and settle. And it just sat, and it was just quiet for another twelve months. And then I bottled it, well, I I blended the barrels together and off the leaves. So at this point, it's, like, not sludgy, and it's clear. And, and then I bottled it unfined and unfiltered. So it's fermented totally dry, no sugar, and it's, also mallow dry, which means we take our malic back it's it's a bacteria secondary bacterial ferment that takes malic acid, and then it has this bacterial ferment and turns it into a softer lactic acid. (01:08):
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Morgan [00:29:11]: Malic acid is like biting into a green apple. Lactic acid is like having a yogurt. That's like the acidity kind of dichotomy there. But, so it's a soft in acidity, but big on structural acidity because of the Lee's integration. It's got really nice weight because of the barrel aging. And then also because of the Lee's stirring, we've got a really nice creamy texture on the finish. (01:09):
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Andrea Morris [00:29:33]: I'm almost drooling getting more taste. So (01:10):
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Morgan [00:29:36]: so I'm not enough talking. Morgan, be quiet and let them just taste the wine. What a (01:11):
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Andrea Morris [00:29:41]: beautiful again, another beautiful color. (01:12):
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Morgan [00:29:44]: Yeah. It's like a golden (01:13):
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Andrea Morris [00:29:45]: Yeah. (01:14):
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Morgan [00:29:45]: It's like a golden honey. I don't know. That's not like a a Psalm right now is probably listening and being like, oh my god. What did she just say? (01:15):
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Andrea Morris [00:29:52]: It is kind of like a golden honey, though, and a completely different nose than the other one. It's it's it's much softer. A little citrusy, but Yeah. (01:16):
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Morgan [00:30:00]: You get kind of that subtle oak in there. Very light kind of vanilla toast for me. (01:17):
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Andrea Morris [00:30:05]: I was just gonna say a little bit of vanilla. (01:18):
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Morgan [00:30:07]: And I kinda like this, like, butterscotchy. I don't know. Almost like a candy apple. Like, you know, the the caramel candy apple. (01:19):
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Andrea Morris [00:30:15]: Oh, yeah. It's kind of (01:20):
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Morgan [00:30:17]: the vibe I'm getting right now. (01:21):
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Andrea Morris [00:30:19]: When you were talking about the the fermentation and the I would just kept picturing, like, the yeast being, like, having an uprising in fighting to try to try to overturn the the lead yeast and, you know Totally. Be like, no. We didn't. Oh, well, he wins. (01:22):
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Morgan [00:30:35]: Honestly, I expect to wonder if it's, yeah, just like a battleground in there. Mhmm. Every sip, this gets better and better. It's just a really, really beautiful wine. It's very light. Yeah. It shouldn't be one thing we don't want is to have something too blousy and too rich. I think that lightness really comes from making sure the structured acidity is kind of letting leading the finish. (01:23):
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Morgan [00:31:00]: So, like, the backbone of the line is really based on the perception of acidity on the palette because we want all of these creamy textural, kind of mouth these flavors and this this mouthfeel, but we don't want it to fall short and taste flat. Right? We still want it to feel bright and and refreshing, but still rich and textured. So it can be you know, you can have all these ideas of how you can achieve that, but sometimes it's like, okay. You know? How do we really achieve that? These are great ideas, but, like, is this gonna work? So it's nice when you put your trust in a wine where, you know, we this is 2018. We bottled this in 2020, and we didn't release it to 2024. So it takes a lot of patience. You know? And, I said when I was at, I four c, the International Cool Climate Chardonnay celebration. I said that right. (01:24):
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Morgan [00:31:53]: Yeah. Celebration. This past spring when we released this, I was on a panel and I said, you know, and I still obviously believe this true about this wine. Everything in in winemaking seems to take so much time and patience. So sometimes I feel like I'm doing when I'm you know, we're waiting for the vineyard to be established. We're, you know, waiting a whole growing season to pick, fermenting almost over a whole winter sometimes, and then aging in the cellar for another year. It would almost do a disservice then rush the wine to market. (01:25):
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Andrea Morris [00:32:25]: Right. (01:26):
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Morgan [00:32:26]: Right? So this is kind of a test to, making a wine that's meant to then be bottle aged and, you know, then be released at a later date. So it's it's all about practicing patient patience and giving the wine like, letting the wine make the decision on when it's ready. And we knew it was ready this spring. I taste them all the time, the ones we haven't released, just to kinda keep an eye on the ones, you know, that are, upcoming and and bottle aging. And I just was I think I was also just ready to release it. I was like, okay. I'm just, like, too excited about this. And, but we knew it was time. (01:27):
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Morgan [00:33:00]: It would come together fully in the bottle. (01:28):
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Andrea Morris [00:33:02]: It's just really it's a beautiful finish, and it's just really nice and really welcoming as a wine, I find. (01:29):
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Morgan [00:33:09]: So I wanted while I'm opening the reds, I wanna quickly talk about I don't know if you've talked about it with anyone else in the podcast before, but the ladybug paint issue in this industry. (01:30):
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Andrea Morris [00:33:17]: No. I don't think we have covered that. So there's (01:31):
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Morgan [00:33:20]: the red ladybugs, which are the friendly ones. We don't mind those. You don't see a lot of them, though. Right? You only see the ladybugs that are orange or kind of yellowy looking. The aggressive ones? Yes. So so those are called multicolored Asian lady beetles. And I always say, most people remember early two thousands, the Jays game that was canceled because of the aphids. The the response to the aphids were bringing in these multicolored Asian lady beetles to get rid of the aphid problem, which was great. (01:32):
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Morgan [00:33:52]: That helped. But, you know, the repercussions on our wine industry were really felt we didn't know they didn't know at the time what the there was going to be such a big problem. Well, what happens when you these ladybugs get into a batch of wine, like, into a press and press through the juice and then put into the cellar? They create ladybug paint. So it's this nasty nasty smell and taste in the wine that you can't get rid of. (01:33):
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Andrea Morris [00:34:20]: And as (01:34):
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Morgan [00:34:20]: little as, like, a dozen ladybugs in a one press load can completely taint an entire batch of wine, and it's almost like rancid peanut butter. Ew. But if you if you crush one of those, those, Asian lady beetles in your finger, you'll notice they're, like, extremely pungent in smell. And I believe it's a it's a it's a methoxyl pyrazine, which is the same kind of as, like, a a really, green pepper, kind of like a when a Cab Franc is really underripe, it has those same chemical compounds. I really hope I'm getting that right, but I that's what I believe it is. But, anyway, they're a big problem. And so you can do a couple things. You either spray for them, which the spray on the market for them, it's a, you know, a pretty intense insecticide that's, like, kills really anything, not just the bugs. (01:35):
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Morgan [00:35:10]: Or what most, you know, I wanna say boutique winemakers, but a lot of kind of terroir driven small batch focused wineries, they will sort hand sort their fruit. So you hand pick your fruit, and then you dump it on a vibrating sorting table before it goes into its vessel or the press or wherever. And, essentially, the ladybugs, where they like to hide are in the stems, and especially late ripening varieties, they get ladybugs because the ladybugs love to be in the soy fields. And as soon as they harvest the soy, they need to find somewhere else to live, and they'll come into the grapes. Luckily, with pinot and chard, we have our varieties off usually before the soy. So it's like, yay. You know? This is great. There's no bugs. (01:36):
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Morgan [00:36:01]: But then if you, like, decide to, like, push something a little later ripening and the soy comes off, it's great. I know what's about to happen. And then there's hundreds in the air and they're everywhere. Like, last weekend, it was, like, they were everywhere. But, well, they they fall to the bottom of the sorting table, and then, you know, then your fruit's free of them. But it's, yeah, it was that we the industry really had to pivot, like, you know, did not expect this happening, and then millions of liters of wine were dumped down the drain. I believe it was 2,001. Wow. (01:37):
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Morgan [00:36:31]: Yeah. And so this is just like something we do now. So we hand sort, all of our fruit, just to be sure. And also hand sorting gives you an opportunity to inspect all the fruit before it goes into the press, so get rid of anything that the pickers may have missed, botrytis or sour rot. The mold? Exactly. Botrytis mold, sour rot is just a a essentially, when the the fruit starts to rot and it gets like a vinegar smell. So now we're gonna move on to some some reds. Pinot Noir. (01:38):
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Morgan [00:37:02]: Yeah. So this one, this is the Rebel Pinot Noir from 2018. It's actually Pinot Noir Gamay. And this is a fun little thing because in 2018, was my first full vintage year. So, like, I inherited the seventeens, I like to say. They're like a a cross between, the old winemaker Reagan and myself. So she processed the wine, got it in the cellar, and then I came in, and I finished the wine through cellaring. But 2018 was really my first full year here, my first full vintage. (01:39):
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Morgan [00:37:34]: And one of the first things I wanted to do was, play around with some Gamay. At the time, there's only Pinot Noir and Chardonnay planted here. Gamay has always been a very special variety to me. It was the first red wine I ever kind of got drawn to, and I believe it's the the variety that, like, created my wine obsession. Good old Louis Giro Beaujolais Village. Like, don't knock it till you try (01:40):
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Andrea Morris [00:38:01]: it. I have tried it. (01:41):
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Morgan [00:38:02]: I know. Right? Everybody's tried it. But it's a it's a really good soft red to, like, get people under wine, especially those who don't think they like red wine. (01:42):
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Andrea Morris [00:38:11]: I always call gamay the gateway. (01:43):
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Morgan [00:38:13]: The totally. It's a it's a gateway pea or yeah. Gateway yeah. Whenever you're Gateway to Pinot is how I think of it. But (01:44):
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Andrea Morris [00:38:19]: But whenever, like, when I have people, they're like, oh, no. I only like white. I'm like, well, try some reds, but try to start with the Gamay. Yeah. Because it's not, like, it's not those, like, punch you in the face reds. (01:45):
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Morgan [00:38:28]: No. It's, like, soft, and it's got a lot of really bright red fruit characters, and it's, like, yummy. And I love Gamay. So I said, listen, let me let let's purchase a ton of fruit. We purchased from a a a guy, you know, who lived really close to us, on the escarpment. And at the time, I wasn't sure if I was just going to do a Gamay or I was going to do, a Gamay Pinot blend. So when I lived in France, I worked in Alsace, but I spent a lot of, weekends in Beaujolais. And I loved on the border of, like, Beaujolais and Burgundy, they would make this style of red all the time where they with the Pasteur Grands, where they blend Gamay and Pinot, and it's like more of like a fun winemaker's wine. (01:46):
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Morgan [00:39:12]: And I thought, you know what? I think this is where this is gonna go. And then I can, you know, you know, talk to the owners about how great this is, and then maybe they'll plant some because there was still more room to plant on the property at the time. And, now you're looking directly at our little one acre Gamay. So the plan worked. And, actually, this is the first year we will have been we will make our full 100% red Gamay. Wow. So, we've made rose from it the last couple years. And, we did a bit of rose with this year. (01:47):
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Morgan [00:39:46]: We'll try some. But, yeah. So this was a a fun little experiment where I took, in 2018, '70 '5 percent of this blend is, 100% whole cluster pinot noir wild fermented, and then the other 25% is Gamay, berries taken off the stems and fermented whole berry, almost kind of mimicking carbonic maceration. So I sealed the tank up and filled it full of c o two. But I don't have the proper, carbonic maceration tanks to, like, have it under pressure, so I was just kinda mimicking it. And what happens, when you do that, you don't touch the tank for, like, ten day ten to fourteen days, and you allow the fermentation to start happening. We call it intercellular fermentation. So it happens within the berry. (01:48):
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Morgan [00:40:31]: And so when you open the tank after ten days, it's like this really puffy cap where all of the berries are still fully intact, but they literally look like they're about to explode. (01:49):
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Andrea Morris [00:40:41]: And you, like, touch Like when you make cranberries. (01:50):
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Morgan [00:40:43]: Exactly. Exactly. And then you touch one, it's a and then you put it in your mouth, and it's like an explosion. Like, it's fermenting within the berry, but the skin is still, like, holding on for dear life, not splitting. And, and so and then you start working the cap, breaking it up, and and then getting it through ferment. But what that does, that carbonic maceration, it kind of creates, like, this candied, I'll I always describe it as, like, a jolly rancher. Like, it's, like, really sweet and candied. And then we've got the pinot in here that's, like, really structured in tannin with the whole cluster. (01:51):
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Morgan [00:41:17]: And it was all aged in neutral oak barrel for fourteen months and then bottled, unfined, and unfiltered. So filtering takes takes away color and flavor, especially from red. So I almost only exclusively do my bottle my reds unfiltered because I really want to get the most out of it. And yeah. It's a really nice color. And this is a wine that I drink year round, but it's a really good summer wine because you can serve it slightly chilled, and it's super yummy. (01:52):
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Andrea Morris [00:41:46]: Got, like, almost a cranberry nose on it. Mhmm. (01:53):
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Morgan [00:41:48]: So typical of Pinot too. So as, like, what the next wine will taste, you'll start to really understand about structured tannin. So when you're when you're fermenting, a Pinot with whole cluster ferments or, like, doing whole cluster, you're getting three layers of tannin. You're getting the tannin from the skins, the tannin from the stems, and the tannin from the seeds. So it will often be a lot more structured in in terms of, like, the feeling of tannin in the mouth. (01:54):
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Andrea Morris [00:42:22]: Because you can feel that tingliness of the tannins. (01:55):
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Morgan [00:42:24]: Versus if you take the berries off the stems, you're just getting the the skin and the seed tannin. So the stem kind of offers, like, a different (01:56):
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Andrea Morris [00:42:33]: I can see how that would be nice chilled. (01:57):
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Morgan [00:42:35]: Yeah. I think it would slightly chilled. It's, yeah, really nice. (01:58):
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Andrea Morris [00:42:39]: Yeah. That's the first time I've ever tasted a Pinot gamete blend. (01:59):
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Morgan [00:42:44]: So, the next one we're going to have the last finished bottle we're going to have or share is the 2018 Incivility Pinot, which like our civility Chardonnay, the Incivility Pinot is our reserve wine, our our reserve Pinot. And this is typically a showcase of really, like, our four to five best barrels in the cellar of that vintage. It's also, typically a bit more, kind of, like, less about just like, oh, you know, when it comes to blending, just picking out the top barrels, it's a little bit more we there's a bit more strategy that goes into it from the very beginning. I tend to like to make this wine really deliver on tannin and mid weight mid like, weight on the mid palate, so I want it to be a bigger, bolder Pinot. And, I achieved that by, almost in most years. Again, I'm not dogmatic, but I like to do 100% full cluster only with this when I can, because I want that dimension of skin seed and stem tannin. And how I know it's a good year for a % whole cluster, and I learned this in France, is you go in, again, emotional winemaking. You go in and you when you're ready to harvest, you take the the the the grapes, like, the the whole cluster of it, and you bite it and chew it like an apple. (02:00):
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Morgan [00:44:16]: Oh. And eat the stem and all. And if it feels like you have a banana peel in your mouth, then the stems aren't right. If it feels like there's a bunch of woodiness in your mouth, then it's you you still feel it tannic, but in a but it doesn't feel like you've just chewed on a banana banana peel and it's, like, super astringent. If it doesn't feel like that, then the tan the this the clusters, the stems, they're they're suitable to be 100% whole cluster. You can also tell when you cut the the cluster if the the stem is lignified. So lignified meaning, like, it'll turn brown and woody versus still be very bright green. This was an interesting year in 2023 because or 2024. (02:01):
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Morgan [00:45:00]: Sorry. God. Here we are. Twenty twenty four, today. We never started this podcast. Yeah. Yeah. Right? In 2024, really and I was, Yvonne, she's at Creekside, and, she also has her own label. (02:02):
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Morgan [00:45:15]: We were saying how it was an odd year where everything was, like, really ripe, but the stems this year were not lignified. Like, across all varieties, stems stayed very green before they started to go woody. So this year, I didn't do anything 100%. The closest, ferment I did to whole 100% whole cluster was only a 70% whole cluster. So I don't want to make it green or astringent and bitter. I want everything to be integrated. And in 2018, it was a great year for that. It's game of 2020 to do a % whole process. (02:03):
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Morgan [00:45:46]: And so unlike white where we press it and just ferment the juice, red, we ferment on skins, on stems, and it stays there, on its skins and stems for a month before we then press it when it's finished alcoholic fermentation. So you wanna make sure if you're gonna really leave it's like a tea bag. Right? It's gotta be a really, really high quality tea if you're gonna let it it soak and steep for that long, without tasting, you know, astringent and bitter. So it's gotta have, you know, a lot of other weight to go with that tannin. And in '18, we had a really good skin that's very windy out there. A really good skin to flesh ratio where the the skins were real tough and thick, and there wasn't too much flesh on the inside. So you had a lot of color density (02:04):
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Andrea Morris [00:46:36]: and thicker. Color is really deep. Yes. Such a dark burgundy. (02:05):
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Morgan [00:46:41]: And I decided in this year, in '18 that I will only wanted these this whole cluster ferment to be aged in neutral oak. So a wine making decision where I didn't want the influence of oak overshadowing kind of the purity of what was happening, with this wine. (02:06):
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Andrea Morris [00:46:57]: This one doesn't have that cranberry smell. (02:07):
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Morgan [00:47:00]: No. It's much different. Much different. More berry forward. And same vintage, just 100% Pinot. (02:08):
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Andrea Morris [00:47:08]: Wow. That's beautiful. (02:09):
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Morgan [00:47:10]: That's the best thing about wine is, like, you it can just be good. (02:10):
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Andrea Morris [00:47:16]: I can't even describe it. Yeah. It's just like it's just (02:11):
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Morgan [00:47:19]: You I feel like there's, like, this mystique that and I love I love Sommes because they're at the, like, the front lines and promoting, like, you know, a lot of the wines, and they're the ones, like, on the battlegrounds, like, convincing consumers to try Ontario and, like, but sometimes I feel like a consumer doesn't really care what you think it tastes like. They just care if they like it or not. (02:12):
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Andrea Morris [00:47:42]: Mhmm. (02:13):
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Morgan [00:47:43]: And sometimes you can just decide that, and a wine can just simply be, you know, this tastes soft and full of flavor, and I really like it, and that is a suitable enough descriptor. (02:14):
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Andrea Morris [00:47:53]: Well, it's you know, like, sometimes pinot can be a bit thin, but that's nice and full bodied for a pinot, and it's just got so much flavor to it that I'm like, that's the kind of pinot that I would drink not just with the meal, but just sit and drink that pinot. Yeah. And that says a lot because most of the time I drink pinots with food. Mhmm. Yeah. That that really has, like, a really great full bodied, like, fruit. I can still taste the fruit in my mouth after the not having a sip of the wine. Yeah. (02:15):
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Andrea Morris [00:48:20]: So well done, Morgan. (02:16):
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Morgan [00:48:22]: Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. So aged in neutral French oak for fifteen months and then bottled unfined and unfiltered. So not not much they're just, you know, just grapes. Yeah. (02:17):
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Andrea Morris [00:48:31]: What's your price point on that one? (02:18):
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Morgan [00:48:32]: This one is $34.95. (02:19):
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Andrea Morris [00:48:34]: That's incredible for a wine that's that, for a pinot that's that's superb. (02:20):
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Morgan [00:48:38]: Yeah. Yeah. So we try to we really try like, Susan and Joe, a big part of their, like, philosophy here is to really, you know, have wines of this kind of caliber available at, like, friendly prices and not seem like, you know, too like, wines like this shouldn't feel out of reach. Right? And, yes. So that's what we're kinda trying to achieve. (02:21):
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Andrea Morris [00:49:03]: And it goes back to what we were saying at the beginning about that wines don't have to be super expensive in order to be great. It's like that and some wineries, that would be an $80 bottle. (02:22):
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Morgan [00:49:12]: Yeah. But I love those. Wish we did celebrate $80 just so I can be like, we make an $80 bottle of wine. But I'll leave that to other people to you know? It it's another funny thing we talk about in this industry. It's, like, a really important thing to understand is, like, also, you know, we these like, for us, like, these small wineries, we need, like, the commercial wineries to survive, and they need us. Like, the tie you know, we all rise with the tie together. Mhmm. And so if there are other wineries in this region that can sell an $80 bottle of Pinot, I think that only benefits all of us because then it's like, you know what? Then it's putting value at at, like, on wine in from this region that it's worthy of that price point. (02:23):
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Morgan [00:49:57]: So but we're still, like, just trying to we're not trying to make these unattainable priced, you know, pinots yet, I guess. But, (02:24):
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Andrea Morris [00:50:05]: so is some there like, I remember being at a dinner a few years ago when there we we were at dinner in Niagara Falls, and they were serving an Italian wine. And I was going, I wish they were serving Ontario wines. Yeah. Because we're here at this dinner, and we should be celebrating our region. Yeah. And the I didn't think the Italian wines were that great compared to the wines I've had here. And, I know there are great Italian wines, but in that particular dinner, I don't think they did pairing properly. Yeah. (02:25):
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Morgan [00:50:32]: I did a service to them. Yeah. (02:26):
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Andrea Morris [00:50:33]: Yeah. And, and the peep I was the people that's sitting at the table was were like, well, the Ontario wines are so expensive. I'm like, but you're buying local, and you need to understand the work that goes into it. And I think that's what I love about this podcast is, like, just hearing you talk about handpicking and all of the all of the process that you go through, your labor of love with this. It's like you're basically selling your babies. Yeah. And that's what's great about it. It's like there's true. (02:27):
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Andrea Morris [00:50:58]: It's not like you're just going to, like, a a big factory and buying wine that's, like, that's that they make, like, millions of bottles. So it's like this is this is a labor of love. Yeah. And you're drinking someone's someone's craft. (02:28):
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Morgan [00:51:11]: Mhmm. (02:29):
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Andrea Morris [00:51:11]: And I think it's fantastic. (02:30):
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Morgan [00:51:13]: Thank you. (02:31):
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Andrea Morris [00:51:13]: And you're doing a really great job with it. (02:32):
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Morgan [00:51:15]: Thank you. (02:33):
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Andrea Morris [00:51:16]: I wish you guys were open more than one day a week. (02:34):
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Morgan [00:51:18]: I know. Yeah. It's only only Saturdays, eleven to four, but, it's because we're such a small team. Right? But we do like, this time of year, it's not available. But, like, outside of vintage, I do offer and you can book through our website. I do offer winemakers tastings on Thursdays and Fridays as well. So it, like, gives people an opportunity who, like especially people in the industry too who wanna, like, pop in here during the week. (02:35):
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Andrea Morris [00:51:46]: Because they're all working on Saturdays. Exactly. (02:36):
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Morgan [00:51:49]: Yeah. And, or just, you know, people coming to wine country not on the weekend. But yeah. (02:37):
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Andrea Morris [00:51:56]: But it's worth the trip on a weekend. From eleven to four on a Saturday, listener, it's really worth that. I've done the tasting several times. (02:38):
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Morgan [00:52:02]: Walk ins now. Like, before we were by appointment only, but now we are, like, encouraged walk ins as well. But appointments are always better because then you're guaranteeing your tasting spot. (02:39):
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Andrea Morris [00:52:10]: Mhmm. (02:40):
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Morgan [00:52:11]: But, because we're a small tasting room. And in the winter, you know, we in the spring and summer, we've got tables outside. But in the winter, we're just limited to this table of six here. So it's really private, intimate, kind of like exactly like what we're doing right now where you're sitting down with us just, like, chatting about the wines. And my goal is to make it I always say this. My husband's in beer, and I'm like, I want wine to be, like, cool like beer. I want people to not feel intimidated. I want that too. (02:41):
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Morgan [00:52:37]: I want them to, like, come in and, like, you know, when you go somewhere and you do a flight of beer, like a beer tasting, it's like, it you don't feel like, oh, am I gonna say the right thing or, you know, (02:42):
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Andrea Morris [00:52:46]: what am I not gonna smell something? Am I gonna Who cares about that? If I don't like this one? No. (02:43):
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Morgan [00:52:52]: Like, I just want people to come in. I don't talk really much about don't use many descriptors of, like, you know, the traditional tasting experience where you're gonna notice this on the palate and that, and this is what you're gonna taste and, you know, pick your four wines you wanna taste, and I'll tell you what you're tasting. It's more like come in, try the wines that we have available, that we have opened today. Let me tell you about how we made them, and you be the judge if you like them or not. Yeah. Like, that's exactly what I try to do and demystify it and make people feel more comfortable about just, like, coming in and hanging out and trying some wine. Yeah. (02:44):
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Andrea Morris [00:53:26]: And it's like, I've I've done wine tasting with people where I left the winery and go, and I loved all those wines. And the person I was with was, like, I hated all of them. And I'm like, that's really interesting because I it like, I it's because we all have very distinct palates. So now we're doing something really exciting and new and trying a wine from the cask. (02:45):
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Morgan [00:53:44]: Yeah. So, this was a fun little this is the first time we've done a wine like this and a fun little experiment this year. This is a white Pinot Noir. (02:46):
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Andrea Morris [00:53:54]: I'm taking a picture of it, and I'm gonna put it on the website. I mean, on our Instagram account Yeah. So that people can actually see. It looks like we're drinking a juice. (02:47):
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Morgan [00:54:04]: Yeah. So this is freshly fermented. (02:48):
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Andrea Morris [00:54:05]: So like a pear juice. (02:49):
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Morgan [00:54:07]: Yeah. It's still, you know, very cloudy, has, you know, a very high in solids, high turbidity. It's a freshly fermented wine. It hasn't settled out yet. What you can expect from this wine, when we bottle it, it will be clear because it will settle over the net. We're gonna bottle it this spring, so it won't age in our cellar like most of our other wines. It'll be bottled with our rose. And it's supposed to be a fun wine kind of celebrating the diversity of Pinot. (02:50):
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Morgan [00:54:33]: Very small batch. I mean, there's only, like, 600 liters of it. $400 a bottle. Yeah. No. We're gonna put it in a screw we'll probably put it on a screw cap like our Rebel. Try to keep it in, like, the same like, under $30, with the packaging. And, and also just the way it was made, you know, it's not gonna see oak. (02:51):
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Morgan [00:54:51]: It's not gonna see that much time in our cellar. So, like, we're not gonna sell it for, you know, over $30. (02:52):
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Andrea Morris [00:54:57]: That's my very first time trying a white pinot. Yeah. (02:53):
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Morgan [00:54:59]: So this is really idea is to keep this in a tank. Keep it aromatic. Right now, it's to me, it is very pithy, grapefruity, like, kinda tropical, but not really like, almost (02:54):
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Andrea Morris [00:55:14]: like pear. I would just yeah. Exactly. I just because I said it was like pear juice, and now I'm, like, prejudiced with pear. I feel like I feel so privileged that I get to taste it before I (02:55):
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Morgan [00:55:24]: So it's always so interesting too because wine had like, there's so much that evolves in it before it gets to the bottle. So, like, you're trying, like, a really raw product. Right now, that acidity, it's, like, so obvious. Right? But that softens. We lose we lose a gram or two of total acidity, as the wine, ages. And, (02:56):
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Andrea Morris [00:55:48]: That's gonna be a great wine. (02:57):
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Morgan [00:55:49]: It's supposed to be something just, like, fun and celebrating, like like I said, the diversity of Pinot. And, you know, in France, in Champagne, those three main varieties of, of Champagne grapes, Pinot Noir, Pinot Meignet, Chardonnay. Pinot Noir and Pinot Meignet, those are red varieties. But, you know, we we don't see sparkling red really came out of champagne. They're pressing they're taking a red grape and making it like a white wine. So taking the fruit, pressing it, and fermenting only the juice. All the color comes from the skin. Right? So if you almost every grape in the world, I think, and believe maybe there's only one wine grape where you cut it in half and look, the flesh is clear and the skin is colored, right, for reds. (02:58):
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Morgan [00:56:34]: So all of you need to ferment a red wine on skins to extract the color and flavor. But if you press it right away, you're only going to be getting the the color of the flesh. Right? But with champagne, it's almost always, like, white right off the bat, white juice because you're picking the grape slightly under ripe in, sparkling for sparkling. Where with this rye or this, particular pinot, we allowed it to get totally ripe, like, as if we were gonna harvest for red wine, and then picked it and pressed it. And when it came out of the press, it was like, oh, crap. This is a rose. Oh, crap. We already started fermenting our rose. (02:59):
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Morgan [00:57:14]: I can't add more volume to this. What the hell? So it was like a total experiment. But what we did is we, we cold settled it. We added a couple juice finding products. So, like, they're like gelatin, essentially, and it helps settle the juice, and kind of take some color away as well. And and it basically absorbs the color into the lees, and then we rack it off the lees. We don't ferment it on its lees. And, we picked this is not wild fermented. (03:00):
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Morgan [00:57:43]: We picked a specific yeast strain that was going to help just promote, like, an aromatic ferment. (03:01):
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Andrea Morris [00:57:49]: It is very aromatic already. Yeah. (03:02):
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Morgan [00:57:51]: Yeah. And, and then finished it dry, fully dry. We we stopped mallow, so we didn't want it to get full we didn't want full malolactic, fermentation happening. We still wanted some some of that crunchy acidity, not too soft. And, yeah, this is just a total experiment. It's so fun. Yeah. (03:03):
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Andrea Morris [00:58:10]: So this is sort of after the leaves, you're saying? This is (03:04):
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Morgan [00:58:14]: Yeah. So this this now, like, what's in suspension and cloudy is, like, the leaves post primary ferment. So it's already been racked off its heavy lees and what will like, it's fermentation lees, so all of those dead yeast cells that fall to the bottom of the tank. And now, it was racked yesterday. So it's cloudy still because there's a whole bunch of proteins in suspension, essentially. And what will happen is over the next few months, those will settle out, and the wine will become more clear. And we'll probably add bentonite clay to this, which bentonite clay, it's essentially what it does is is it helps settle out, proteins and make the wine a bit more clear. And then we'll filter it and make it even more clear and then bottle it. (03:05):
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Morgan [00:59:00]: So I (03:06):
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Andrea Morris [00:59:01]: feel like we have to come back once it's bottled and do, like, you know, and do, like, the follow-up episode with, like because this is really cool. Like, this is a really great experience. (03:07):
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Morgan [00:59:10]: So I'm glad you enjoyed that. (03:08):
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Andrea Morris [00:59:11]: I did, and I can't wait to taste that when it's fully bottled because it's like it's I can I can really taste the potential in that? Yeah. (03:09):
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Morgan [00:59:18]: I mean, I'm hoping like, the hope is we'll keep those aromatics. So the idea is we're not gonna put it in the barrel. We don't want the we don't want it to mature, and we don't want to work with oxygen. We want it to be anti oxidative or anaerobic rather than aerobic. And, and then hopefully, in in the tank, keep it cold. And then, you know, promote the colder temperature is kind of promoting the kind of locking in those aromatics. And then, yeah, bottling it and releasing it next spring as well. (03:10):
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Andrea Morris [00:59:47]: I'm, like, excited to to try it when it's bottled and then, like, serve it to people and go like, it's a zapeno. Yeah. Exactly. Are you nuts? (03:11):
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Morgan [00:59:56]: Because it's kind of got, like, a Pinot Gris slash Riesling vibe to it. Like, really Yeah. That's what I was saying to Eamon, who works with me. I'm like, you know, it kind of, like, I would have no idea in a blind tasting right now, especially what the hell this is. Yeah. Which that's, like, the excitement. You know? (03:12):
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Andrea Morris [01:00:13]: Yeah. I love that. (03:13):
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Morgan [01:00:14]: Yeah. Yeah. So our last fun wine is, our latest, greatest rose. So we her rose sells out very quickly. And so our our general response would be to make more, but we're very, again, we're not, like, buying fruits. We're limited to what we have. So we used to just do a Pinot Rose. And then I said, okay. (03:14):
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Morgan [01:00:40]: To make our volume a little bit bigger, like, not much, like, this will be, like, probably when it's finished, only 1,500 liters, which is still, like, a puddle to most wineries, but, better than 800 liters. And, anyway, it's a it's a fields blend. So it is a blend of all the varieties we grow on our property, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and Gamay. We harvested them all on the same day and, pressed them that day as well. Let the Gamay soak on its skins for about six hours before pressing it, so extracting a little bit of color and then pressing that. And then we pressed the Chardonnay. And then same with the pinot noir, we we let it sit on skins for, yeah, about the same time, about six hours. It was picked, like, an hour later. (03:15):
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Morgan [01:01:25]: So it was more like five hours maybe, if I'm getting really specific. But all pressed, put in a tank, and co fermented together. So three different varieties of juice in one tank. So it's supposed to represent our the field blend from our property. And, you know, right now what would you describe this color? Like, (03:16):
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Andrea Morris [01:01:45]: The coral pink. (03:17):
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Morgan [01:01:46]: Yeah. Coral pink. And I think what it might look like in the end is like a pink starburst. (03:18):
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Andrea Morris [01:01:51]: Oh, that's because right now, it's very light. (03:19):
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Morgan [01:01:54]: Yeah. (03:20):
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Andrea Morris [01:01:54]: Right now pastel kind of blue pink. (03:21):
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Morgan [01:01:56]: And I think it'll get even lighter (03:22):
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Andrea Morris [01:01:58]: because It looks like a bridesmaid's dress. (03:23):
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Morgan [01:02:01]: That's so funny. So what will happen again, this is done for for men, and it's been racked off its groceries. But what will happen is it will settle out, and some of this color will then be pulled down into into its, Elise over the next few months. And then we'll, we'll filter this before we bottle it. (03:24):
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Andrea Morris [01:02:19]: It does look like juice again. Mhmm. It looks like grapefruit juice. It doesn't smell like grapefruit juice. It smells really fruity. Yeah. Like, Jolly Rancery fruity. Totally. (03:25):
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Morgan [01:02:29]: Yeah. We were getting, like, during ferment, it had we were Eamon and I, we were talking about, what does that smell? What does that smell? And we're like, do you remember Fruitopia? Yes. It's during ferment, it smelled like the strawberry kiwi Fruitopia. Yes. (03:26):
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Andrea Morris [01:02:45]: Yes. (03:27):
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Morgan [01:02:45]: It was so crazy. We're like, that's exactly what it smells like. (03:28):
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Andrea Morris [01:02:48]: It's funny that it smells like it, but it's tart. It's a little tart on the taste. (03:29):
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Morgan [01:02:52]: I felt like it was in the high school cafeteria having, like, a chicken wrap with a fruitopia. Like, you know, when I was like, that's the craziest thing about your your sense of smell. Right. Like, has a big tie big tie with memory. Mhmm. It's gonna just take you back somewhere in an instant. It's insane. But when we labeled it as the fruitopia, I, like, was all of a sudden in my high school cafeteria. (03:30):
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Andrea Morris [01:03:13]: You're like, I need to have a tray next to me. Mhmm. This is gonna be a really great rose because I can already taste it now. It's got (03:31):
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Morgan [01:03:20]: a really nice, like, softer mesh. (03:32):
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Andrea Morris [01:03:23]: I feel like a pioneer of wine. (03:33):
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Morgan [01:03:26]: Well, and I I think what I love too is, like, when people in the last month have been coming in for tastings. Like, I've worked a couple Saturdays in the last month. And, like, I'll pull them samples from the barrel, like, so they can taste the chardonnay that's fermenting, so they can taste juice before it starts fermenting. And it gives you an idea really of, like, really how much changes. And, like, a lot of people are really surprised when they try juice how sweet it is. Like, it's incredibly sweet when we pick it. And all of that sweetness, the yeast again, they have that crazy rave in the barrel or the tank, raving it up, metabolizing all of those sugars into into alcohol. (03:34):
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Andrea Morris [01:04:01]: With the strobe lights, bone foam. (03:35):
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Morgan [01:04:03]: Exactly. But There has been there's been a few vintages where I've had wines that, like, chardonnay, odd barrel ferment that were having, like, they were getting go getting sluggish, being really slow at the end. And I did the age old trick. Like, some of the they call them wack some people would refer to them as these wacky winemakers, but I would, like, blast classical music when I left. I would, like, put classical music on the radio, in the cellar, like, really, really loud. And the vibration of the sound of the music helps the leads move. That's really cool. I mean, that's the theory. (03:36):
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Morgan [01:04:39]: There'd probably be a lot of people that are, like, you know, more science motivated or, you know, driven by quantitative data. Just so (03:37):
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Andrea Morris [01:04:47]: you're an emotional winemaker. (03:38):
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Morgan [01:04:48]: So like, why not try that? I mean, what's the harm? Exactly. (03:39):
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Andrea Morris [01:04:52]: That's so great. This is gonna be an absolutely incredible rose. (03:40):
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Morgan [01:04:56]: Thank you. (03:41):
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Andrea Morris [01:04:56]: I feel like I need to order it now because I know how quickly you sell out. Yeah. I took (03:42):
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Morgan [01:05:00]: There are so many barriers Mhmm. In, like, having a wine business in Ontario. We are the, our wine region is is the highest taxed wine region anywhere in the world. And, also, like you said, doing a disservice, not being able to sell across the province, like, we're limited to where we can sell and how we can sell. And I think it's total horseshit, honestly. (03:43):
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Andrea Morris [01:05:27]: It's like I agree. I think that Ontario wines are fantastic. I think that that's why I'm doing this podcast because I want the world to know Yeah. How amazing this area is. And it's in since I've been coming out here, I've been coming out here since the nineties, and it's changed and evolved and become so much more exquisite. Mhmm. There's so many more small lot wineries like yourself that are doing fantastic productions. And I just think that the world needs to know about it, and we're doing ourselves a disservice by saying no. (03:44):
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Andrea Morris [01:05:58]: It can only be in Ontario. Yeah. We need to be able to, like, put products everywhere Mhmm. And be able to ship to Quebec and to be able to ship to across Canada into The States. It's like, I think that that's really that's that will then grow the industry, which then grows the economy. Yeah. Absolutely. Politicians, listen in. (03:45):
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Morgan [01:06:16]: I know. And, also, like, another thing that gets talked about quite often, like, at, like, our annual Ontario Craft Mining Conference is the fact that the government won't invest more in infrastructure to make it easier for people to get here. Like, one of the best things about being in Niagara is the fact that we have a reach of millions and millions of people within our grasp. Exactly. Like, where the hell is the, like, multiple, service daily multiple service train that's coming into this region? You know, where like, they just it's not you know, there's maybe, like, two like, on the weekend, maybe, like, two trains that come in. They go to Niagara Falls. (03:46):
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Andrea Morris [01:06:57]: But there are hundreds of buses that go to casinos on a daily lab on a daily basis, and there's not they should have that available. (03:47):
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Morgan [01:07:04]: Just like transport to wine country, country, (03:48):
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Andrea Morris [01:07:07]: make it easier. Yes. Because you can come here, out here on a train and then order the you know, buy the wine, but have it shipped to your house. Mhmm. Not a big deal. I mean, I I completely agree. I think that we really need to open up more transportation because who wants to sit in traffic forever? (03:49):
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Morgan [01:07:21]: Well, and that's the other thing. Like, in the height of the seasons, like, in the summer, I have customers that book an like, from Toronto that'll book an appointment here, and they call us, and I'm really sorry. We're running forty five minutes late because it's taking us three hours. (03:50):
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Andrea Morris [01:07:34]: Yes. (03:51):
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Morgan [01:07:34]: Like, that's insane. (03:52):
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Andrea Morris [01:07:36]: I had friends that did that when the, liquor strike was out. They came to visit me. They left Toronto at 10:30 and got to my house at 02:00. Yeah. That's crazy. That's ridiculous. (03:53):
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Morgan [01:07:45]: And, like, I don't necessarily think the answer is, like, widening the roads and making that. I think the answer is, like, making it more accessible by for high speed trains, public transport. Like How about a ferry? Yeah. Well, that would be a start, honestly. (03:54):
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Andrea Morris [01:07:59]: You could do a ferry that goes to (03:55):
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Morgan [01:08:00]: Niagara that goes from Toronto to Saint Catherine's Yeah. (03:56):
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Andrea Morris [01:08:03]: To Jordan Harbor. Exactly. Go to Jordan Harbor and get off there and then have and then you can get on a wine tour bus. Yeah. And it would be fantastic. I think we've just We've (03:57):
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Morgan [01:08:13]: got lots of ideas. (03:58):
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Andrea Morris [01:08:14]: Have solved one. Women because women make the difference, my friend. Well, Jordan, you know what? I mean, Jordan. Morgan. I'm like, Jordan because we're Jordan area. Right? And we're talking about Jordan. It's like, Morgan, this has been so great. Like, I love tasting from the cast. (03:59):
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Andrea Morris [01:08:28]: I love all the stuff that we've been not the bat, rather, not the cast. I love your take on winemaking, and I love sixteen Mile Cellars. So I'm so happy that we did this. It's been such a great experience. And you, the listener, I hope that you have really enjoyed this visit to sixteen Mile Cellars, and I hope that you will like and follow spill the wine on all of our platforms because we are available on so many different areas now. You really have to listen to us. And if you have any suggestions or any topics that you wanna suggest, then then you know what? Check out our Instagram page. It's spill the wine underscore podcast. (04:00):
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Andrea Morris [01:09:02]: That's on Instagram. And then you can send us a note. You can see pictures of the wine that we have sampled here Mhmm. Particularly the wine in the (04:01):
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Morgan [01:09:09]: glass that was from the cask. Yeah. (04:02):
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Andrea Morris [01:09:11]: It's gonna be so much fun, and we can't wait for you to tune into our next episode. And, again, thank you so much, Morgan. This was great. (04:03):
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Morgan [01:09:17]: You're welcome. Thanks for coming out. (04:04):
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Andrea Morris [01:09:18]: I really appreciate it. We would just like to end with Cheers. (04:05):
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Spill the Wine Episode 12: A unique experience – tasting wine from the tank! A visit to 16 Mile Cellar Vineyards & Winery

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Spill the Wine Episode 12: A unique experience – tasting wine from the tank! A visit to 16 Mile Cellar Vineyards & Winery