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Maclean's Wine in Canada 2014
FOOD AND VINE
ONTARIO
Niagara Peninsula
THAT’S AMARONE
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than a decade ago, the Ontario winery Magnotta was the first to
try the old-world technique with local grapes. Since then, at least
a dozen wineries have tried various drying methods, mostly in
Ontario, but also in Quebec and Nova Scotia. Two research projects to evaluate the cost and the quality of wine produced with
different drying techniques are now under way in Ontario.
At Foreign Affair Winery in Niagara, Len Crispino was the first to
specialize in dried-grape wines. While on a government posting in
Italy, he was smitten with the wines of the Veneto, specially amarone. Shortly after returning, he bought land in Vineland, planting
40 acres with eight different grapes, and 2004 was his first vintage
using the appassimento method.
Crispino then hired consulting winemaker Andrzej Lipinski in 2006
to raise the bar, a move that paid off. One of his wines, the 2006 cabernet franc, sold for $110 a bottle, even if it was not universally praised.
In 2007, Lipinski embarked on a research trip to Valpolicella to further
study the trade secrets of the amarone masters.
Lipinski has since consulted at Niagara’s Colaneri Estate, Organized Crime and Cornerstone Estate wineries, and at Lake Erie North
Shore’s Burning Kiln, experimenting with different drying techniques,
including the use of repurposed tobacco kilns. In 2012, he launched
his own label, Big Head, and he’s in the process of building a dedicated drying facility, complete with fans from Italy. “It’s a style we
can do consistently here to make a great bottle of wine that people
will enjoy,” he says. His success with appassimento led to his nomination as Ontario’s Winemaker of the Year in 2012.
Meanwhile, Cave Spring winemaker Angelo Pavan made his first
appassimento wine called La Penna in 2005 from Niagara-grown
‘Appassimento’: Most winegrowers partially dry grapes in order to make
richer wines and to smooth out the curves of unpredictable weather
PHOTO CREDIT
Appassimento describes the process of partially drying grapes before they are fermented. Derived from the Italian verb
appassire (to wither or dehydrate), the technique is as old as wine
itself, and was certainly employed several thousand years ago to
make wines throughout the ancient world.
In theory, appassimento is simple: Take ripe grapes and further
concentrate their sugars naturally by allowing water to evaporate,
turning them, essentially, into raisins. The partially dried grapes are
then pressed, and the highly concentrated juice is fermented. The
technique can be applied to grapes of any colour, and the final result
can be anywhere from dry with high alcohol content—often more
than 15 per cent—to fully sweet.
In practice, however, the variations in method have a significant
impact on the final product, and how much it costs to produce. Sun
or shade drying, average temperature, humidity, airflow, length of
time, type of grapes and the percentage of dried grapes in a blend,
among other factors, contribute to the quality of the wine in the glass.
Once as uncomplicated as laying bunches of grapes on straw mats
in the sun or hanging them in a drafty barn, the results were inconsistent. Modern, high-tech drying techniques are much more
dependable, which is encouraging more winemakers to try it.
Though most use appassimento to make richer, more full-bodied
wines, and to smooth out the effects of unpredictable weather, it
can be abused. If grapes are underripe, it can magnify green flavours, high acids and mouth-puckering tannins. When blended
with a poor batch of wine, it can provide an artificial gloss of flavour and a boost to alcohol content, resulting in an unbalanced,
sweet-sour wine.
Today’s best-known appassimento wines are made in Italy—think
of dry amarone or sweet vin santo—but the technique is gaining
popularity in Canada, thanks to a handful of innovators. More
BY JOHN SZABO ·
FOLLOWING SPREAD: PHOTOGRAPH BY ANDREW TOLSON
Used to make some of the finest wines in Italy, appassimento is gaining favour in Canada. Partially drying grapes
can make richer, more full-bodied wines, but it can also be used to try to cover up less-than-perfect grapes.
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FOOD AND VINE
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PHOTO CREDIT
PHOTO CREDIT
cabernet franc dried in the traditional Veneto way: in a large warehouse space with plenty of airflow. Pavan’s initial motivation was to
“see what could be done to help out the weaker vintages,” and that
first experiment was, in his estimation, excellent. He realized that
appassimento was more than a crutch for underripe grapes; ­it was a
means to real quality with the right grapes, like cabernet franc. He
has made small quantities of La Penna every vintage since, but it
remains a costly, and therefore small, part of production, requiring
disproportionate effort. “It has been the most difficult thing I’ve
done as a winemaker,” says Pavan. “There’s a lot of learning.”
In Beamsville, Graham Rennie of Rennie Estate also wanted to
improve his reds, especially the cabernet sauvignon he planted in
1998. “It’s a troublesome variety,” he says. “In Ontario, you can’t
always ripen it, except with exceptional vintages.” The turning point
came late in 2009, as he was lunching with Italian oenologist Andrea
Dal Cin, one of the world’s experts in dried-grape wines. It was near
the end of the season, and his winemaker emailed to say pinot noir—
an early ripener—was ready to harvest. Rennie realized the cabernet
sauvignon, a late ripener, didn’t stand a chance. “This is why we need
appassimento,” he declared to Dal Cin.
That year, he tried drying his cabernet in a rented greenhouse,
but lost 25 per cent to grey rot, a common fungus. A late-season
temperature spike also dried out the grapes before harvest,
resulting in a sweeter wine with more residual sugar than he
wanted. But Rennie was sufficiently impressed by the potential,
and further buoyed by the positive consumer reactions to the
wine. “The wine still ranks today as one of my customers’ all-time
favorite,” he says.
Although pleased with his first effort, Rennie wanted to find a more
cost-efficient and predictable grape-drying system. In 2011, along with
John Young of Kew Vineyards/Angels Gate, Rennie approached the
Vineland Research and Innovation Centre in Niagara for help. The
ongoing project, now in its fourth year, has been funded by cash and
in-kind contributions from Angels Gate, Rennie Estate and Vineland,
plus an innovation grant from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.
Vineland eventually devised a system using stacked, perforated
plastic cases shrink-wrapped on pallets. Air was sucked in through
a duct system using a series of fans, allowing grapes to dry uniformly
with minimal rot, while temperature controls allowed the winemaker
to dial in the drying time to reach a desired sugar concentration and
to optimize the positive biochemical changes that occur. The system
has the advantage of predictability and scalability, and requires little
space relative to the traditional method of drying grapes in large
barns. It’s also potentially modular and mobile.
Rennie and others are already using it, but the jury is still out
on which method is most suitable for Ontario. The Cool Climate
Oenology and Viticulture Institute (CCOVI) at Brock University is
in the fourth year of its own five-year research project to evaluate
drying techniques.
“Our job is not to say which makes better wine, but to give winemakers the information of what happens and how much it costs, so
they can decide which works best for them,” says research director
Debbie Inglis. “It’ll be up to the industry to determine which style
of wine they’d like to pursue.”
It may be years away, but the keeper of Canadian wine standards,
also known as the Vintners Quality Alliance, will have to develop
standards to regulate the new appassimento category, which will
inspire consumer confidence. In the meantime, the buyer must
beware: A dried grape does not always a fine wine make.
ONTARIO
Niagara Peninsula
The iconoclast: Andrzej Lipinski is using appasimento to make complex
and more challenging wines under his own Big Head label
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