2022 La Centenaire Paired with Seafood

We visited our son and family recently and scored, among other bounty this bottle of 2022 La Centenaire Serge Dagueneau & Filles. It is a 100% Chasselas wine from the Loire Valley. We weren't ready to have this bottle of wine until we saw an episode of "Dining with the Chef" on NHK World. Chef Saito said that the best way to cook salmon that has been marinated in a mixture of sake, mirin and soy sauce is to put a piece of parchment paper in the pan and then add the marinated fish. Chef Saito's fish looked delicious! My husband was intrigued. We already had on hand, fresh oysters from our friend Will, so we decided to have wine and protein.

First, the oysters were the best that we have ever had! They were huge with the right touch of brine and so fresh! The Arctic Char a la Chef Saito was lightly seasoned and delicate.
The La Centenaire paired very well with the salmon but I detected a slight off flavor when paired with the oysters. (Because we all know that the best pairing of oysters is with Chenin Blanc!) Nevertheless, the La Centenaire was very good. A nice, light bodied wine with floral and tropical aromas. It was much more to our pallete than the 2013 Chateau d'Auvernier Neuchatel, a Chasselas from Switzerland that we had in 2015.
The La Centenaire is made from vines planted in 1895. Imagine a vineyard with vines more than 100 years old!

The fruit is picked by hand, and the vinification is in stainless steel, and it is bottled within a few months of the harvest. Today, the Domaine Serge Dagueneau is run by his daughter, Valerie who is the winemaker.¹
We liked this wine very much and look forward to having another bottle of La Centenaire.
References:
1. Vintage and Vine, Serge Dagueneau.

Hokkaido Japan and Pinot Noir

A few nights ago my husband and I were watching our go to news station, NHK World and learned that Pinot Noir was being grown in Hokkaido, the northern most island in Japan. Since I associate Hokkaido with abundant snow and skiing opportunities, I found it difficult to wrap my head around the fact that Pinot Noir can be grown there. Pinot Noir has a reputation of being a fickle grape to grow, indeed Marq de Villiers wrote a book about it called The Heartbreak Grape.
The summers in Hokkaido can be humid and warm-to-hot. The soils are dark, soft and highly fertile. According to Hokkaido government data, there were 41 wineries in the region as of Dec. 1 2019, nearly triple the number in fiscal 2009. Surprisingly, there are hospitable pockets in Hokkaido that are uniquely well-suited to growing Vitis vinifera, Pinot Noir.
Here are two of the wineries producing Pinot Noir:
Domaine Takahiko:¹
Domaine Takahiko was founded by Takahiko Soga in in 2010. Wine has been a part of Takahiko's life since childhood.² His parents operate the Obuse Winery in Nagano and he went on to train as an oenologist and microbiologist at the Tokyo University of Agriculture. His love of wine took him to the Jura and Burgundy where after 10 years, he decided to establish his own farm dedicated to raising Pinot Noir in Yoichi, a 50 minute train ride from Sapporo. The reality of grape farming in Hokkaido means that Takahiko has to deal with the annual infection of Botrytis cinera. He does not use excessive amounts of fungicide but instead uses blowers to control the Botrytis. He also harvests the infected grapes separately and makes the Domaine Takahiko Nana Tsu Mori Blanc de Noir. The infected berries are pressed directly after harvest, and the juice ferments dry (or nearly dry) every year. The wine, rather than redolently aromatic and sweet, is deep and defined by its savory, umami notes.

Domaine De Montille Winery¹
Etienne de Montille comes from a family with a 300 year history of growing grapes in Burgundy, France. Facing the challenges of climate change in Burgundy where rising temperatures were leading to overripe grapes, de Monteille was looking for a new site to plant Pinot Noir.
Having tasted and been impressed by a wine from Hokkaido, de Montille went to Japan. In May 2019 de Montille first planted vine saplings at his vineyard in the southern Hokkaido city of Hakodate, a relatively snow-free area. Etienne's goal is not to mimic the Burgundian style but to create a Pinot Noir that is distinctly Japanese.

These pioneers in Pinot Noir grape growing in Hokkaido are very inspiring! It reminds me of the grape growers on Prince Edward County, Ontario. Where there is a will, there is a way! I can't wait to taste some Hokkaido Pinot Noir!
References:
1. Asai Rina and Kitai Genki, NHK World, Hokkaido Pinot Noir: A new frontier for Japanese wine, December 16, 2024.
2. José Pastor Selections, Domaine Takahiko & Takahiko Soga.
3. Kyodo News, Global warming brings Pinot Noir cultivation to Japan's north, December 31, 2019.

Limoncello from Veritable Distillery

A few days ago, my husband and I went to pick up our online order of Limoncello from Veritable Distillery. Their facility is located at Taugwonk Spur where we have our winery. They make sherry, bourbon, gin, limoncello and coffee liqueur.
Last night, we tried a small amount of the Limoncello, straight up and tonight we tried it with an ice cube. It was delicious both ways.

It's nice to get to know some of our neighbors at the Taugwonk Industrial Facility!

Our Late Harvest Chenin Blanc

We have been trying our hand at creating a late harvest botrytized Chenin Blanc since 2019. Initially, we were bagging the grapes that our harvesters missed during the harvest. In 2022, we were delinquent with our harvest and didn't get to the organza bags until it was too late. In 2023, we tried to be more proactive in bagging the Chenin and were able to bag 750 bunches. In 2024, we dedicated half a row of Chenin to our late harvest efforts.
Here is a snapshot of the statistics associated with the vintage:

Year	Harvest date	#Pounds	Volume	Brix	pH	TA	# Bottles
2019	11/19/2019	50 lbs	4 gal	25	3.52	11.2 g/L	12
2020	12/11/2020	5 lbs	375 mL	39	-	-	0
2021	12/15/2021	20 lbs	1 gal	31.5	3.52	14.2 g/L	6
2023	12/1/2023	80 lbs	4 gal	44.0	3.62	14.8 g/L	37
2024	12/72024	50 lbs	2.5 gal	26.8	3.56	10.0 g/L	NA

What is true is that it takes a lot more pounds of grapes to have a small amount of juice from these raisin-like grapes. We have also learned that the final sugar content is very important in the flavor profile of the finished wine. We liken it to the German wine pyramid of sweetness:

1. Kabinett the lightest style of Riesling, made from grapes that have a sweetness level of 67-82 Oechsle (148–188 g/L sugar) at harvest. . Kabinett wines range in style from dry to off-dry¹
2. Spätlese means “late harvest” and grapes have a sweetness level of 76-90 Oechsle (172–209 g/L sugar) when harvested
3. Auslese meaning “select harvest”, Auslese is even sweeter picked at 83–110 Oechsle (191–260 g/l sugar) where the grapes are hand-selected and have noble rot
4. Beerenauslese meaning “berry select harvest”, these grapes are basically raisinated noble rot grapes picked at 110-128 Oechsle (260+ g/l sugar)
5. Trockenbeerenauslese Meaning “dry berry select harvest” the most rare wine of the group made from raisinated grapes that dried out on the vine picked at 150-154 Oechsle (350+ g/l sugar)
Based on the German categorization, our wines can be categorized as:

• 2019     25.0 Brix     Auslese
• 2020     39.0 Brix     Trockenbeerenauslese
• 2021     31.5 Brix     Trockenbeerenauslese
• 2023     44.0 Brix     Trockenbeerenauslese
• 2024     26.8 Brix     Beerenauslese

For noble rot to occur in the vineyard, the conditions have to be just right.
In looking back, our first attempt in 2019, was harvested on November 19 and though there was noble rot infection the grapes were not given the time necessary to dessicate and concentrate the sugars. For the 2024 harvest, while we bagged our grapes and harvested it on December 7, our Brix is at the Beerenauslese level. Though the grapes were shriveled when picked not all the grapes had been infected with noble rot.
This year is another year to try our hand at growing a noble rot infected Chenin!
References:
1. Schlink Haus.