2011 Norman Hardie Chardonnay

In October 2012, we went to Prince Edward County (not Prince Edward Island) located in Lake Ontario. If you imagine Lake Ontario as a gaping mouth, Prince Edward County (PEC) is like the thing that hangs down in the back of your throat (the uvula), tethered to mainland Ontario by an extension of land. One of the places that we visted was Norman Hardie. It was October and we ran into Norman himself with his little son. This was the last weekend that they were serving their outdoor pizza and people had gathered to taste Norman Hardie's wines and enjoy perhaps one more weekend of outdoor life. We went to Norman's tasting room and tried his Pinot noir and his Chardonnay. We purchased 2 bottles each of the Pinot noir and Chardonnay. Tonight, we had the 2011 County Chardonnay. On his website, Norman Hardie says that the 2011 growing season was cool and the county Chardonnay began fermentation in stainless steel and then transferred to barrel for 9 months of aging. When we poured the wine, it was a bit lemony yellow and we thought, "Oh, oh, a bit of oxidation" but that was not the case. Our second reaction was that it tasted rather sweet, but then upon swirling and having it with our meal, we remarked that it was a delicious, aspirational wine, that is "We need to make wine like this!" We really have a soft spot for wines from PEC. They really must love what they are doing because they bury their vines in the winter! Why do they go through all this troube? I think it is because they have discovered that their land comprised of limestone, infuses their Chardonnay with great minerality and flavor.