Flat Rock Cellars

Two winemakers had a hand in this wine. Australian Vickie Louise Bartier fermented it before returning home and South African Marlize Beyers nursed it through barrel to bottle. The combination of imported talent produced a vivid Pinot Noir in New World style with Old World elegance. The name ‘Gravity’ refers to the contemporary five-storey winery that allows for gravity flow at each stage of vinification. Flat Rock stands on top of the Twenty Mile Bench that commands a view across Lake Ontario to Toronto’s CN Tower.

This Pinot Noir is the winery’s top blend of three Dijon clones (667, 777, and 115). The grapes, picked at the beginning of October 2005 came in at 20 – 23 Brix. Twenty percent of the fruit was left as whole berries before being fermented in open-top 4-ton fermenters. The wine was aged in 80 percent French and 20 percent American oak (38 percent new, the rest one year and older). All the clones were vinified and aged separately and the best barrels selected for this wine.

The wine is deep ruby in colour with a nose of ripe cherries and sweet rhubarb with a lifted floral note. These flavours deepen on the palate with a licorice note, sustained by fresh acidity and structured by ripe tannins.

Reviewed August 3, 2007 by Tony Aspler.