Wine Journal
It took me a long time to realise it… And once I realised it, it took me a long time to care because I knew that despite having the truth on our side, the subsequent battle wouldn’t be an easy one. But eventually, following repeated exposure, I had to acknowledge an incontestable fact which I'm now going to share with you.
It's occurred to me that I've written somewhat extensively about three of my grandparents, but very little about my paternal grandmother. One of my very earliest memories involves her so that's a good place to start.
It was late at night and I was almost home, riding my bicycle through the quiet streets of an adjacent neighbourhood. I entered the dead end of a cul-de-sac through a pedestrian path, pedalling along a short street that remained at stark odds with the relative gentrification around it. Its run-down apartment buildings and houses did little to belie the disproportionate occupancy by miscreants, drunks, hard drug users and general down-and-outers.
Despite the respect and adulation that they receive in Germany, Spreitzer's wines are criminally underappreciated in Canada. I've got a few conjectures as to why this might be, all of which involve brothers Andi and Bernd Spreitzer being refreshingly impervious to the wine world’s dubious fashions. On the other hand, they consistently produce excellent Riesling over a wide range of styles and at completely reasonable prices — and what could be more exciting and praiseworthy than that?!?
My discovery of the wines of Domaine de Ribonnet offered me a combination of my fascination with aviation and my profound enjoyment of wine. This estate, found an hour south of the French city of Toulouse, was established by Clément Ader, one of the very first French pioneers of aviation.
Functioning on adrenaline and elation alone, I found myself aimlessly wandering the streets of Jerez de la Frontera one morning earlier this year. I was feeling rapturously jet lagged all over again despite the consistent time zone, having sacrificed an entire night of sleep in order to expedite my arrival to this magical place. I couldn't possibly have been happier.
Alcohol, and therefore wine, is under attack from seemingly all sides. Most pertinently, categorical warnings issued by the World Health Organization and US Dietary Guidelines (the former based in part by “research” and support by Canadian neo-prohibitionists and the latter by the ICCPUD, a group tasked with the prevention of underage drinking) state that “no amount of alcohol is safe for human consumption”. That's quite an assertion.
After 28 years now, the “vineyard” of Metrovino is at a stage where even better things are to come. At fruitful moments, good things happen. The active partnership of Metrovino is expanding with the addition of Sarah Boucher and Eva Hudson as Metrovino’s newest partners.
We are honoured to have collaborated with some of Canada’s greatest culinary talent at Canada’s Best 100 10th Anniversary dinner series at River Café.
Nobody lacks self-discipline like us at Metrovino. We make valiant attempts at restraint, but you’d never know it given the fact that we import 80+ disparate German Riesling labels each vintage. Despite its amorphous parameters, every year we encounter phenomenal wines in our travels that don’t fit neatly into our bloated “portfolio”. When a brief encounter with such a wine makes clear that a future without it would be impoverished, empty and meaningless, we import said wine for reasons of emotion — regardless of its lack of glass-pour potential at restaurants or inherent appeal to trophy hunters.
This past April, winegrower Andreas Adam and I made a short drive to the village of Leiwen for dinner. Upon leaving the main road, I noticed a building alongside the Mosel river that conjured several memories for me. "Has that hotel and restaurant closed down?” I asked. After all, Andreas was the one who had recommended it to me so many years ago. He lamented that their doors were indeed permanently closed, and over dinner I recounted the following memory.
It seems that despite all of the constant and ubiquitous resources at our disposal for information gathering and communication, we live in a world of disconnection. I can easily know at any time what a celebrity is wearing, what another is promoting or despising. I can tell you the brand of underwear worn by a sports star (ooh-la-la), and a further endless stream of knowledge that provokes curiosity but remains mired in a tar pit of insignificance when it comes to existential questions.
Many of you will remember our former colleague, Marli Hadden, for her winning smile and infectiously positive demeanour. She left Metrovino in 2019 to chase dreams that were still unfolding, embarking upon a nomadic adventure that eventually landed her in Ontario's wine country. In ways it seems as if she just left yesterday, yet it also feels like a hundred years ago.
Who knew that Monastrell could be so elegant?!? And where the hell is Jumilla?!?
I first met the Cerdán brothers of Bodega Cerrón earlier this year at a massive wine fair in Barcelona where prominent wine journalists and sommeliers hovered around their booth like moths to a flame. It was clear that I wasn't about to discover anything under the radar, but I needed to see what the ruckus was all about.
The following transmission was sent to the Metro Mates from Jerez, Spain in February, 2024. Footnotes have been added so that the rest could be left intact.
We lost Nika, our spiritual inspiration and irreplaceable canine family member, in November of 2019. Almost immediately, my wife decided that our cat, Bébert, was suffering acute loneliness from the loss. Nika and Bébert had merely coexisted, but I didn't dissuade my wife from projecting our own sense of emptiness upon the seemingly indifferent cat. By the end of December we would welcome an additional family member into our household.
There's much to love about 2023 German Riesling. The wines possess a breathtaking, spellbinding sense of harmony, albeit in a slightly riper and richer register than the previous two vintages. Happily, this is without the aromatic evidence of warmth embodied by some ‘18s, ‘19s and '20s. The 2023s have stubbornly long finishes, soaring on and on with enchanting harmonic inertia.
My very English mum had a lifelong vocation for nurturing difficult things. She was dedicated to the upbringing of my brothers and I, but I always knew that an especially significant part of her heart was dedicated to plants.
Springtime had technically begun but the skies remained obstinately indifferent. I was on a solo woodland retreat to nurture my dominant but neglected introverted side, and had just finished reading a novel of extraordinary breadth and insight. The afternoon, like the morning, was mine to do whatever I wanted, so I bundled up for a leisurely stroll through my isolated, snow-swept environs to digest what I had just read.
One of the most exciting things about tasting through any wine region is hearing about different grower’s tactics to overcome challenges and usher beautiful wines into being. Despite the potentially enormous variation of strategies voiced, each proffered as if any other pursuit would result in abject failure, one can taste countless collections of compelling and delicious wines. However, nobody else that I know who's achieving such high levels of quality with Riesling is doing so through such idiosyncratic methods as Kai Schätzel.
My maternal grandfather was tough, even by the standards of his bygone generation. The eldest son of German immigrants, he grew up on a farm in Lymburn, Alberta where an unflagging work ethic was the motif of his life from the very beginning. Almost 100 years later during this chaotic but sentimental time of year, I find myself thinking of him more than usual.
You may have been entirely oblivious to its existence, but that doesn't diminish its worth or its capacity to improve your life. Spätburgunder is the German word for Pinot Noir, and it's the perfect red wine for right now.
It had been an unseasonably beautiful October. The nights were cool, not cold, and the days were glorious explosions of vivid autumnal colours and welcome warmth, the low sun emitting enough heat for comfort in T-shirts at midday. With the approach of Halloween, Mike had been fully immersing himself in horror, as he did every year.
A couple of months ago, the Metro Mates congregated to taste the samples from a fledgling Spanish producer. Each of the wines were from the Sierra de Salamanca — up in the mountains between Madrid and the Portuguese border — and made entirely from the Rufete grape.
If the merit of a tasting room can be measured by the extent to which it enables one to comprehensively and undistractedly engage with wine, then Weingut A.J. Adam’s tasting room is one of the best that I’ve ever visited.
I've been in Priorat for just over 24 hours, and considering the brisk winestyles that I customarily advocate, I'm still not over the irony of going out of my way to be in this wild outpost of Northeastern Spain. But I have to admit something — I love Priorat! The place, that is... but also the wines that I encountered today!
My father made his living selling sporting goods. As an adult I'm entirely apathetic about sports and the goods that they require, but as a youngster, I didn't know that there was any other option but to participate in endless variations of physical activity. Dad made sure that I was well equipped for all of them.
It hit me really hard one night. It wouldn't have been so bad had I been on an early morning vineyard walk or reading in a hotel room, but it happened during dinner in a busy restaurant. I'd had my share of Riesling (including some from the 2022 vintage, about which, read on), but it was finally catalyzed by the glass of Henrik Möbitz Spätburgunder that I had in front of me.
The following is an excerpt of an email that Richard sent to the Metro Mates during his recent trip to the Loire Valley. On this voyage, Richard revisited the legendary Domaine Huet property, owners of the Haut-Lieu vineyard amongst other sacred Chenin Blanc sites.
It seems that I'm the first human to stir. Disoriented by jetlag and fuelled by excitement, I give up on sleep long before the day dawns. After the final nocturnal trains, there's a depth of silence when one can hear the vines exhaling as they, too, enjoy the stillness. Before long, gleeful birdsong begins to pierce the expiring darkness. I tie my shoes and leave the hotel by the side door.