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The County’s Rosehall Run brings out the best of Chardonnay and Pinot from the warm 2010 vintage

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It’s no longer a secret that Prince Edward County has some very special dirt that seems to coax the best out of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay vines.

The Hillier clay soil on a limestone base loves those varieties, giving the wines a profound sense of somewhereness, a distinct County funk that can’t be duplicated anywhere else.

The list of wineries delivering these extraordinary wines is growing every year, but one of the most consistent, which just keeps getting better as the vines grow older,  is Hillier’s Rosehall Run.

Dan-for-WebOwner/winemaker Dan Sullivan and his wife Lynn purchased the 150-acre farm in 2000 with the first harvest in 2004. Sullivan planted 23 acres Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Ehrenfelser and Sauvignon Blanc, among others, on the farm, and finished their state-of-the-art 7,200 sq-ft winery and barrel cellar in 2008. The tasting room was rebuilt last year.

The region of Hillier is one of the driest areas in Ontario with a moderating easterly breeze from Lake Ontario. The winters, however, can drop to temperatures that threaten survival of the vines.  For this reason, they are covered with soil for the winter.

284881_10151127999992434_2141220016_nRosehall Run now produces a modest 6,000 cases of wine annually with the best wines coming from the estate’s single-vineyard Rosehall Run Vineyard that has just begun to show early maturity and consistency in what it can deliver even in a warm vintage such as 2010.

Sullivan had this to say about the warm 2010 vintage:

“The 2010 vintage got off to an early start. We had a small crop reduction in our Pinot Noir and Chardonnay due to a late frost in the second week of May.

“This was followed by a warm summer with adequate moisture in the late spring and early summer, followed by a drier period for the late summer. 2010 was our earliest harvest on record with all of our Pinot Noir being picked prior to the commencement date of the Pinot Noir harvest in 2009.

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“All the fruit came in fully ripe with brix (sugar content) readings between 21 and 23 1/2. The 2010 vintage will be characterized by fairly low acidity with good concentration and tannins, which means that the wines should drink  well when released. The vintage is shaping up to be exceptional, comparable to 2007 and 2002 in Ontario.”

After tasting three of the top wines from the 2010 vintage at Rosehall Run, all to be released in May, these are some of the finest wines I have tasted from the winery.

The newly designated top tier, JRC, named for the winery’s co-founder John Campbell Reston, and sourced exclusively from the Rosehall Run Vineyard, is brilliant for both the Chardonnay and Pinot from 2010.

These wines, despite the extremely hot summer, speak to the soil from which they are grown. Both varieties have an exciting beam of minerality that gives this relatively new appellation its heart and soul.

Sullivan also adds personality and complexity with his deft use of French, Hungarian and some Canadian oak. The JRC wines see aging in 300-litre French hogshead oak barrels, for the Pinot, and 500-litre French oak puncheons, for the Chardonnay.

The result is less about smothering the minerality and fruit and more about giving the wines some interesting spice, texture and complexity that is complementary.

Here are three wines I tried recently from the 2010 vintage:

Rosehall Run Chardonnay Cuvee County 2010 ($22, May release Vintages and winery, 89 points) — The fruit for the Cuvee County is sourced from Hillier clay limestone vineyards in the County. Aging in oak is for 14 months mostly in 500-litre puncheons, a third of which is new. This is a Chard that offers immediate pleasure with a ripe nose of apple, pear, vanilla, nutmeg and oak-inspired spices that are quite attractive from the get-go. The expressive, ripe fruit on the palate is fleshy but not flabby with apple-pear flavours and  flinty-minerality running through the core. A lovely Chard that’s drinking perfectly right now.

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Rosehall Run JCR Rosehall Run Vineyard Chardonnay 2010 ($30, winery only in May, 92 points) — Sourced entirely from the North Vineyard at Rosehall and picked early to maintain acidity. It’s 100% barrel fermented and aged in 500-litre French oak puncheons using 75% new oak. This is the best wine that I have tasted from Rosehall. It starts with extraordinary aromatics of poached pear, butter cream, ripe apple, elegant oak stylings, gunflint and a subtle note of caramel emerging. It’s rich, complex and textured on the palate and built on a lovely foundation of flinty-smoky mineral richness that melds gorgeously with ripe pear, spice, undercurrent of lemon-lime citurs  and all lifted by a fair bit of acidity. To enjoy now or lay down for five years. Superb Chardonnay.

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Rosehall Run JCR Rosehall Run Vineyard Pinot Noir 2010 ($40, winery only in May, 92 points) — Harvest was the earliest ever for Pinot in the County with Brix reaching 23-24 by Sept. 23 while acids were plummeting. Fermentation took 15 days on native and cultured yeasts with oak aging in French hogsheads with two-thirds new for about 16 months. I love the explosive red fruits on the nose, more warm- than cool-climate, with raspberry, cherry and cranberry joined by a whiff of cassis and spice. The red fruits are caressing on the palate and propped up by County minerality, moderate acidity and spice. It’s a smooth wine through the mid-palate with ripe tannins and length on the finish. Just a beautifully made Pinot with mid-term cellaring potential.