Niagara Wine ReviewsTop Stories

Passing the torch on i4c and the new wine releases from Harald Thiel’s Hidden Bench winery on the Beamsville Bench

Hidden Bench

Hidden Bench winery owner Harald Thiel, in the photo above, is a big fan of Chardonnay, especially those grown and made in cooler climates.

And back in the summer of 2009, he and a handful of Niagara winemakers wanted the world to know it.

They were toasting a major victory by Niagara’s Le Clos Jordanne Claystone Terrace Chardonnay 2005 after it bested Burgundian and Cali Chards at the prestigious Cellier Wine Awards in Montreal.

Hidden Bench
Guests enjoy Chardonnay at i4c (i4c photo)
Hidden Bench
The charm of Chardonnay drew large crowds (i4c photo)
Hidden Bench
Pouring Chardonnay for thirsty guests (i4c photo)
Hidden Bench
Chardonnays from around the world were poured (i4c photo)

It was no secret among those who gathered to celebrate the win that Niagara was capable of making world-class Chardonnay. The trouble was, so few in the world knew about the tiny region of Ontario that they felt it was time to come out of the shadows and toot their own horn.

So, from that impromptu backyard celebration, the International Cool Climate Chardonnay Celebration (i4c) was born. Twenty-eight Ontario wineries started the not-for-profit group in April 2010, devoted to reinstating the dignity of Chardonnay.

Over the past three years, this group has invited premium cool climate Chardonnay producers from across the globe to join the cause, presenting some of the finest examples of cool climate Chardonnay in the world at the annual event. In this short time, i4c has created a home for excellence in Chardonnay — a casual but in-depth weekend celebration of wine, food and learning, with an eye to reinvigorating a seriously cool wine.

At the forefront of i4c, as the founding chair of the grassroots organization, Thiel worked tirelessly to give the celebration of cool climate Chardonnay the clout it needed to bring some of the best producers and wine critics in the world to a virtually unknown region to share their wines and their stories and to get a first look at Ontario Chardonnays and how they stacked up against the best in the world.

It was an instant success in its first year and has grown every year since then into a major event that needs little arm-twisting to convince the best Chardonnay producers to show up in Niagara with their wines in tow.

Thiel lived and breathed i4c from its inception in 2009 but has now turned the reins over Del Rollo, who spearheads the Eastern Estates Wineries in Canada for Constellation Brands (formerly Vincor).

“After five years it’s time for someone else to step up to the plate,” Thiel says as I join him for a tasting of his fall releases. “It’s sustainable now, a fantastic event to promote the region.”

Thiel calls i4c a “game-changer” for Ontario that was successful in bringing some of the world’s most respected wine critics to the region to help spread the word about the wines being made here.

“Every year we learn and improve,” he says. “The status quo just isn’t good enough.”

For Thiel, stepping back from i4c was the right thing to do. The time commitment was eating up a day and half a week and he felt he needed to “devote more time to my own business.”

QUICK FACTS ABOUT THE I4C:

Hidden Bench
The vineyards at Hidden Bench.

The i4c is not a competition, rather it is a celebration of this exceptional varietal.

The i4c mandate states that a minimum of 50% of the annual participants are from outside of Ontario to ensure a true exploration of the nuances of cool climate Chardonnay.

The dates for the 2014 event are July 18-20

The program for the 2014 event will be announced in January

The 3-day celebration is held at various winery and vineyard locations across Niagara.

The i4c is: i – International 4 c’s – cool, climate, chardonnay, celebration.

The i4c has welcomed internationally renowned keynote speakers Matt Kramer (Wine Spectator) – 2011. Stephen Brook (Decanter) – 2012 and Steven Spurrier (Decanter) — 2013

The i4c has welcomed over 50 of the top cool climate chardonnay producers from around the world in the past two years.

This event earned over 25 million media impressions in 2 years including coverage in Decanter, Wine Spectator, La Revue du Vins de France, and numerous renowned Canadian wine and lifestyle publications.

Hidden Bench

Thiel has always been a key Chardonnay producer in Niagara and uses the Beamsville Bench terroir as his playground to make some of the finest juice in the region over several tiers.

His Tete de Cuvee Chardonnay 2008 was my white wine of the year in 2011 and I confirmed that just recently after retrying a bottle in the comfort of my home.

It is such a profound Chardonnay, combining complex fruit flavours with minerality and perfectly blended oak spices. The cool 2008 vintage provided gorgeous natural acidity that is just now becoming fully integrated in this monumental wine. I see this wine continuing to evolve and improve for five or 10 more years.

Thiel releases most of his whites in the spring (you can read current reviews here    and then releases some of his other signature wines in the fall.

I sat down with Thiel to taste a few of his new releases (and a couple that I had not tasted before) during the busy harvest at Hidden Bench recently. Here’s what I liked.

Hidden Bench Roman’s Block Riesling Rosomel Vineyard 2011 ($32, 91 points) — Harald Thiel did a lot of things right when he moved onto the Beamsville Bench, but the purchase of the Rosomel Vineyard, planted 30 years ago by Roman Prydatkewycz, has to go down as his wisest decision. Situated approximately 6 km to the east of the winery, at the base of the Niagara Escarpment on the Beamsville Bench, it consists of a total of 26 acres and has produced award-winning wines consistently over the years. The Roman’s Block is a beautiful wine with a nose of pear-citrus, lanolin, lime, tropical fruit and a heady bead of flinty-smoky minerality that always emerges from the Rosomel Vineyard. It is fresh and focused on the palate with lime, pear and tropical fruits lifted by rousing acidity that carries the fruit through the finish. Always a Riesling that ages beautifully.

Hidden Bench

Hidden Bench Estate Riesling 2012 ($24, 92 points) — This is the finest “estate” Riesling I have tasted from Hidden Bench. Such a gorgeous and opulent nose of lime, lemon, tangerine, wet-stone and something floral that Thiel describes as  “elderflower.” The wine is juicy, concentrated and mouth-filling on the palate with apple, pear and fresh citrus zest in combination with stony minerality and bright acidity to balance everything out. Hidden Bench has achieved harmony in the hot 2012 vintage with this Riesling and it comes out of the gate ready for enjoyment.

Hidden Bench

Hidden Bench Nuit Blanche Rosomel Vineyard 2011 ($40, 91 points) — Only a handful of Niagara wineries are making this Bordeaux-inspired style of white Meritage, and only two or three come to mind at this level. Hidden Bench blends 91% Sauvignon Blanc with the rest Semillon. It is barrel fermented and barrel aged. The nose shows elegance and style with subtle tropical fruits, spiced pear, light herbs, honey, lanolin and honeysuckle. It’s creamy on the palate with lovely texture and verve that lifts the tropical and pear fruits. There is an underlying mineral note through the core of this wine. It will benefit from some aging.

Hidden Bench

Hidden Bench Locust Lane Pinot Noir 2010 ($48, 92 points) — Thiel says Niagara winemakers have learned a lot from the previous hot vintage of 2007. But conventional thinking, he says, is the tendency to over-extract in a hot vintage. Hidden Bench left a fairly robust canopy on the vines through the warm summer months of 2010 to offer some relief from relentless sun and heat. He says “it’s the best Pinot Noir we’ve made.” The wine was made unfined and unfiltered and spent 14 months in French oak, nearly 25% of it new oak. There is a cedary tone to the cherry and raspberry fruit on the nose with pretty violets, bramble, forest floor and spice notes. The palate reveals a mouth of silky tannins, but also bright and ripe cherry, anise, savoury spices, dark plums, a mineral component, gorgeous texture and power through a long, lush finish. Thiel is correct in his observation: “A iron fist in a velvet glove.” Buy, hold and enjoy for many years down the road.

Hidden Bench

Hidden Bench La Brunante 2010 ($75, 93+ points) — La Brunante is the flagship Bordeaux style blend from Hidden Bench and is made only in the best years where optimum maturity and flavour development are achieved in the vineyard. This is only the third vintage (the others were 2007 and 2005) of this 33% Merlot, 31% Cabernet Franc, 19% Cabernet Sauvignon and 17% Malbec blend from the estate’s highest performing grapes. Yields were extremely low (less than 1.5 metric tonne per acre on average) and all blocks used in this assemblage were fermented separately in small batches, hand-plunged to gently extract ripe tannins, and then gravity transferred to barrel. Malolactic fermentation occurred spontaneously in barrel via natural bacteria. The wine was blended at the first racking of the six barrels in April 2011, and then returned to the same barrels. After a further 13 months in barrel, the wine was bottled using gravity. This wine has never been pumped, fined or filtered.

The wine starts with an explosion of red berries on the nose followed by currants, dark plums, blackberries, anise and a mélange of spices and smoky wood notes. It is no doubt powerful on the palate with evident tannins and oak influence but it is equally met with a wave of fruit flavours and bits of licorice, tar, bramble and peppery spices that linger on a long-lasting finish. Such depth of flavour and pleasure that will reward over and over if cellared properly for many years to come. If you want a big, rich, powerful Niagara wine in your cellar, I urge you to buy quickly as this is selling fast at the winery.