Winery Profile: Kacaba Vineyards

Perched above its vineyard, the winery building looks like a cottage.

Kacaba (pronounced kuh-SAW-bah) Vineyards is a small producer finding itself a niche among the Niagara region’s proliferating wineries.

The property – nestled right into the Niagara Escarpment, at the western end of the sub-region called Twenty-Mile Bench – was purchased by founder and owner Michael Kacaba in 1997. While waiting for young vines to begin to bear fruit, Kacaba produced its first vintage (using bought-in grapes) in 1999.

The vineyard, sloping and deeply gullied, is planted entirely to black grapes (Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Syrah). To produce a few white wines, Kacaba continues to use bought-in grapes.

The scale of production is deliberately small. Prices start at only $10 (for the red “Gypsy” blend), but the emphasis sits squarely on small scale, carefully crafted, concentrated, and oak aged... read: on the expensive side.

I visited on a quiet late April afternoon. I liked the tasting room; I would not like to share it with more than one or two other clients. I arrived expecting, and was happy to find, very high quality, richly scented wines with powerfully concentrated flavours.

First, the exception. The 2004 Riesling was certainly not faulty, but it seemed rather out of place. Very pale gold in colour, it smelt pleasantly of apples with a hint of minerals. The palate was light-bodied and dry, tasting of apple over pear with (again) a hint of minerals. Crisp, refreshing. Nice, but unexciting. Pleasant: like an impeccably clean but forgettable seat cushion.

Then my host and I changed gears.

The Cabernet Franc 2003 ($25) was deeply coloured, purple-red with almost fuscia vibrancy. It smelled of compost (decaying leaf matter, not rotten vegtables) and spice (ginger, anise), and tasted of striking berry fruit (over-ripe raspberry, blueberry, boysenberry) beneath imposing tannins. Those tannins dominated the finish. This wine is at least “very good”, but it needs to sleep awhile to awake with a loosened grip.

Next, was the Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve 2002 ($45). Deeply coloured a brooding purple, its nose was on the savoury side of spice (cinnamon, for example). On the palate it tasted of spice with some red fruit squashed beneath a boulder of tannins. It turns out that the folks at the Cuvee (Ontario) wine awards have awarded this wine the gold medal for best Cabernet. Its amazing that tasters can be sure what they’re tasting in such a young wine. My (inexperienced) opinion was more tentative, but certainly not negative: Needs lots of time... quite possibly excellent.

Noticed the Bordeaux-varietals theme?

The Merlot 2002 ($25) was a deep red colour. Its nose was nothing short of beguiling, offering what I finally decided was candied rhubarb and orange. It tasted like a merlot (red fruit, plum and spice), with medium-full body, impressive concentration, and an assertive zing. Its tannins left my mouth feeling a little chalky, so I’ve tucked the bottle I purchased away for opening after a couple years.

Finally, at the suggestion of another customer who came and went, I tried the Cabernet Franc Icewine 2002 ($40). Whoever you were, bless you. The wine was strongly coloured, copper. It smelt like a typical Cabernet Franc Icewine: stewed rhubarb and strawberries. On the palate it had more of those stewed fruit flavours, with some earthiness and even a hint of tannic structure (hard to believe in an icewine but I couldn’t come up with a better explanation for the “structure”-element in I was tasting). It was mid-range in terms of icewine sweetness (sweet, but not uber-sweet) and enough acidity to cleanse away that sweetness, but not so much as to turn the wine into a tangy bonbon. Certainly excellent.

If your heading to Niagara, I recommend Kacaba as a place to stop and taste. If you’ve got an extra seat in your car, please give me a call.

Gifts to Give a Wine-Lover

Looking for a gift to give the amateur-du-vin (fr. lover of wine) on your list? Inversely, I’m always stumped when people ask me what I’d like to receive. With hopes of helping both sides, here’s a variety of options.

Every sip of wine deserves to be delivered in a wonderful glass. There are a bewildering variety of glasses on the market, but here’s an introduction to the basics:
Crystal is more beautiful. Its surface – actually rutted with microscopic bumps – encourages the dispersal of a wine’s aroma.
Glasses for still wine should be tulip shaped. To take advantage of that bumpy surface, wine lovers swirl. For this, size matters. With a 4-5oz serving, a red wine glass is hopefully only a third full. (A white wine glass not more than half).
The gentle narrowing of its upper reaches, concentrates and directs a wine’s aroma.
Any sparkling wine deserves a flute. Crystal enlivens the bubbly display, the tall narrow shape helps the show go on and on.

Does your wine lover also love the movies. How about a dvd copy of a film in tune with the theme? These range from a guy-bonding story (Sideways), a documentary (Mondovino), to a b-horror flick (The Vineyard).

Ontario is home to a great wine-producing region. Why not wrap up an offer to play chauffer for the day so that your wine loving friend(s) can safely enjoy a day of tastings?

Register your friend for a wine-tasting class. Wine-appreciation courses are offered by many community colleges. The LCBO runs "tutored tasting" sessions at some of their larger stores. If you live in a large center, you may be able to hire a tutor to guide a private wine-tasting in his/her own home. (In the Kitchener-Waterloo area, contact kwtastings@golden.net).

Is your wine lover a reader?
If so, you could pick up any of the dozen or so wine-focused magazines.
For something heftier, there are hundreds of wine books across several categories.
There are books about wine in general. These range from those suited to the beginner (I like “Oldman’s Guide to Outsmarting Wine”), the encyclopedic (there are probably a dozen great ones to choose from), to the very seriously geeky (Emile Peyaud’s physiology and chemistry-heavy classic “The Taste of Wine”).
There are books about the history of wine. Hugh Johnson’s “The Story of Wine” is the greatest of them all.
There are also books about particular wine regions. Andrew Jefford’s “The New France” is engaging and informative. It is also absolutely the most beautifully written book about wine I have ever read.

Does your wine lover have a poor memory?
Keeping tasting notes is a terrific habit to encourage. Without them, I’d be unlikely to remember wines I’d like to taste again, and wines I’d rather leave for someone else. There are lovely leather-bound volumes, but I’d choose something to tuck in my pocket when I’m out and about. (I sometimes feel silly enough writing tasting notes in public, let alone sidling up to the bar with anything so grand as the former).

Finally, there is always the fermented juice itself.

Why There is a Cellar in Our Basement (short version)

There is a modest wine cellar beneath our basement stairs. Why do I squirrel away bottles of wine?
Each time I’m asked that question, I spend a little more time considering the answers.

The cellar is a vessel of exploration. The vast majority of wines are created to be consumed only in their youth. There are two categories of wines, however, that without time passing in a cellar, remain terra igcognito.
The first range – which includes many red Bordeaux, Nebiollos of Piedmont, Syrah from the Northern Rhone, Vintage Port – is hideously tannic (astringent), violently acidic, or otherwise “undrinkable” when young.
The second range are wines which may be pleasant young, but also promise evolution, or even dramatic transformation. Here I’d include Tokaji Aszu (legendary for its ability to evolve over, literally, centuries), much red Burgundy (youthful cherry-beetroot character slowly gives way to scents of game-meat and mushrooms).

The wine cellar means that an unexpected guest can be greeted with a glass of wine.

The cellar a product of scarcity. Many wines are only available for brief moments (and, as above, that may be years before the wine is “ready to drink”). Many of the world’s greatest wines are made in tiny quantities. Further scarcities are created by (near) monopolies like the LCBO. The “Vintages” program is really the “available for a short time only” section.

The cellar is a way of developing, and practicing, patience.

The cellar holds the bounty of a poor disciplined shopper.

My final (and most important) answer is probably counterintuitive, and it certainly comes with a note of caution. Depression.
Any pleasure must be felt, recognized, appreciated and remembered. The illness obscured each of these, and, with time, left these circuits badly atrophied. Against this, and on the slope towards recovery, pleasure seems to be wine’s purpose. Like someone trying to acquire an “acquired taste”, I worked to (re)acquire the experience to pull pleasure from flavour.
Once the mind’s ability to experience pleasure is impaired, so is anticipation. Depression hindered my ability to experience daily pleasures; it utterly obliterated my ability to anticipate, or “look forward to” tomorrows possible pleasures. Cellaring wine is a rebellious retort – each bottle placed there as a promised future pleasure. A bottle left to rest becomes, simply, something worth looking forward to.
Finally, like thousands of others, my self depressed was gripped by hopelessness and bitter pessimism. Against this, cellaring wine is a fundamentally optimistic gesture. With placing each bottle in the cellar I am learning to insist that a distant ‘drinking window’ may find me emotionally, and physically, healthy enough to find joy in its contents.
*Alcohol consumption and depression can be terrible companions. If you suffer from depression, please (1) seek help, and (2) speak to your doctor honestly about alcohol.