Leaning Post Gamay “Wismer-Armbrust Vineyard” 2018
Background
This will be our first time featuring a wine from Leaning Post, a small operation run by a winemaker Ilya Senchuk and his sommelier wife Nadia. They are a couple of Winnipeggers (Winnipeggans?) who moved to Niagara to realize their dream and open up their own operation in 2011. They make tons of different wines, and maybe more than any other Ontario producer, their wines have an incredible range. Some (like this one) are quite classic expressions of the grapes. But they also do a fair number of oddball one-offs. Their website has a whole page of wines labelled “experimental”. We’ve tasted through their lineup a number of times at different industry events and they always bring something interesting to the table.
As we said, this single vineyard Gamay is a little more of a ‘classic’ and less of an ‘experiment’. Niagara’s climate and this specific grape clone speak to the Ontario terroir for sure, but the production methods here are closer to what you would see in Cru Beaujolais. There’s no carbonic maceration here. If you remember back to that Bojo theme pack, with most Cru Beaujolias the Gamay is treated more like a serious red wine, and less like a juicy sipper. Ilya begins this ferment in small, open-topped vessels which allows the grapes to better interact with the native yeasts. The wine gets 3 weeks to rest on the skins and a full year in old neutral wood.
Tasting Notes
With all these old-school wine making techniques, oxygen is present and flowing at every step of the process. When wine gets slightly oxidized the flavours get deeper and darker. The fruit flavours here are more like blackberry and less like tart raspberry. There is also a pronounced dark floral aroma, like lavender or violet. Those three weeks of skin contact give this wine a fine smooth tannin. That and the bright acidity make this wine’s structure feel like that of a really nice Pinot Noir. There’s lots to enjoy here. This is a great example of the beautiful Gamay production that you can find in the Niagara region.
Food Pairing
Cheese and charcuterie - It’s got enough structure to handle creamy, salty cheese, and fatty meats, but it’s juicy enough to still be refreshing. Beauce this Gamay has a little more depth than most, we would recommend you have it with darker flavours. Hard spices, meat from the grill, and bitter veggies like rapini or broccoli will all match those dark flavours.
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