2021 Van Alstine Red
Traditionally a gentleman’s drink, a port-style is classically paired with fresh figs, walnuts and a fine cigar. Our barn was built in 1805, so, if you’re visiting our 93 acre estate, you can smoke your cigars down at our drystone bridge.
18.0% alc./vol. 500 mL
Fortified red wine
Property Grown
Best enjoyed now to 2034
Winemakers’ Notes
This wine is made from our property-grown Frontenac Noir. Our method was to allow the yeast to convert sugar to alcohol until we got down to the desired sweetness level. At this point, the wine was fortified with alcohol to create a very special Canadian wine. It was then barrel-aged in French oak barrels for 24 months.
Tasting Notes
The first fortified wine made in the County, Van Alstine Red, a ruby port-style wine, has aromas of spicy black raspberry and cassis dominating the nose with red licorice, stewed cherries, dark chocolate and cedar. It is round, soft and full in the mouth with rich, ripe fruit and a lingering finish.
Pairing Notes
If you’d like to use the VanAlstine Red as a dessert wine, pair it with anything to do with dark chocolate. We’ve had it with things as simple as chunks of dark chocolate and salted nuts or something as decadent as German dark chocolate molten lava cake with raspberries and raspberry sorbet. In the spirit of the traditional pairings, we also suggest VitiCult cashew blue “cheese”.
Accolades
VineRoute’s “Top Ten Best Ontario Wines of the Year” 2020 with the 2017 vintage.
Was named among the “Top Ten Cutting Edge Wines in the World” in it’s first vintage by Zoltan Szabo and John Szabo, MS.