Sperling & Gamble: Making a Case Realizing Great Ontario Wine
By David Lawrason
This feature was commissioned by Sperling & Gamble
That Ontario wine has arrived is no longer a question in most professional opinions. In fact, great Ontario wine has arrived, and WineAlign is working with winemakers Ann Sperling and Peter Gamble to put a curated 12-bottle case of it into your hands and cellars. This involves five new wineries, twelve bottles with scores reaching into the mid-90s, and a dozen reasons why the future of top-tier Ontario wine is so bright and interesting.
Ann Sperling and Peter Gamble, who are life partners as well as partners in a winery consultancy, have spent their long and distinguished careers getting to this point of their first public offering of wines in which they have had a hand. They are currently working with six Niagara wineries, along with their own Argentine vineyard project called Versado. But over the years they have been instrumental in establishing the reputation of many others across Canada. In fact, Canadian wine would not be where it is without them.
Ann, Peter and I are of the same generation, starting our 30-year–plus careers at roughly the same time, if on different tracks. We have intersected in tasting rooms and cellars and conferences countless times. I have always admired their professionalism, knowledge, intelligence and openness. But it is their generosity and passion that is the foundation of a business that establishes winery start-ups, from the ground up. And those they help are equally passionate.
Their detailed understanding of how to achieve quality, especially within Ontario’s variable conditions, is key. I am most impressed listening to them discuss viticulture, partially because I do not really grasp all the minute details, only that every nuance of site selection, rootstock, clones, pruning, etc., causes the next decision, then the next decision, all leading to the creation of balance and ripeness in the grapes. Which then translates into myriad steps in winemaking, in which both Sperling and Gamble are immersed. It is difficult to define their roles within the partnership, although historically Ann has been vineyard and winemaking focused with Peter more tuned to creating category-defining wines within a specific terroir and a top-end clientele – think Stratus, and Nova Scotia sparkling.
Detailing every step of their long, illustrious, can-do careers would take much too long, but their first major achievements must be understood. Peter made his biggest mark as a founder of the Vintners Quality Alliance (VQA) in the mid-eighties, becoming its first executive director from 1991 to 2000. Ann, growing up amid family vineyards in the Okanagan Valley, rose to prominence as the winemaker first at CedarCreek in B.C., then in Ontario at Malivoire, being the first to promote organic viticulture in Niagara. They became life partners during this heyday in 1994.
Other accomplishments since then, and often jointly, include the start-up of Benjamin Bridge, then Lightfoot & Wolfville, in Nova Scotia, leading to Peter’s role in standards establishment in Nova Scotia wine and creating the very successful trademarked Tidal Bay genre of white wines. Ann’s big move was to Southbrook where she brought biodynamic viticulture into play, with her interest evolving into orange and organic wines. She singlehandedly got skin-fermented white wines recognized through VQA, a global first in the world of wine regulation.
The winery management consultancy has come into force since the 2000s, with early successes including the launching of the technically advanced Stratus Vineyards, then like-wise avant-garde Ravine Vineyards in Niagara and Clos du Soleil and Sperling Vineyards in the Okanagan and Versado in Argentina. This latter winery is a small Malbec project in Lujan de Cuyo, Mendoza, that affords them the opportunity to learn and practice their craft in a completely different climate and at a time of year on an opposite growing cycle to Niagara.
(Editors note: all the wines linked in this article are in the curated 12-bottle case.)
In the past decade they have added seven wineries to their portfolio, in most cases having invested years in their development. And this where our WineAlign case is focused. In 2023 I visited all except The Roost in Georgian Bay and the York Vineyards that opens this spring. I was stunned by the quality I kept encountering. This “realization of greatness” prompted this idea to showcase their efforts in a small way through a mixed case of fine wine.
The case involves wines by Lailey Winery now owned by Faik Turkmen (a former WSET student of mine) who has refurbished the historic Niagara River property founded by Donna Lailey, and owns another older-vine Stonebridge Vineyard in Four Mile Creek. The focus here is on chardonnay and Bordeaux red varieties that do well with longer hang time at harvest afforded by the proximity of the Niagara River. There is also excellent riesling and old vine zweigelt, an Austrian variety with good legs in the region. Opened last year, Lailey has had an impressive run of ratings.
Lailey Wild Ferment Riesling 2022
Lailey Field Blend 2022
Stonebridge Reserve West Chardonnay 2019
Stonebridge Cabernet Franc Reserve 2019
In the same region there is also On Seven, a tiny but particular pursuit of top-drawer chardonnay from Four Mile Creek, not the benches below the escarpment where chardonnay has flourished. It was here, in tasting with Peter Gamble and owner Vittorio Destefano that I first grasped the detailed viticultural planning that goes into planting for excellence. The WineAlign case features the superb Devotion Chardonnay, whose name aptly picks up on the passion behind this venture.
On Seven The Devotion On Seven Chardonnay 2020
While talking small, I draw your attention to The Roost, a vineyard and winery on a slope in the upper Beaver Valley of Georgian Bay. Founded by Jessica and Michael Maish, Peter and Ann clicked with their creativity and organic ethos, and signed on to consult on what I think are some of the best hybrid-based wines in the country. The colder winters necessitate hardy hybrids, but these are so well made, and such great value, that one wonders why more hybrids are not at this level. It must be the winemaking!
The Roost Frontenac 2021
The Roost Marquette 2021
Perhaps the crown jewel of the portfolio is Dobbin Estate, a unique site in Twenty Mile Bench that has vineyards sloping in several directions toward a large pond in the centre of the property. Here again, Peter and Ann were clearly smitten by the potential of the site, the ambition of Wade Dobbin and nephew Nathan. They have set out to create top tier wines and winery visit experience, punctuated by a tasting room tower overlooking the pond. The quality is next level across the board.
Dobbin Estate Chardonnay 2019
Dobbin Cabernet Blend 2020
The latest addition to the portfolio is a new sparkling wine-only York Vineyards on York Road between St. Davids and Queenston. It is owned by veteran Niagara winemaker Martin Werner who worked with Peter in the development of Ravine Vineyards. York Vineyards opens this spring following an 11-year assembly of fruit sources, painstaking blending and long ageing en tirage in the bottle. The Brut, Brut Rosé and Brut Nature that were disgorged last year are being released now after at least six years of bottle age. Two other long lees-aged sparkling wines are still to come this year. The establishment of an exclusive sparkling wine house is another encouraging development in the advancement of the Niagara region.
York Vineyards Brut
York Vineyards Brut Rosé
Case Price is $649 (Includes tax and free shipping in southern/urban Ontario) for 12 wines.
Cheers
DL
This feature was commissioned by Sperling & Gamble. As a regular feature, WineAlign tastes wines submitted by a single winery, agent or region. Our writers independently, as always, taste, review and rate the wines — good, bad and indifferent, and those reviews are posted on WineAlign. We then independently recommend wines to appear in the article. Wineries, wine agents, or regions pay for this service. Ads for some wines may appear at the same time, but the decision on which wines to put forward in our report, and its content, is entirely up to WineAlign.