The “Riserva Famiglia” title is only given to wines produced in the best vintage years which have passed a rigorous tasting panel. Made in the traditional appassimento style, vine dried for 4 weeks past traditional harvest dates and then rack dried in a single layer for 26 days. Dried in an ambient environment with forced air circulation to allow the fruit to slowly dry. Small batch fermented and aged in french oak for 2 years.

The 2016 Vintage was extremely hot with little rainfall and lots of sunshine. To protect the grapes, we left foliage on the vines providing extensive canopy. The soil was able to hold moisture through the season to ensure the vines remained healthy in the heat, producing a crop balanced in sugars, water and acidity- a known Niagara trait.

The 2016 Appassimento Merlot is a superb expression of the grape variety as it showcases all the hallmark traits of a world class Merlot. It has a deep ruby colour and a nose focused on preserved fruits, savoury characteristics and sweet oak aromas resulting from lengthy ageing in French oak barriques. The nose explodes out of the glass with aromas of black plum, blackberry, bramble, stewed black cherry, licorice, dates, kirsch, leather, mocha, dark chocolate, vanilla, and baking spice. On the palate these flavours repeat and combine with the richness of the wine’s body and thick, silky tannins to make tasting this wine quite the experience. Despite its youth and high alcohol content its surprisingly soft, thanks in part to fresh acidity that balances it all out, leading into a very long finish. Even though this is built to age in the cellar, its also a joy to taste now, especially served along side hearty foods and after a lengthy decanting.

Technical Information

Appellation: VQA Niagara-on-the-Lake

Blend: 100% Merlot

Aging: 2 years in new French oak barriques

Brix after drying: 28.0

Alcohol: 16.0%alc./vol.

Residual sugar: 4.6g/L

Cellaring capacity: 2030+

750ml bottle | Red Wine, Vin Rouge