MIPTC #18 - Southbrook Vidal Ontario 2021

It’s that time of the week again, and this can only mean one thing: let’s take our wine-talk on and indulge in your favorite treat to celebrate the weekend!

I took the week off this week to recharge. To say I was tired would be an understatement. With a recent reorg, a bit bump in my workload and my son’s engagement in the terrible-twoests of his terrible-twos, I just had to take a breather and head out with the fam to one of Quebec’s loveliest region: Charlevoix

(Photo credits go to my lovely wife who also happens to be quite the instagrapher.)

Now, being on vacation means more wine. As someone who normally only drinks Thursday to Saturday, I make an exception when I am off from work. I therefore have quite a few bottles in the pipeline for y’all!

Sadly, this week didn’t start great. As you may recall in my introduction to natural wine, I’m generally curious and positive about the trend, though I won’t tolerate bad wine for the sake of it being ??natty??. It is not an end in itself and shouldn't be perceived as such - and I'm quite adamant about that.

Where I can really lose my cool, however, is when I see folks (usually fellow wine writers who get a bit too preachy) nornalizing flawed wines as being just what ??connoisseurs?? actually look for in ??quality?? wine and not the industrial-junk-filled-with-chemicals the unenlightened are used to.?

There's definitely a trendy cultural undertone to wine, and this is what sets it apart from, say, orange juice. You also feel it with beer these days with the rise of the microbrew dogma, but I think wine is still pretty up there when it comes to people failing to trust their own taste in what should otherwise be a pretty hedonistic affair.

Let me be very clear about my views on the subject: good wine is wine you think tastes good. Period. It’s not what others like to drink - not even the dude at the hipster wine bar with the beanie and cool ‘stache. The fun part is actually that *you* get to explore what fills you with joy and what doesn’t, and you just might enjoy a few come-to-Jesus moments as well if you are lucky and/or happen to have a few learned friends (hi).

To illustrate what I just said, here’s a full-on natty wine I bought after reading a ton of hyped-up reviews on the winosphere celebrating its character and uniqueness. As you will see, I wasn't too fond of it.

The Skinny

• From: Niagara, Ontario, Canada
• Varietals: Vidal 100%
• Price: $30,25 CAD
• Feature: Organic, natural, orange wine

Tasting Notes

Before I get started, I'll say I tried this at 3 different times from three separate bottles from 3 separate batches before writing this review. Unless 80% of their production is flawed, this would normally allow me to state with relative certainty that this is what the winemakers intended this to taste like.

On the nose, this has pungent yeasty aromas that are very similar to what you would get from a very hoppy IPA. You do get some start fruit and unripe mango notes that are in the same style, but totally lacking in any refinement. There's also that typical barnyard note one normally associates with Brettanomyces yeast strains that some folks love but for which I really don't care for. Overall, this is the sort of stuff I normally pour back and take back to the shop thinking I got a flawed bottle (which happens very often for natty wines, and especially rosés and orange wines sold in clear bottles). Thing is, since I got the same thing three times over months, I'm thinking this just might be the style.

On the palate, this is icepicky and uninviting, with a razor sharp acidity that fails to develop into anything qualitative or otherwise interesting. The unripeness of the very few fruit tones one can painfully find with some attention is blatant, and since I don't know anybody who cares for unripe fruits, I'm really wondering what they were going for here. There's a pepper note on the finale that does signal this is Vidal (a hearty North American grape varietal that though generally less aromatic than its European counterparts, can still make decent whites), but really not much else to write about. Mouthfeel is thin and beer-like, with just a bit of carbonation pearling the tongue - as if fermentation was still going on inside the bottle (a flaw that would normally happen on a very small unfortunate examples in a large batch). There's also quite a fair bit of alcohol burn on the tongue, which is not very surprising considering the very faint aromatics of the wine in general.

Cutting To The Chase: Does It Please The Cork?

Haha, I think it's pretty clear by now, is it? I strongly disliked this, and wouldn't recommend it unless you are looking to taste the worst that can come out of this natty-or-die trend. I had a good faith glass and sent the rest of the bottle down the drain - wasted money maybe, but I couldn't suffer having any more.

I can sort of see why a microbrew-loving high-IBU beer drinker could like this. It's quite similar to a Belgian gueuse or Farmhouse Sour style, and the barnyard yeast tones and crushing acidity might also make a bitter IPA fan happy.

Still, this is not wine as I like it. I refuse to be policed on what I should be drinking, and I think you should as well. If I make a recommendation you hate, do tell! Your palate is not wrong because you might "know less" about wine than I or anybody else - the truth is in the glass! FREE THE TASTEBUDS.

Cork Score: 2/5*

***

*Here's the lowdown on the scores, by the way. Essentially, I don't believe in 100-point scales for things as subjective as wine. Simply put, I just don't think one can credibly justify a 1% or even a 10% increment between two wines. I therefore choose to go a bit more basic. Here's how I break it down:

• 1/5: Seriously faulty, terrible, undrinkable;
• 2/5: Flawed and/or of bad quality. This is the type of stuff you should probably cook with and not drink;
• 3/5: Decent. This is where most entries will end up. These wines are clean and well-balanced, but not particularly memorable and/or exceptional. They are recommendable, but not an experience per se;
• 4/5: Exceptional. I sadly drink few wines that get this rating, but my purpose is to drink more. This denotes a memorable bottle that brought up some kind of emotion in me. This left a mark, and odds are I am now busy recommending it to everybody I know;
• 5/5: Perfect. I think I have probably tasted less than 5 bottles that would have qualified for a 5/5 in my entire life. This denotes an absolutely incredible wine that will imprint a definite memory for years to come - a true experience in itself.