Billy Munnelly's characterization of Ontario Baco

Billy Munnelly, of Billy's Best Bottles fame, has characterized Ontario Baco Noir thusly:

Regular readers, all you Lisas and Steves, will be aware of my fondness for Baco Noir. It’s Ontario’s answer to Chianti and the other, gutsy, rustic reds in the world. I call Baco camp fire wine — pleasing roughness. Something that feels just right with spicy Italian sausages. Pelham rules the Baco world.

First off, I have to fully agree with his linking our hybrid reds - Baco, specifically - to northern Italian reds. For years I've been making a mild comparison along the same lines: you just can't compare the low-tannin/brisk-acid hybrid reds to the Bordeaux paradigm, much less to high-octane hot-climate reds with ample r.s. and low acidity. What correctly follows from his apt characterization, then, is the fact that our top-quality hybrid reds are indeed wines for the table.

Link to the full post in today's Metro News

Great stuff, Paul. Time to open another of those H of P `05 splits!!

[David M. Bueker]

sounds more like wine for the picnic table if I read him correctly-not that there's anything at all wrong with that

sounds more like wine for the picnic table if I read him correctly-not that there's anything at all wrong with that

I often think of a heavy wooden table in a backyard with fruit trees all around and the entire family gathered around for an al fresco dinner ... indeed, not much different than that picnic scenario!

http://wine.appellationamerica.com/grap ... -Noir.html

Billy's great, but I prefer this appellationamerica.com description (with artwork!)

Our reserve reds in NS definitely start tasting Italian with time. Gaspereau's Lucie Kuhlmann (the 02, I think) was a dead ringer for Chianti Classico Reserva (a good one!)

Our reserve reds in NS definitely start tasting Italian with time. Gaspereau's Lucie Kuhlmann (the 02, I think) was a dead ringer for Chianti Classico Reserva (a good one!)

Thanks Craig. See, that's just the kind of thing that should be publicized more often, I think. People are forever comparing our wines with old European benchmarks anyway, so why not air the similarity when it indeed exists? As you and Billy note, there is a stylistic kinship between the two wines, unrelated though they are.

Billy loves the word gutsy! And he loves gutsy red wines.

Before moving to Ontario, i was only a beer geek...It was his newsletter that got me really into wine - i shopped with it at the LCBO. It was the only wine reading I did. Actually I still do very little!

Same here Craig - that is, with regard to reading wine publications. I know what I like, and I have my set passions that aren't covered in the wine press to any degree anyway.

Of course, to keep learning there's only one way - try new wines all the time!

Paul B, while you are here, take a look at this.....................>

http://detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/articl ... IFESTYLE10

Bob, thanks a lot! A great article.

I don't accept the "compromise" theory, since I don't believe in wine hierarchy, only diversity. But it's a great read all the same, and I particularly like Sandra Silfven's columns.

Yes - no need to apologize for "hybrid" grapes, no more than any other grape. I actually have gone away from using that term. I just call grapes by their name and say they are different varieties. I don't distinguish between vinifera and non-vinifera, unless the article is specifically about that. Why? Because I've experienced far too much grape racism as a judge. All grapes have mixed parentage, quite often from spontaneous mating, or are clones or mutations of other grapes.

I can pour wines made from so-called hybrids that are far superior for the price compared to so called "purer" or "more noble" grapes like Cab Sauv (which makes awful wine in most cool climates) and Pinot Noir (I'll take some of our Nova Scotia blends over Cali Pinot).

Many of the judges I endure anti-hybrid comments from, when judging, i could easily fool with blind tastings. But these are ALWAYS the same experts who are too afraid to participate in competitive tasting competitions and blind party games!

I can easily be fooled too, by well chosen wines. That's called having fun and it requires a measure of humility. Grapes are humble. Do you think Merlot thinks its better than Baco?

Yes, my favourite winegrape is Riesling, but I've had Cayuga and Ortega from Nova Scotia that is better than a lot of Riesling I have had.