13.5% alc. Very dark cherry-red with a black hue; semi-opaque. Familiar nose of black cherry, hickory smoke, vanillin and classic V. riparia grassiness. Although 2005 was a very hot vintage in Ontario, I don't pick up any of the charred coffee/torrefazione aromas that are so common in our hybrid reds from big vintages, as was the case in '98 and '99. Piercing, rather sour acidity on the entry (again, surprising given the vintage), but with good mid-palate flavour, chock-full of powerful medicinal cherry and big cranberry-like acidity. Fine-grained tannins fan out towards the aft-palate. The wine is at once very flavourful and very tart and palate-cleansing. The big American oak overlay, a feature in Henry of Pelham's Baco, seems better integrated on day two (I opened this wine yesterday). Long, cherry-and-vanillin-oak finish. I give it a good-to-very-good, rather than great, verdict. The wine seems to be on a fast-track evolutionary curve; I have a feeling that had there been any more left, it'd be oxidized by tomorrow.
Henry of Pelham makes Ontario's best marketed and best known varietal Baco, but I've never felt the regular bottling to necessarily be Ontario's best Baco per se. My preferences have typically gone the way of Lakeview, Reif, Harbour Estate and the ubiquitous but good Ancient Coast (a Vincor venture).
For additional reading, see Henry of Pelham's Spotlight on Baco Noir