Jamie Drummond Gets Canadian

One of the city's top wine restaurants naturally has one of the city's top sommeliers: Jamie Drummond. Originally from Scotland, Drummond has been active on the Toronto wine scene for many years, having worked at the Granite Club before joining Jamie Kennedy Wine Bar about five years ago. He's also a huge supporter of Canadian wines - and nobody's better at tracking down the good stuff than Jamie.

 

The office was packed, every surface heaped with papers. I sat on a backless chair: "Is this some new kind of ergonomic typing chair?" I asked. "No, it's broken," said Jamie. "The back fell off a few weeks ago."

 

The focus at JKWB is clearly on the front of the house.

 

There are always Canadian wines on the list at JKWB (which changes daily) and its sister restaurant at the Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art opposite the ROM features only Niagara wines.

Some people are still leery about buying Canadian wines, especially at higher price points, and a few curmudgeons refuse even to try it. I wondered if Drummond encountered resistance: "We’ve been in business for several years and we have a very trusting clientele. We have a good reputation for food and wine matching, so if it’s on the list, we have no problem selling it."

One example of a pricey Niagara success was the Vintner’s Private Reserve 2002 Merlot from Peninsula Ridge: "I was selling that at $36 per glass. I got three cases of it and sold through it all, by the glass. I gave Jancis Robinson some when she was here and she loved it."

If you'd like to try some, the winery is offering it at $99.95 per bottle, the highest price by far that I've even seen on an Ontario red. 

It would be nice to get more BC wines here but Jamie says that interprovincial commerce laws make it difficult for anyone other than the really big players to get their wines into Ontario. "We have free trade with the States, but we don’t have it between the provinces!" said Drummond. And Ontario wines can run into problems shipping anywhere other than free-market Alberta.

 

At the Montreal en Lumiere Festival in February, which brings in chefs from all over the world and at which Toronto was the featured city this year, Jamie Kennedy hosted two evenings at Le Jolifou restaurant. "Jamie wanted to go one step further," said Drummond. "He took over the kitchen and I took over the front of the house. We wanted to showcase Ontario wines. And the trouble we had to go through to bring them into Quebec was unbelievable! I started planning six months ahead, and even with that, I couldn’t get all the wines I really wanted to show there."

 

Nevertheless, Drummond said that members of the Montreal foodie community who attended the sold-out evenings enjoyed it. "They have a very particular palate – the Quebec palate is so much different from the Ontario palate. In the SAQ, the majority of wines tend to be leaner – pinot noirs, gamay – and they really appreciated the [Ontario] wines we did manage to get. They loved the wines we served in fact. Exposing them to wines they can't normally try and seeing their response was actually one of the most rewarding experiences in my professional life."

 

Why it's enough to bring a tear to your eye... as was my tasting of one of Jamie's current hot picks from Niagara:

 

Though best known for their excellent rsieslings and chardonnays, Cave Spring has turned out a superb red in this new release that takes a couple of French grapes (cab franc, cab sauv) and dries them out in the Italian ripasso style (used to make rich amarones, for example) with striking results.

 

2005 La Penna (available at the winery, $34.95)

Bright light ruby colour and a knockout nose with tons of dark red fruit with a very slightly cooked quality - almost Italian. The palate takes you right back to Niagara: light, fresh and vibrant. Even though tannins and acidity are both still high, it's quite elegant. Cassis and raspberry fruit and a nice finish with another hint of stewed fruit or raisin. Lovely now, but this could age several years and should get even more interesting. 90 points.

 

Jamie Drummond regularly creates podcasts of interviews with winemakers. Check them out on the JKWB website.