In Montreal in January, magazine editor Marc Chapleau, who publishes Cellier, organized a blind tasting with Canadian wines mixed in. The surprise winner of the white category was Le Clos Jordanne Claystone Terrace 2005 Chardonnay from Niagara.
While not as earth-shattering as the 1976 "Judgment of Paris" that put California's wines on the top table, the "Jugement de Montreal" represents a big boost for Niagara in Canada's biggest wine market. To be fair, there's already considerable appreciation for Canadian wines in Quebec - fellow Vincor high end producer Osoyoos-Larose from BC sells twice as much wine in Quebec as in Ontario, for example.
I don't know which is more surprising - the fact that an excellent wine from Ontario won or that it took so long for the news to break out. Chapleau is running the story in the Summer 2009 edition of Cellier and clearly kept a tight lid on the news.
Good news indeed for Le Clos Jordanne and a clear acknowledgement of the quality product being made there. Visit Le Clos Jordanne's website.
Le Clos Jordanne winemaker Thomas Bachelder's having a good month: On May 8 he was nominated as Ontario Winemaker of the Year at the Ontario Wine Awards in Niagara. He was very pleased to learn the results of the Montreal tasting.
“Like the judges, we did not even know we were a part of this tasting,” Bachelder said in a press release. “For an Ontario wine to capture the top spot in the Chardonnay flight is both flattering and exciting. The judges could have selected our wine because the Claystone Terrace Chardonnay possesses attributes found in both American and French Wines, with minerality, floral notes and spice.”
For more on the Montreal competition and Le Clos Jordanne, read a report in the Globe by Ingrid Peretz here.
Read the Canadian Press report here.
Read a news release en francais ici.
Read my tasting notes on the Clos Jordanne release of the 2006 wines in February. Scroll down about one screen. For the full story on the winery and my notes on the 05s, click here. I preferred Le Grand Clos at the November 2007 tasting.
Do you think maybe Atom Egoyan will make a movie about The Judgement of Montreal? The heartwarming story of a plucky French millionaire investor and the super slick corporate marketing team at Vincor struggling to overcome deep-seated prejudices and then succeeding? I hope so!
Meanwhile, there's always the film about the original Judgment of Paris: last summer's Bottle Shock. Incidentally, the film stars none other than Chris Pine, who's breaking out right now as the young Captain Kirk in Star Trek, which is shaping up to be a blockbuster.
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