Ontario wine from the 2003 vintage is pretty lackluster in general. It was the fault of the season, not the winemakers, they did the best they could do with a fair crop. I’m not saying it was/is a bad year, it just wasn’t a good year – and many of the 2003 were drink now kinda wines; as one winemaker said to me, “Drink the 2003’s now and while you wait on your ‘02s.” During the 2007 icewine festival Angels Gate bucked the icewine trend and poured a flight of their Cabernet Sauvignons. This 2003 seemed to stand out from the crowd, surprisingly better than its ’02 and ’04 counterparts. After careful analysis back at the OntarioWineReview lab here is what I determined about this wine. A nose loaded with oak, smoke, black currant, black cherry and cedar. In fact cedar seems to dominate this wine: beginning, middle and end. The mouth shows more oak, some cherry, and over time some green pepper emerged … but again there is was, cedar. The way I figure it Angels Gate heavily wooded the wine to extract some flavours out of it. After a while I felt like I was drinking liquid wood and was lucky not to get splinters in my tongue. This is not a put down of the wine, nor an insinuation that it is poorly made wine, Angels Gate winemaker, Natalie Spytkowsky, did the best she could with a bad crop – and it would be interesting to see what happens if we give this wine another 3 years to settle. I’ll get back to you. For now it’s pretty good considering the year – pick up a bottle and decide for yourself. Available at the winery only.
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