Doing things the Hardie way in Prince Edward County
Image: Norman Hardie Winery
A cool climate and a terroir of clay and limestone are a rare combination that exists few places in the world. Prince Edward County on the north shore of Lake Ontario has it. This may be why a Canadian wine, made by a winemaker who has worked in Oregon, South Africa, New Zealand and California, brings to mind only one place: Burgundy.
Norman Hardie. Image: Norman Hardie Winery
In particular, one comparison has stuck: when Richard Hemming of jancisrobinson.com compared Norman Hardie’s wines to Coche Dury. There really is no bigger ideal for a chardonnay.
“If the comparison must be made with Burgundy, then this is in the Coche-Dury mode, and would convert any Francophile, I’m sure”
That familiar style is no coincidence. Hardie spent considerable time working at Burgundian stalwart, Domaine de la Pousse d’Or, and perhaps this is why he from the beginning had his heart set on growing Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. “The last thing I wanted to make was ice wine. Just think about picking grapes in February…”, he says with a grin. For years, Canada’s wine industry had been focused on sweet ice wine, often made from the hybrid grape vidal, but lately focus has shifted to dry wines. After considering a remote region in New Zealand as the place to put his vines, Hardie eventually found his pinot paradise in the County, where nearby Lake Ontario extends the growing season. He planted 4000 vines of pinot noir in 2004.
Pinot Noir. Image: Norman Hardie Winery
There was only one catch: It gets down to -30 degrees in the winter. That’s cold enough to kill the vines, so in order to survive, ironically, they must be buried. Anything below -17 can be damaging and potentially fatal to the plant, so before the ground freezes, the canes are let down and covered with dirt, tucked in for a long slumber over the winter. When spring rolls around, they are unburied and trellised again. Naturally, this is a fairly labor-intensive process, but as his name implies, Hardie has never been one to take the easy route. While in Burgundy, he learned that the harder he worked, the more wisdom his teachers were willing to impart on him. So he worked hard. That ethos has stuck and today 3 guiding principles preside over everything else at his winery: quality, quality and quality. This means, among other things, hand-picking and sorting, natural yeasts, a very long elevage of two winters and very little sulphur. The long aging with the significant lees contact gives wines with a deep, complex and finely reductive character, compelling the comparison to those great winemakers of Burgundy – and often also to the Jura.
Serving Canadian wines
Canadian wine is currently enjoying a tremendous amount of interest from francophiles, fans of natural wines and other adventurous drinkers. It may in part be spurred on by the antagonistic policies of Canada’s southern neighbor, but it is driven mostly by the increasing awareness of the quality that comes out of regions like Niagara Peninsula, Prince Edward County and the Okanagan.
Importantly, the style at Norman Hardie hits the wine zeitgeist right on the money: ethereal and elegant pinot noirs and razor-sharp, complex chardonnays with a distinctive reductive edge, all unfiltered, with minimal sulphur, and impressively low alcohol percentages – think perfectly ripe pinots and chardonnays at 11.5 or 12%!
Another talking point is global warming. As climate change puts pressure on famous vineyards of the classic wine regions, the producers along the shores of Lake Ontario are in a slightly different situation. Despite seeing bigger temperature fluctuations, surprisingly, harvest has hardly budged an inch since the inception of the winery. The reason, Hardie explains, is the deep waters of the lake. The huge mass of cold water is a mitigating factor that has, so far, kept harvest to roughly the same dates as ever. There are no immediate dangers of overripeness or excessive alcohol. And with the vines only just 20 years old, the wines are poised to be better and better in the future.
Prince Edward County is Canada’s fastest growing wine region and it’s easy to understand why. With wineries like Norman Hardie leading the way, the future looks even more promising in the hottest cool-climate corner of the wine world.
