Leaning Post - Pinot Noir Bock Vineyard, St. David's Bench, Niagara, Canada (2020)

TASTING NOTES

Generous, open and rich but still delicate & perfumed. Cherry, wild-raspberry and pomegranate, tomato leaf, sweet-tobacco, basil and a touch of pancetta. A smooth, long finish with a firm tannic structure (for Pinot!).

As part of our continuing quest to bring you the best terroirs in Niagara, 2020 is the first vintage of Pinot Noir that we have made from Bock Vineyard. This vineyard is in the St. Davids Bench sub-appellation.  In 2020, the spring was long and warm with lead into a sunny and dry growing season.  After monitoring these grapes for most of the month of September, we reached the balance between brix, acidity, and phenolic ripeness we were seeking and decided to hand-harvest on September 26^th.  The grapes were lightly sort and placed into a concrete tank with 25% whole-cluster and 75% de-stemmed.  The grapes proceed with a 4 day cold soak, after which a spontaneous fermentation took place.  The skins were punched-down by hand twice a day for two and a half weeks.  Once fermentation was complete, the wine remained on skins for a 5-day post-fermentation maceration before being pressed.  The wine was transferred into French oak Barrels, (31% new 500L puncheon, 14% -1year old, 55% older) and aged for 14 months.  This wine was bottled in June 2022.

A leaning post is what you find at the beginning of a row of grapes, anchoring the wires that are the frame-work for growing grapevines. It is the beginning of an obsession to translate a time and place into liquid. Leaning Post wines take you to that beginning by finding small, unique plots of land in Niagara and putting them in bottle. Because after stripping away all the fancy buildings and high-tech equipment you are left with a place on this earth that grows wine unlike any other. When you taste that in a glass you just know it. Nadia and Ilya have had to rely on the support of family, friends and financial institutions to make the dream of owning a winery a reality. Leaning Post began as a virtual winery and is so proud to now have the quaint tasting room at 1491 Hwy 8 on their home property in Winona, Ontario.

Ilya and Nadia are the brains and passion behind Leaning Post Wines. It started with a dream to take unique, interesting single vineyard blocks in Niagara and turn them into distinctive, terroir driven wines. Nadia and Ilya first met in their hometown of Winnipeg, MB where their passion for wine and each other was born.

Ilya has been a winemaker in the Niagara Region for the last 17 vintages working at Daniel Lenko Estate Winery, Foreign Affair and now at Leaning Post Wines. Ilya is also a consulting winemaker at the Good Earth Winery. Ilya’s true passion in life is to make world renowned wines from Niagara that really showcase the distinct terroir that Niagara offers.