It’s that peak-summer time of year where so many people flock out of the city. Whether it’s to a cottage or campsite, the summer exodus has been even sweeter this year following all the lockdown and quarantine. But even moving into Stage 3 of re-opening still hasn’t made it fun going to LCBO to stock up for your weekend or week(s) away at the cottage. So here’s some excellent cottage or camp friendly bottles (and cans!) that will hit the spot while you’re off-grid relaxing and grilling in the great outdoors. AND unless you’re way out off the beaten path, we can deliver to your cottage as well!

BENJAMIN BRIDGE, PET NAT and NOVA 7

If you haven’t heard of Benjamin Bridge yet, or don’t know that Nova Scotia is making world class sparkling wines, get on board already! All wine-loving Canadians should be so proud of what’s happening out east and Benjamin Bridge has become a defacto flag bearer or benchmark over the last 2 decades. There’s been wineries in the Annapolis Valley for 40 or 50 years, but it wasn’t until more recently in the late 90’s through mid-2000’s that things really started shifting gears. The terroir and climate are perfect sparkling wine and many top critics around the world (in the UK, US, and here in Canada) have scored top Nova Scotian bubbles alongside great Champagnes. Serious traditional Champagne method sparkling is what is drawing the most attention and putting Nova Scotia on the international wine map. And we’ll feature some of those in future weeks, but this week we’re looking at their Pet Nat and their Nova 7 because they have specially packaged them in 250ml cans!

Canned wine has been a trend coming for the last couple years, and I’m not really for it in general. I’ve had a bunch of various wines of various quality in cans from the U.S. and it wasn’t my favourite overall. But what has worked really nicely out of cans is lower pressure sparkling wine. Full-out Champagne, or even Prosecco would be too much pressure for a can. It would blow open at the 4-6 bar pressure that they’re under in bottle (thus the cage over the cork), but lightly sparkling wines drink really beautifully out of the cans! That’s not to say that you want to drink it straight out of the can, I mean you could, but I’d still use a wine glass. AND if you’re going camping, what better way to bring some great wine with you and then just crush the cans instead of hauling bulky bottles back with you. And some campsites don’t even allow glass. So…win-win!

If you’ve never had Nova 7, this is the most popular wine from Benjamin Bridge. It’s funny how their international reputation is built by their famous Champagne-like sparklings, but their local reputation in Nova Scotia and also here in Ontario precedes them with their Nova 7. It’s a crazy popular cult wine. When it sometimes goes to Vintages at the LCBO, it sells out fast. People LOVE it. If you’ve never had it, think Moscato d’Asti but Canadian and slightly pink. It’s a blend of Muscat, l’Acadie, Ortega, and Geisenheim. It’s organically grown, unfiltered, and frizzanté (lightly sparkling) and for all you natural wine fans there’s no added sulphites. There is a fair amount of residual sugar but tons of acidity and freshness. So while it is slightly sweet, it doesn’t drink like it with all the fresh acidity poppin’, the effervescent bubbles keeping things crisp, and the low 6% alcohol means you can drink responsibly, longer! It’s one of the ultimate summer wines and now one of the ultimate camping or picnic wines with the canned format! Click here for more details and tasting notes.

Benjamin Bridge, ‘Nova 7’, Nova Scotia | $9.99 x 24 250ml cans

Love Pet Nat? Well they have that in cans too! Not familiar with Pet-Nat yet? It’s short for Pétillant Naturel, aka the ancestrale method of sparkling. Many people think that Champagne was the first sparkling invented with it’s second fermentation, but it was actually the méthode ancestrale in areas like Bugey-Cerdon in France’s Savoie region. Generally speaking it involves bottling wine prior to it finishing fermentation so as to trap the C02 in the bottle from the primary fermentation and create a lighter sparkling wine. Here Benjamin Bridge is using a blend of various aromatic white grapes that they grow, it’s fermented bone dry with 0 residual sugar producing really nice fresh bubbles. It has a hazy colour with raw notes of citrus peel, herbs and lots of floral elements. Super refreshing for hot days, but also delicious and interesting complexity. Click here for technical details and more tastings notes on this.

Benjamin Bridge, Pet-Nat, Nova Scotia | $12.99 x 24 250ml cans

AND because these come in cases of 24, we’re doing a limited time special mixed case that’s half Nova 7 and half Pet Nat! 12 cans of each for your cottage and camping convenience! Just submit a note on the contact page for this special offer and we’ll get you hooked up for the weekend!

DOMINIQUE PIRON, BEAUJOLAIS ROSÉ

Beaujolais Rosé with the squad against the Lake Erie bluffs.

You can’t have a cottage or camping weekend without rosé, that’s a pretty serious faux pas (said with mild affect). Here’s one that I recently had while waist deep in Lake Erie cooling down from a hot day on the farm in South Western Ontario. It wasn’t a cottage or camping per se, but it sure fit the bill. Then we brought the rest of the bottle home for dinner to have with appetizers before the main. Delicious, versatile, and inexpensive! Win-win-win.

But Beaujolais as rosé you might ask? Yes, it’s a thing. In the Beaujolais region just south of Burgundy they only grow 2 grapes: Gamay Noir and Chardonnay. The Gamays produce a vast range of wine styles from the young, fresh, incredibly juicy Beaujolais Nouveau, to Burgundian-like Crus from the top villages, or funky/earthy natural wines…but they can also make rosé, and Gamay is a wonderful grape for it! This one is light fresh and mineral. The majority of Beaujolais soils are on granite and that minerality really translates in this wine. It shows really pretty raspberry notes with a bit of foresty herbaciousness and fresh minerality. Dominique Piron is one of the longest standing family wineries in Beaujolais, they’re 14 generations old, since 1590! So they know a thing or two about their terroir and this wine is interesting both as a Beaujolais and as a rosé. This is a brand new wine to us on it’s first shipment to Ontario and it’s selling out fast! If you’re interested reach out ASAP! But there is more on the way for late summer! Click the link below for more details!

Dominique Piron, Beaujolais Rosé, France 2019 | $21.99 x 12

VIÑA LOS VASCOS, CARMENERE GRAND RESERVA

If you’re cottaging or camping, chances are you’re grilling meat. If so you probably need a really bad ass red to go with the steak or burgers and something nice to sip on as the sun goes down. Viña Los Vascos is the ticket. Borrowing my own description from when I wrote about their amazing rosé a month or two ago: have you ever heard of Domaine Lafite Rothschild? If yes, skip down to the next paragraph. If not, read on. Lafite Rothschild was one of the original four First Growth of the 1855 classification of Bordeaux. These are the wines that hit the market today at $1000+ a bottle, even before being marked up by the secondary market, auctions, or restaurants. Once the wine of kings, today the wine of bankers and millionaires, historically one of the very finest wineries in the world, bar none.

Viña Los Vascos ‘Grand Reserve’ Carmenere.

In 1988 Lafite Rothschild took over the historic Los Vascos estate which was named literally for “The Basques” (Los Vascos) from Spain who pioneered the Cañeten Valley in northern Chile. This was an early investment into the next big upcoming wine region before Chile blew up on the international stage. They replanted some vineyards and kept some of the oldest vines in the area. They spent years learning and understanding the Chilean terroir, then bringing centuries of top French winemaking pedigree to their project before becoming internationally recognized. They now have an estate that has vines up to 70 years old and are making some of the finest wine in Chile backed by the one of the finest wineries in the world. Luckily for us it comes with a Chilean price tag too, and not a First Growth Bordeaux!

To be honest, I wasn’t expecting to love this when I popped it for the first time, maybe assuming it would be over-the-top or too extracted or oaky and boy was I wrong! This wine demanded my attention and curiosity that kept bringing my nose back to it as it continued to open up. It’s powerful but restrained and sophisticated. It’s not overly tannic, but not jammy or oaky at all. It has some nicely integrated herbaceous notes, but not any unripe green bell pepper you often get in Carmenere. I even made sure to save some to see how it showed the next day and it just kept opening up! This is a really classy bottle and perfect with that steak on the grill at the cottage or over the campfire in a cast iron. The Basques have got your back with this one!

Viña Los Vascos, Carmenere ‘Grand Reserve’, Colchagua Valley, Chile | $27.99 x12

And if you’re looking for anything else we have a several cottage-themed mixed cases with The Long Weekender, The Long Weekender (2nd Edition), Poolside Whites, Party on the Dock, etc. Click here for a full list of mixed cases, or dig into past FEATURES for other interesting offers!

Lastly, if you want anything delivered by Friday, please send any orders in to me by Wednesday at noon and we’ll get it up to you for the weekend!