Cave Springs Cellars
Cave Spring Cellars may be hard to find, but just one sip proves it’s worth the trip.
Jordan, Ontario, is so tiny, it doesn’t even show up on MapQuest. You could throw a baseball from one end of Main Street to the other, and still have plenty of room to make a running catch. To get directions to Cave Spring Cellars win- ery, you must enter the name of the “bigger” small town of nearby Lincoln.
What Jordan lacks in size it makes up for in natural beauty. The village overlooks Twenty-Mile Creek, a scenic area that skirts the Niagara escarpment. Jordan is a destina- tion for bird watchers and hikers, with trails that wend past rock formations and through wooded hills and valleys with bubbling brooks.
Cave Spring Cellars, located on Main Street — the 145-acre vineyard is about 3 miles away, in petite Beamsville — is a big
presence in Jordan, and has some big stories to go along with it. Somewhere in the lime- stone formations by the vineyard is a cave into which a farmer stumbled at the turn of the century and found himself surrounded by strange and ancient native artefacts; unfortu- nately, the cave has never been relocated.
In the 1920s, another landowner dynamit- ed a fissure in the limestone to create a big cave that he imagined would be a tourist at- traction; the fissure collapsed, exploding his dreams of wealth, but it created a freshwater spring that now helps irrigate the fields and gives the Rieslings made from those grapes a crisp, smooth taste.
Though the winery makes about two dozen types of reds and whites, Tom Pen- nachetti, Cave Spring’s vice president of sales and marketing and co-owner, says he is most proud of his Rieslings and Chardon- nays. The former, he says, are Cave Spring’s signature wines.
“Rieslings lost their popularity in the 1960s and 1970s, when there was a high demand for sweeter German wines. People started associating Rieslings with products like Blue Nun, which was a cheap Riesling imitation,” he says, making a ghastly face. “In the 1990s and 2000s, the demand for sugary wines disappeared, and that created a real Riesling renaissance. Plus, wine grow- ers realized that Riesling grapes grow well in countries other than Germany and Austria.”
His goal? “To create a greater interna- tional exposure for Canadian Rieslings,” says Pennachetti.
In fact, Len Pennachetti, Tom’s brother and Cave Spring’s president, serves on the
board of directors of the International Ries- ling Foundation.
Cave Spring offers four tiers of Ries- lings: Niagara Peninsula ($14.95, all prices in Canadian dollars), smooth and elegant,
available in a dry and medium-dry varietals; Riesling Dolomite ($16.95), with an earthier taste, made from two vineyards that grow on limestone-enriched soils; Riesling Estate ($17.95), rich and complex, made from vines that average 20 years of age; and the very fla- vorful Riesling CSV ($29.95), made in small allotments using fruit from Cave Spring Vineyard’s maturest vines (36 to 40 years). All are available to sample in the retail store.
“Our winemaking philosophy is we work for complexity and longevity,” Tom says. “Complex- ity develops in the bottle. Our
CSV wines age well for 12 to 15 years in a good cellar.”
In the early 1920s, Giuseppe Pennachetti emigrated from Fermo, Italy, to work as a mason building Niagara’s Welland Ca- nal. After he retired, he bought farmland in the Niagara penin- sula and took up grape growing, a hobby he’d had in Italy. His grandson, Len, joined him in this pursuit and, in 1986, Len partnered with his child- hood friend, Angelo Pavan, to found Cave Spring Cellars. Tom soon joined the pair. Pavan and Tom both have their doctorates in philosophy, while Len has a master’s in
political theory.
“We all have an intellectual side to us, and making winesatisfies that,”Tomsays.“Wine is the highest expression of a culture, and a good wine is a work of art.”
Perfect Pairs
Tom Pennachetti, Cave Springs’ co-owner, suggests matching these wines with your next meal:
• Riesling CSV ($29.95): This top- of-the-line, medium-dry white wine goes well with pork schnitzel.
• Blanc de Blancs ($29.95): Made from Chardonnay grapes, this sparkling wine with a creamy texture can be served on its own as an aperitif wine, or paired with raw oysters.
• Pinot Noir Estate ($34.95): A silky, rich texture with intense flavor makes this red wine ideal with
a fine steak.
Info to Go
Cave Spring Cellars
Jordan, Ontario
888-806-9910
cavespringcellars.com
What Jordan lacks in size it makes up for in natural beauty. The village overlooks Twenty-Mile Creek, a scenic area that skirts the Niagara escarpment. Jordan is a destina- tion for bird watchers and hikers, with trails that wend past rock formations and through wooded hills and valleys with bubbling brooks.
Cave Spring Cellars, located on Main Street — the 145-acre vineyard is about 3 miles away, in petite Beamsville — is a big
presence in Jordan, and has some big stories to go along with it. Somewhere in the lime- stone formations by the vineyard is a cave into which a farmer stumbled at the turn of the century and found himself surrounded by strange and ancient native artefacts; unfortu- nately, the cave has never been relocated.
In the 1920s, another landowner dynamit- ed a fissure in the limestone to create a big cave that he imagined would be a tourist at- traction; the fissure collapsed, exploding his dreams of wealth, but it created a freshwater spring that now helps irrigate the fields and gives the Rieslings made from those grapes a crisp, smooth taste.
Though the winery makes about two dozen types of reds and whites, Tom Pen- nachetti, Cave Spring’s vice president of sales and marketing and co-owner, says he is most proud of his Rieslings and Chardon- nays. The former, he says, are Cave Spring’s signature wines.
“Rieslings lost their popularity in the 1960s and 1970s, when there was a high demand for sweeter German wines. People started associating Rieslings with products like Blue Nun, which was a cheap Riesling imitation,” he says, making a ghastly face. “In the 1990s and 2000s, the demand for sugary wines disappeared, and that created a real Riesling renaissance. Plus, wine grow- ers realized that Riesling grapes grow well in countries other than Germany and Austria.”
His goal? “To create a greater interna- tional exposure for Canadian Rieslings,” says Pennachetti.
In fact, Len Pennachetti, Tom’s brother and Cave Spring’s president, serves on the
board of directors of the International Ries- ling Foundation.
Cave Spring offers four tiers of Ries- lings: Niagara Peninsula ($14.95, all prices in Canadian dollars), smooth and elegant,
available in a dry and medium-dry varietals; Riesling Dolomite ($16.95), with an earthier taste, made from two vineyards that grow on limestone-enriched soils; Riesling Estate ($17.95), rich and complex, made from vines that average 20 years of age; and the very fla- vorful Riesling CSV ($29.95), made in small allotments using fruit from Cave Spring Vineyard’s maturest vines (36 to 40 years). All are available to sample in the retail store.
“Our winemaking philosophy is we work for complexity and longevity,” Tom says. “Complex- ity develops in the bottle. Our
CSV wines age well for 12 to 15 years in a good cellar.”
In the early 1920s, Giuseppe Pennachetti emigrated from Fermo, Italy, to work as a mason building Niagara’s Welland Ca- nal. After he retired, he bought farmland in the Niagara penin- sula and took up grape growing, a hobby he’d had in Italy. His grandson, Len, joined him in this pursuit and, in 1986, Len partnered with his child- hood friend, Angelo Pavan, to found Cave Spring Cellars. Tom soon joined the pair. Pavan and Tom both have their doctorates in philosophy, while Len has a master’s in
political theory.
“We all have an intellectual side to us, and making winesatisfies that,”Tomsays.“Wine is the highest expression of a culture, and a good wine is a work of art.”
Perfect Pairs
Tom Pennachetti, Cave Springs’ co-owner, suggests matching these wines with your next meal:
• Riesling CSV ($29.95): This top- of-the-line, medium-dry white wine goes well with pork schnitzel.
• Blanc de Blancs ($29.95): Made from Chardonnay grapes, this sparkling wine with a creamy texture can be served on its own as an aperitif wine, or paired with raw oysters.
• Pinot Noir Estate ($34.95): A silky, rich texture with intense flavor makes this red wine ideal with
a fine steak.
Info to Go
Cave Spring Cellars
Jordan, Ontario
888-806-9910
cavespringcellars.com
Story:
Benjamin Gleisser
Sept/Oct 2013