WINES MADE BY QUEBEC’S FIRST ORGANIC WINERY SELL OUT FAST
Though small, Quebec’s wine industry is one of the most dynamic in Canada. The result is many excellent wines. This month, I put the spotlight on wineries I feel are leading the way.
Much of Quebec’s wine industry is south of the St. Lawrence in the Eastern Townships. However, there are a few wineries north of the river.
One of the first to establish itself in the Deux-Montagnes region, in 1993, was Négondos, best known for being Quebec’s first organic winery.
Owners Mario Plante and Carole Desrochers embraced organic viticulture well before it became fashionable. When I asked Plante why they decided to start with organics, he replied: “We want to be the least intrusive possible. If someone eventually buys the vineyard and wants to return it to its natural state, all they have to do is remove the posts and the vines.”
Plante and Desrochers’ conviction to be as natural as possible carries through with everything they do. The winemaking is done with as little sulphur as possible. When they have to chaptalize (raising the alcohol level of the wine by adding sugar), they use organic sugar. In terms of viticulture, because they don’t want to add too much copper to the soil, they limit the number of mildew treatments to five per season, which is very small for summers like 2017 in which disease pressure is high.
Négondos is just 20 kilometres from the start of the Laurentians. I asked Plante about the climate and whether it is warm enough to grow wine grapes. He said they have very similar weather to the Eastern Townships during the day, though at night it gets colder, which helps keep the grapes’ acidity during warmer seasons.
They also believe in using hybrid grapes. You won’t see any chardonnay or pinot noir at Négondos. They grow seyval and geisenheim for white, and Cayuga, Marquette and St-Croix for red. Plante believes a grape must be able to ripen every year, no matter what the temperature.
“It’s fine having lots of grape clusters,” he said, “but if you don’t have maturity, then it’s not worth much.”
The wines are excellent. Unfortunately, with only three hectares planted, they sell out quickly. Three of my favourites — the 100-per-cent seyval Opalinois, one of the best in Quebec, the skin-macerated seyval Julep and the aromatic Saint-Vincent made with geisenheim — are sold out until next year. But the superb sparkling wine Noctambulles ($27) and the barrel-aged seyval Orélie ($20) are in stock.
If you’re heading north, Négondos is worth a visit, as the wines are not available at the SAQ.
You can hear Bill Zacharkiw pair wine with rock on CHOM-FM (97.7) every Friday at 7:47 a.m. facebook.com/ billzacharkiwwine twitter.com/BillZacharkiw