Tidings Magazine

Whether it is new, innovative or inventive, Tidings is always on the look out for the food and wine maverick. Every November, we will follow up our Maverick Chefs issue — published in October — with the Mav Wine & Spirits Awards. Focusing on the best in assemblage, the editors and tasters of Tidings laboured perilously — we stained two tableclothes and a shirt — to highlight the finest in a winemaker’s main d’oeuvre. At the same time, we are featuring spirits that have adopted the truest nature of its elements. In essence, we distil the critical facets of wine and spirits and bring them to you, for the final analyse. Please enjoy this year’s selections of Mavs.

Ultimate Mav

90 Stratus Icewine Red 2006, Niagara ($39/200 ml)

This Icewine is an assemblage of Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah. There is an interesting apple-juice quality to the cherry/raspberry/plum profile. In the mouth, raisins, chocolate and more berry fruit emerge, making it a perfect partner for a chocolate mousse or any derivative of the cocoa bean. (ES)

Assemblage: vinous gestalt by Tod Stewart

One is a lonely number. Sure, there’s a certain simplicity in the singular, but most of life’s pleasures (Pinot Noir and single malt scotch aside) are the result of some sort of mixture. Combining elements adds complexity; complexity adds character. An instrument that plays one note? A painting with one colour? A dish with a single ingredient? All pretty boring (probably why they don’t exist).

Even the most gifted soloist eventually becomes tiring without the support of the orchestra. Similarly, most winemakers no doubt get pretty bored making wine from a single grape. Yes, exceptions — and some pretty significant ones at that — are the result of a dogged determination to extract complexity from a single varietal. But with assemblage — the art of combining grape varieties (or more often, combining wines made from separate grape varieties) — the winemaker becomes a composer, combining aromatic and flavour notes to craft the perfect vinous symphony.

While “New World” producers took the single varietal madness to it zenith, most European winemakers continued to make wine the “Old World” way by combining an assortment of grapes to achieve the ultimate in character, complexity and interest. The winemakers of Bordeaux, for example, figured out eons ago that Cabernet Sauvignon isn’t all that friendly on its own. Its personality is too dry, austere and dusty. However, when a couple of giddier grapes from down the block (Merlot and Cabernet Franc) are thrown into the cuveé, Cabernet seems to relax a bit, its harshness diminished, but only enough so as not to allow the others to make things sloppy.

Assemblage is an art in itself, one that is practiced by oenophilic artists around the world. Whether they are trumpeted as such (Sutter Home Menage a Trois, Caymus Conundrum, Cain Five, a multitude of Meritage) or are simply content to follow long-established (and in many cases, etched in law) practices, blends (let’s call ‘em what they are) aren’t blah. In fact, it can often lead to the perfect vinous gestalt — a realization that the whole is, in fact, better than the sum of its parts.