Thirty Bench, 2016 Small Lot Cabernet Franc, VQA Beamsville Bench, Ontario, Canada
Cab Franc du Jour #76
Thirty Bench is one of Ontario’s original boutique wineries, with Riesling plantings stretching back to the early 1980s and their oldest block planted in 1981. The winery has always focused on small-production wines that are genuine expressions of place. Today it is part of the Andrew Peller Group, one of Canada’s largest wine businesses. Winemaker Emma Garner, one of Ontario’s truly great winemaking talents, has been with the winery since 2005 and has served as head winemaker since the 2010 vintage.
The Beamsville Bench VQA Sub-Appellation
The winery and its vineyards are located in the Beamsville Bench VQA sub-appellation, one of four appellations defined by the topography of the Niagara Escarpment, alongside the Twenty Mile Bench, the Short Hills Bench, and the St. Davids Bench. The Niagara Escarpment is one of the defining geographical features that makes viticulture possible in the Niagara Peninsula, working in concert with Lake Ontario to the north. The escarpment ridge rises to nearly 200m and helps to trap and circulate airflow from the lake into the surrounding vineyards, reducing disease pressure and frost risk while raising overall temperatures, prolonging the growing season, and supporting ripening.
The escarpment is composed of Palaeozoic-era sedimentary rocks, predominantly dolostone, dolomitic limestones, shales, and sandstones, whose varying degrees of hardness and resistance to erosion have shaped the escarpment’s topography over millions of years. As glaciers receded over the last two million years, these rocks eroded to form the wide, north-facing terraces, or benches, that now make up the Niagara Escarpment’s vineyard areas. These terraces form part of the larger Lake Iroquois Bench, sitting just above the historical shoreline of the ancient Lake Iroquois and varying in width, slope gradient, and elevation depending on location.
The Beamsville Bench sits on the Bell Terrace, the lowest of the escarpment’s terraces, which runs the full length of the escarpment and is at its widest here. The bedrock, well below the surface, is composed of Whirlpool sandstone and Power Glen shale and sandstone. As the furthest west of the escarpment sub-appellations, the Beamsville Bench also sits closest to Lake Ontario, receiving a stronger moderating influence from the lake than the other benches. That influence makes the growing season slightly cooler overall but also extends it, and the sub-appellation records 1,588 growing degree days, actually greater than Four Mile Creek in Niagara-on-the-Lake, widely regarded as one of the peninsula’s premier sources of Bordeaux varieties.
The Vineyard
The wine is sourced from a 2.85-acre (just over 1ha) parcel of Cabernet Franc planted in 2000, situated at around 130m above sea level. Emma notes that this block sits on a slight south-facing slope, which is uncommon in the Niagara Peninsula and provides additional sun exposure beneficial for ripening. The vines were planted with Clone 327, the Bordeaux clone. The topsoil is Halton Till, a glacially-derived material essentially composed of eroded rock from the escarpment itself, with a high clay content and smaller proportions of sand and silt. The vineyard is certified organic.
In the Cellar
The fruit is hand-picked, destemmed, and crushed before fermenting in tank with selected yeast, with approximately two and a half weeks on skins and some punchdowns throughout. Aging takes place in 225L oak barrels, 80% French and 20% American from various cooperages, with around 30% new oak.
Wine Details
Producer: Thirty Bench
Region: Niagara Peninsula, Ontario, Canada
Appellation: VQA Beamsville Bench
Vineyard: Thirty Bench vineyard
Soil: Halton Till over a bedrock of Whirlpool Sandstone and Power Glen Sandstone/Shales
Alcohol: 14.1%