2022 Chardonnay Musqué

Label: Paradise Grapevine

Vintage: 2022

Fruit: Chardonnay Musqué

Region: Willms Vineyard, Four Mile Creek, Ontario

ABV: 11.8%

organic (uncertified)
66 cases made

lightly steeped green tea / chamomile flowers / yellow wallpaper

If there were ever to be a vinifera winemaking grape especially unique to our part of the world, Chardonnay Musqué might just wear that crown. Musqué is a term given to, for want of a better word, natural aromatic mutations of grapes. One day, somewhere, a chardonnay vine decided to produce fruit with floral ‘muscat’ like flavours. This vine was then propagated and, fast forward to 2024, people are making Niagara-centric varietal wines proudly displaying the new grape. As Ontarians and perhaps Canadians generally, sometimes we lack a certain ummmmm identity? Proudness? Confusion as to what exactly our place is in the broader picture? Certainly Ontario, although an exceptional place to grow and make wine, does not implore the prestige, glamour and local market bias that almost every other region evokes. Why is this? We’re not exactly sure, but we’re making it part of our mission to create more excitement and buzz around our local wine - in fact it was a large reason we opened a winery here. We are huge proponents of world wine, but at the end of the day we LIVE in Ontario, and we GROW grapes here and the best thing you can do for the environment is to eat and drink local produce. So get around this unusual variety, Chardonnay Musqué, as some form of mascot for a uniquely local wine experience. 

But the wine? Yes. Bursting with white flowers and with a density well suited to winter drinking, this aromatic white wine sings a song of chamomile, tinned pineapples, honeydew melon, green tea, fresh cut grass and white currents. It is singularly unique in our current lineup of whites and we are completely smitten with it. Naturally fermented, organically grown (non-certified) and matured in neutral French oak.

Please note, all orders come with chips!