An evening with Thomas Bachelder

An eager crowd of almost 50 wine lovers gathered to sample a rare vertical of Le Clos Jordanne pinot noir and to hear winemaker Thomas Bachelder speak about recent vintages and his adventures making these stunning wines.

Bachelder Sanders Vineyard Chardonnay

The evening started off with reception wine samples of two new Chardonnays for Bachelder wines, Thomas’ current wine project.  The 2011 Niagara chardonnay is a full-bodied and rich that the crowd really enjoyed.  But the single vineyard 2012 Saunders Vineyard chardonnay got people really really talking… there were murmurs of the wine tasting like a high end Meursault.  Expect to find these delicious wines in the LCBO soon.

Thomas Bachelder

Before we started tasting the wines, Thomas gave a short introduction to the wines and their respective vintages.  Thomas also offered some insights into his fascinating process of discovering the unique Niagara terroirs.  He explained that the approach with Le Clos Jordanne was to separate grapes into east West and Centre blocks in a year in year out process to find the best parcels and site characteristics.  He offered some fresh insight into the mysterious process of uncovering terroir.


As a vintage overview, Thomas suggested that the 2005 wines would be most concentrated and dark.  2006 was a good year with lighter color.  2008 was a tougher year, so lighter color and perhaps some leafiness.  2009 was expected to be ripe and dark with the most smoky characteristics.

The tasting revealed a great variety of wines as Thomas had suggested.  Some really ripe, dark wines, some a little green and a few with a pronounced smokiness.  All wines had really lively acidity.  It happens quite rarely, but our group scored all of these wines remarkably consistently with our guest speaker with Thomas and the group showing definite preference for the 2005 and 2006 wines.  In fact, the 2005 and 2006 wines were all in the top 4.  It was great to see 10 year old Niagara Pinot Noirs still presenting so well.

At the end of the tasting, Thomas surprised us with a few bottles of his soon to be released 2012 Lowrey Vineyards Pinot Noir.  This fruity, aromatic red will be released through Vintages in May and it was a special treat to get a sneak peak of this fantastic wine.

Raffle winnder David Turgeon (L)

And finally, as part of our 40th Anniversary/Birthday celebrations, we raffled off a bottle of 2006 Grand Clos Chardonnay. Fortunately, the winemaker was on hand to sign the bottle for the occasion. Congratulations to TVC club member David Turgeon for winning this very special bottle of Niagara chardonnay.

And here is how the wines were ranked.


2005 La Petite Vineyard $35: Group 1 / Speaker 5

2008 Talon Ridge Vineyard $40: Group 7 /  Speaker 7

2005 Le Clos Jordanne Vineyard $35:  Group 1 / Speaker 5

2006 Le Clos Jordanne Vineyard $ 40:  Group 3 /  Speaker 1

2009 Le Clos Jordanne Vineyard $ 45:  Group 6  / Speaker 6

2006 Le Grand Clos $70:  Group 3 /  Speaker 3

2008 Le Grand Clos $70: Group 5 / Speaker 4

2009 Le Grand Clos $ 75:  Group 8 / Speaker 8