Reviews & Accolades

2009 Riesling Estate – Rated 88 – Best Buy

This is soft and lively, a bit of sweetness rounding off the grapefruit flavors. It’s lightly mineral in a petrol mode, and ends clean. – Tara Q. Thomas (08/11)

“CONGRATS to CAVE SPRING for hitting TWENTY FIVE YEARS and being ROCK SOLID the entire trip. And innovative too! Cave Spring Cellars was the first Niagara winery with Riesling Icewine, first to launch Dry Rosé, first to open a restaurant, and first to open a hotel. BRAVO from one of your biggest fans! Cave’s big love has always been Riesling and as part of their birthday celebration they’ve created a small stylish cookbook entitled Riesling Cooks. Top chefs offer recipes for dishes paired with Cave Rieslings.” – Billy Munnelly (05/11)

2009 Riesling Niagara Peninsula

Cave Spring stays on a roll with its 2009 Riesling. This sports a ripe, rich sweet nose of peaches and honey with some waxy and petrol notes. It’s medium weight, fairly zesty and richly flavoured with a lemony, slightly bitter finish. Very good to excellent length.” – David Lawrason (04/11)

 2009 Riesling Niagara Peninsula

“Wow. This is like Rheingau Riesling. What a nose. It’s slightly off-dry with lots of lemon, mineral and flower character. Full and flavourful, with plenty of mineral and dried lemon at the finish. Clearly styling.” – James Suckling (02/11)

2008 Riesling CSV

The CSV has always been, for me, the pinnacle of Niagara Riesling production. Notably tight upon release this bottling takes a few years to develop to its full potential. Saying that, this vintage is already expressive with the trademark white grapefruit of the Beamsville Bench. Texturally the palate is quite generous and rich. – Valerie Howes (03/11)

2008 Riesling CSV – Rated 92

The 2008 CSV, produced from 30 plus-year-old vines, is a supremely classy wine. The nose exudes depth and concentration, with a highly distinctive mineral note. This tastes like a first-growth Rheinhessen riesling, with layers and layers of limestone, lime, lemon and pine resin. Excellent length and flavour intensity. This is unquestionably ageworthy, so drink now through 2018 and beyond. – John Szabo (Oct./Nov. 2010)

2008 Riesling CSV Estate

One of the great Canadian wines that almost always delivers on that score is CSV Riesling from Niagara estate Cave Spring Cellars. The latest release of that wine comes up for sale today through Vintages stores in Ontario along with a selection of other premium Ontario offerings.

Cave Spring Riesling 2008 Riesling CSV Estate. Light- to medium-bodied, this is a great example from a Niagara vintage that delivered many excellent whites. Slightly sweet, it shows tropical fruit and citrus flavours and a quarry-full of minerals. Produced from the concentrated fruit of relatively old vines, it should age nicely for up to 15 years. A good match for smoked fish or Thanksgiving turkey with trimmings. – Beppi Crosariol (09/18/10)

2008 Riesling CSV Estate – Rated 90 points

Nicely balanced between the peach, apricot and grapefruit aromas and flavours and the bracing structure, in a dry style. It all comes together with lingering fruit and freshness on the long finish. Drink now through 2014. From Canada. – Bruce Sanderson (10/15/10)
 

2008 Riesling Estate – Rated 90, Savvy Shopper selection

Verging on full-bodied, this wine delivers plenty of extract, which buffers the submerged acidity. Peach, lime, and quinine notes hold the center, and finish is long and generous. Drink now through 2015. From Canada. – Bruce Sanderson (10/15/10)
 

2008 Riesling Niagara Peninsula – Rated 88, Top 125 Global Value

Plump, with peach, lime and grapefruit flavours backed by a vibrant structure. Develops well, staying focused and crisp right through the mouthwatering finish. Drink now through 2014. – Bruce Sanderson (10/15/10)

Most of their Cave Spring Cellars wines are propagated on the Beamsville Bench, including icewines among the best values in their class. Cave Spring's Riesling (accounting for 60% of its production), along with its Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, and Chenin Blanc, were the most precise and complex I have tasted. – David Furer (12/09)

2007 Riesling Dry

Divine Wine “I used to think of Riesling as a pretty sweet wine until I tried this Ontario version from Cave Spring. It’s dry, light and very tasty!” – Susan Rogers, Art Director (11/09)

2007 Pinot Noir Estate – Rated 91.5

I am sure that readers are familiar with my passion for Pinot Noir. So let me say how pleased I was to find what I consider to be the best buy Pinot Noir in Ontario. The remarkably delicious Cave Spring Pinot Noir is a wonderfully fruity, wellstructured, harmonious, plummy-cheery flavoured effort that deserves to be on every discerning wine list in Ontario... – Michael Vaughn (09/09)

Another pioneer winery of the region is Cave Spring. Owned by the Pennachetti family, Cave Spring was the first Canadian winery to emphasize gastronomy by opening a fine-dining restaurant, the Inn on the Twenty, at the winery. We enjoy its entire range of wines, especially when accompanied by food. – Steven Kolpan, Brian H. Smith, and Michael A. Weiss (John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ, 2008)

TOP PERFORMANCES FROM NEW REGIONS

Pioneers in both the New World and Old have pushed the boundaries of viticulture to identify the next grand cru. Here are the new regions already growing great wines.

Niagara Peninsula

Other wineries are building on the success of riesling, a variety pioneered by brothers Leonard and Tom Pennachetti, who planted a German clone at Cave Spring Cellars in the late 1970s. (Fall 08)

2004 Riesling CSV – Rated 90
2003 Riesling CSV – Rated 90

Canada’s cool climate and melding of the best of Old World and New World techniques produce some of the very best Rieslings in North America. One of the most consistently excellent is Cave Spring, and the 2006 Cave Spring Riesling Niagara Peninsula is no exception. It wins Karen's nod as her pick of the week. Its ripe white-peach and pink-grapefruit flavors end in a mineral finish that lends it to pairing with pork, white fish and shellfish.

This food-friendly Canadian Riesling is worth seeking out for its pairing prowess and for the pleasure of sipping it on its own. – Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg (04/30/08)

And now I’m sitting here, some days later, sipping the late summer and fall of 2005 in a glorious creation called La Penna, a wine made by Angelo Pavan of Cave Spring Cellars using Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon grapes with an amarone-like twist: some of the clusters are air-dried to near-raisinhood and then pressed, the sticky juice blended into the final oeuvre. It’s beautifully balanced, rich, ripe and really delicious (not a word I use lightly). And only available down at the winery, as far as I know. Incidentally, Cave Spring’s (2006) Gewurztraminer is also very impressive, made in an aromatic Alsatian style with a lovely body–well worth seeking out. – James Chatto (04/8/08)

Walk through the front doors of Cave Spring Cellars and you’ll forget about the small town setting behind you... elegance and sophistication greet the eye... Here they are masters of the Riesling grape (one of the first wineries to realize the potential of that varietal here in Ontario), and by extension they own some of the oldest Riesling vines in Canada. If you’re any kind of a Riesling fan, Cave Spring is the place you must put on your touring schedule. – Michael Pinkus (02/28/08)

One of the finest producers of riesling in Niagara is Cave Spring Cellars, owned and operated by the Pennachetti family. This prestigious winery makes superb rieslings from estate vineyards on the Twenty Mile and Beamsville Bench. The Pennachettis (Tom and his brother Leonard) and winemaker and co-founder Angelo Pavan all agree on the style of riesling that is best in Niagara. – Rick VanSickle (02/16/08)