Paul Michel Bosc studied viticulture and oenology at the University of Burgundy at Dijon and is committed to principles that are ecologically sound and conservationist. This means a system of cultivation without the use of any herbicides, as well as returning organic byproducts of the winemaking process to the vineyard.
The château features a full
range of visitor amenities including a kitchen,
hospitality rooms, a magnificent courtyard overlooking the
vineyards and impressive underground cellars dug 10 metres
into the rich soil of Niagara. Within these cellars the Château's
wines are patiently aged.
Château des Charmes purchases
the best oak barrels hand-crafted by France's finest coopers.
Each 228 litre barrel is made from oak grown in the Allier
and Tronçais forests of central France. The barrels add rich
flavours and complexities to the wines that are aged inside
them. These highly prized wine barrels are very expensive.
They cost $1000 each and they add up to $3 per bottle to the
price of the wine! Château des Charmes pioneered the
use of French oak in Canada in 1980.
The Bosc family is very proud of
their reputation as pioneers and innovators. As Hugh Johnson
pointed out, Château des Charmes was the first winery
in Canada to plant a vineyard dedicated to "vitis vinifera"-
the European grape species that produces the world's finest
wines. These include Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot
Noir, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Gamay Noir and Riesling. Back
in 1978, this was a controversial innovation but it has become
the standard for the modern Canadian wine industry. "Paul
did much to convince the industry that the future lay in vinifera
varieties and his early Rieslings and Chardonnays were models
for other wineries," wrote wine author Tony Aspler
in his book Vintage Canada.
Vineyard yields at Château des Charmes are well below the legal limit. Paul Bosc Sr. believes that to go beyond these yields, you produce inferior wines due to the extra pressure put on the grapes to extract more juice. When this is done you also get excessive tannins and impurities that will alter the must, with the end result being a wine with less polish. The legal limit of juice per ton of grapes that wineries in Ontario are allowed to produce is 180 gallons/ton. At Château des Charmes, the yields are as follows: 120 to 135 gallons/ton when pressing red grapes, 130 to 140 gallons/ton when pressing white grapes, 50 to 60 gallons/ton when pressing icewine grapes.
Quality is the number one principle
practiced by the Bosc family as they strive to produce the
best wines possible.
Today, Château des Charmes
owns four vineyards in Niagara-on-the-Lake totaling 270 acres
(110 hectares). These are the largest winery owned vineyard
holdings in the Niagara Peninsula.
In 1993, Château des Charmes
became the first Canadian winery to win a gold medal for a
table wine at Vinexpo in Bordeaux, France (the world's largest
and most important wine trade fair) with the 1990 Chardonnay,
Paul Bosc Estate Vineyard.
|
