Tasting Note The Beamsville Bench is known for a certain levity, minerality and elegance, which was reinforced for me as I tasted this among several top-end Niagara rieslings for this post. This old-vine single-vineyard wine pours bright, barely maturing lemon-gold. The nose lifts and almost prances with fine peach/apricot, citrus, honey, notable minerality and spice. It is light to medium bodied (11% ABV), exceedingly well balanced, and shows a trace of sweetness offset by almost lacey, mouth-watering acidity. Very cohesive, complete and refined with a dry, stony finish and excellent to outstanding length. Are-you-kidding-me value!

Backgrounder Hidden Bench is yet another Niagara estate winery flirting with a 25th anniversary. The National Wine Awards Winery of the Year in 2023 launched its first vintage in 2005, dedicated entirely to estate fruit. In 2007, Harald Thiel acquired the plum 34-acre, high-density Felseck Vineyard that had been planted in 1992, along with Rosomel Vineyard, which was even older. Felseck is considered a quintessential Beamsville expression due to the minerality it displays. All sites are now organically farmed. And the winemaking is always low-intervention with wild yeast ferments and long ageing in bottle. The 2020 Roman’s Block Riesling is yet to be released to the public. The 2022 Estate Riesling currently on the shelf at LCBO Vintages stores is huge value.