There’s something comforting about sitting around the table with your family with a pizza fresh out of the oven, and a bottle of something delicious to complement it. Lucky for us, there are tons of amazing pizza spots in Prince Edward County that make it easy to grab a pizza on the way home after a long day at the winery — so we had to make sure we had a pizza-perfect bottle of wine in the Traynor line-up.
A pizza-perfect wine? Yes, it really does exist. With cooler days already upon us as the colourful leaves of fall blanket the ground and warn us that winter is ahead, we are all about comfort food and wine, and for the team at Traynor that’s our new 2021 Cabernet Franc and a slice of ‘za.
The 2021 Cabernet Franc has a bit of story behind it (as all the wines at Traynor do). 2021 was not an ideal year for red wines across the board – it rained consistently on the fields in Niagara, which is where the Cabernet Franc grapes came from. It basically rained throughout all of harvest, and the team held off as long as they could, but finally had to make the call and get the grapes off the vines. The sugar is a little low to what we would normally see in Cabernet Franc, but the big thing that the team at Traynor found with this fruit was that it was lacking a lot of colour and a lot of tannins typically found in Cabernet Franc. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing; it just means that this vintage is a lighter style of Cabernet Franc then Traynor has made in the past.
The team at Traynor is used to a challenge working in a cool-climate wine region, and part of the fun of vintage variation is facing the grapes that Mother Nature hands you. The secret is to work with them, not against them, to make something unique that represents the terroir and the growing season. The goal is to capture a story in every bottle — every year is going to give you something different.
Guests come to Traynor to try what is new and different, and sometimes that is making brand new wines, but a lot of the time, it is just seeing how certain styles of wine evolve year over year, whether that is the team tweaking and changing the process, or just tasting the variation in the vintages.
With all that said, the team is very happy with where the 2021 Cabernet Franc landed. It sat in barrel for 8 months which gave it some great character. It was very green, which is common in underripe Cabernet Franc, but from being in barrel it has become fruiter. Since it is a lighter red, it makes it a lot more versatile when it comes to food pairings — but we’re still imagining it with a crispy wood-fired pizza topped with some rich tomato sauce.
Here are some of our favourite pizza spots in Prince Edward County for you to pair this bottle of wine with:
- Midtown Brewing Company in Wellington
- 555 Brewing Co. in Picton
- Strato’s Pizzeria & Restaurant in Consecon
So, next time you’re in the County, stop by and grab a bottle of our 2021 Cabernet Franc, a pizza with your favourite toppings, and have a cozy night by the fireplace. We promise you won’t regret it.
