What makes this Riesling worth $34? Talk to Harold Thiel (owner of Hidden Bench) and he’ll tell you it’s about hand harvesting, hand sorting and hand selecting and other meticulous ways the grapes are shepherded from field to bottle. The wine also goes through a natural fermentation, which is a riskier way to make wine. But also consider this, the Roman’s Block vineyard is comprised of 35 year old Weiss clone Riesling (one of the oldest planting in Ontario) and has produced 5 of Ontario’s top Riesling of the past 10 years (by different producers) and you begin to see the pedigree of this wine – we’l call it the Northern Dancer of vineyards. The nose plays it close to the vest when it comes to revealing how this wine is going to taste, giving up little in the smells. But once you sip you’ll be amazed. Stony-mineral, with light petrol and green apple notes – it’s soft and smooth through the mouth, though it provides zing to the side of the tongue with citrus-like acidity … and then there’s the great stony-flinty finish that keeps coming back over and over again. Only 230 cases made, so it’s also in fairly limited supply. Price: $34.00 – Rating: *****