Kim Uncorked: Welcome to my weekly wine recommendation.
Hi, I’m Kim, a passionate lover of wine, food, and any experience that brings the two together! In this weekly blog post, I share my thoughts on a wine that I’ve recently purchased from one of our local independent wine merchants. If you’d like to know more about me, I’ve included a brief bio following the post.
2020 Heinrich St. Laurent
Austria
Marquis Wine Cellars
$39.99
1034 Davie Street
Vancouver, BC
I bet you’ve never heard of St. Laurent! Until last week, my last sip was in a little wine bar in Vienna almost eight years ago, so it was a real treat to find a bottle at Marquis Wine Cellars. If you enjoy Pinot Noir, St. Laurent is a grape worth getting to know. Native to Central Europe, this dark-skinned variety is an offspring of Pinot Noir, which helps explain its fragrant aromatics, bright acidity, and savoury structure. It’s a little beefier, though, with what legendary wine importer Terry Theise aptly called, “a sauvage touch.”
At Weingut Heinrich, Gernot and Heike Heinrich take a hands-off approach, letting the grape’s honest expression shine through. Vineyards are farmed organically and biodynamically, with the grapes for Heinrich St. Laurent sourced from two distinct terroirs: the mica-schist slopes of the Leithaberg and the gravelly soils of the Parndorfer Platte. The wine is spontaneously fermented with native yeasts and given extended skin maceration in wooden vats and steel tanks before aging in neutral oak. It is bottled unfiltered, preserving its natural texture and character.
The wine shows a dense, medium-garnet colour in the glass, with aromas of raspberry and cranberry alongside spice, smoke, and delicate tea leaf. On the palate, it offers crunchy red-berry flavours, damp earth, tangy acidity, and fine tannins that provide enough structure without overpowering its medium-bodied character. A pleasant mineral note lingers on the finish.
Saint Laurent pairs well with late-summer and early-autumn meals, especially roasted poultry, duck, game meats, and earthy mushroom dishes.
Kim Mead is a Vancouver-based wine and food writer. She holds the WSET Level 3 Award in Wines with Merit, the French Wine Scholar designation with Honours, the Bordeaux Masters designation with Honours, and the Italian Wine Essentials certification. Kim serves as Cellar Master for the Vancouver chapter of the International Wine and Food Society and is a member of the Commanderie de Bordeaux. Follow her @agalandaglass