Shortly after our very first COVID lockdown began in 2020, I was sent a vertical of Fool’s Mate Chardonnay from CheckMate Artisanal Winery. I have been holding onto this vertical ever since, patiently waiting for the day that we could once again host our friends for an indoor dinner and enjoy these special wines together. This past Saturday, the occasion finally arrived!
A vertical tasting involves trying the same wine from different vintages. This provides an opportunity to observe the evolution of a wine over time, as well as the effects of growing conditions, which change from year-to-year, and sometimes even the influence of different winemakers or winemaking techniques.
I paired the wines with several small plates, including crostini with brie and bacon-onion jam; crab cakes with baby greens in a buttermilk-ranch dressing; buttermilk-bacon biscuits with sweet corn and leek velouté; and tarragon chicken with mashed potatoes and steamed broccolini.
Winemaker Philip McGahan has been with CheckMate since 2013. Philip and his team make six different expressions of Chardonnay and four different Merlot, all of which are outstanding.
CheckMate Chardonnay are made using grapes from family-owned and farmed estate vineyards in the south Okanagan. These vineyards include Dekleva Vineyard (Golden Mile Bench), Combret Vineyard (Golden Mile Bench), Jagged Rock Vineyard (Black Sage Bench), Sunset Vineyard (Black Sage Bench), The Barn Vineyard (Black Sage Bench, and Border Vista Vineyard (Osoyoos East Bench).
Grapes are hand-picked at night and then hand-sorted. Whole bunches are gently pressed before the grape juice undergoes fermentation with indigenous yeast. Wines also undergo malolactic fermentation. Periodic stirring of the lees, or bâtonnage, seeks to add texture and mouth feel to the wine. These wines are unfined and unfiltered.
2016 CheckMate Fool’s Mate $85
The 2016 vintage is composed of grapes from Sunset Vineyard (38%), Jagged Rock Vineyard (21%), Dekleva Vineyard (21%), Border Vista Vineyard (18%) and Combret Vineyard (2%). Fermentation was 59% wild. The wine was aged for 16 months: 83% in French oak (47% new) while the remaining 17% was aged in concrete egg.
The 2016 Fool’s Mate has aromas of grapefruit pith, melon, lemon, peach, clove, vanilla, Maldon salt and hints of butter. This is a dry wine, medium+ in body with medium+ acidity. The palate offers lemon rind, coconut, lemon curd, apricot, pastry, mandarin rind and sweet spice with a long finish.
2015 CheckMate Fool’s Mate $85
The 2015 vintage is composed of grapes from Jagged Rock Vineyard (33%), Sunset Vineyard (26%), Dekleva Vineyard (24%), Border Vista Vineyard (13%) and Combret Vineyard (4%). Fermentation was 81% wild. The wine was aged for 16 months: 85% of the wine was aged in French oak (46% new) while the remaining 15% was aged in concrete egg.
The 2015 Fool’s Mate has aromas of salt and crushed gravel upfront, followed by lemon, lemon curd, warm, flaky pastry, soft notes of caramel and sweet spice. This is a dry wine, medium+ in body with medium+ acidity. The palate also offers minerality and salt, followed by almond croissant, peach and sweet spice, with papaya on the long finish.
2014 CheckMate Fool’s Mate $85
The 2014 vintage is composed of grapes from The Barn Vineyard (51%), Sunset Vineyard (19%), Dekleva Vineyard (15%), Border Vista Vineyard (7%) and Combret Vineyard (8%). Fermentation was 67% wild. The wine was aged for 16 months: 85% of the wine was aged in French oak (42% new) while the remaining 15% was aged in concrete egg.
The 2014 Fool’s Mate greets my nose with a waft of butterscotch, followed by hard, lemon candies, melon, minerality, sweet spice, butter and pastry notes. This wine is dry, medium+ in body with medium+ acidity. The palate is round and silky offering notes of pineapple, butterscotch, lemon candies, flaky pastry, sweet spice and salinity with a long finish.
2013 CheckMate Fool’s Mate $85
The 2013 vintage is composed of grapes from Jagged Rock Vineyard (64%), Border Vista Vineyard (25%) and Dekleva Vineyard (11%). The wine was aged for 17 months in French oak barrels (50% new).
The 2013 Fool’s Mate has a delicate nose of apple, melon, lemon, minerality and sweet spice. This is a dry wine that is medium+ in body with medium acidity. The palate offers caramel, bruised apples, sweet spice, lemon, minerality, saline and brioche, with mocha and candy apple on the long finish.
*For tasting purposes, I poured three ounces of each wine into a universal wine glass and allowed it to breathe for one hour. The wine was then poured into an ISO glass for nosing and tasting.