You might not be able to visit a vineyard or go on a wine tour for the next little while, but you can still enjoy the experience from home, thanks to Small Talk Vineyards + Shiny Apple Cider!
Small Talk Vineyards is a bright and bubbly family-run boutique winery. Located in the Niagara region of Ontario, they specialize in VQA* wines and ciders. Their estate farm has been in operation for over 50 years (since 1955), originally operating as a fruit and poultry farm. Since planting their first vines in 1985, Small Talk has become a truly delightful winery, offering a variety of white wine, red wine, and ice wine. Most recently (since 2014), they started developing ciders under the brand name Shiny Apple Cider.
* VQA, or Vintners Quality Alliance, is a regulatory and appellation system which guarantees the high quality and authenticity of origin for Canadian wines made under that system in British Columbia and Ontario. It is similar to regulatory systems in France, Spain, Italy, and Germany.
Small Talk recently sent me a few of their products so I could try them and develop a recipe that could be paired with them. You can follow along my recipe through my live demo on IGTV (also linked at the bottom of this post). Before getting to that, I am sharing my review of the wine and ciders that they sent me.
This fresh, crisp wine might become my new summer go-to. With notes of pear and lime, it is refreshing and easy to drink. It is dry with a nice punchy acidity. Small Talk’s food pairings include sushi, veggie pizza with cream sauce, and charcuterie. I think this would also go really well with fish tacos. Serve cold and you’ll have the perfect summer dinner party wine!
This cider is crafted from 9 varieties of red apples from Ontario. It is gluten-free and vegan-friendly, with 7% alcohol content. It is crisp, with good apple flavour and a hint of spice. I often find that ciders are too sweet for me, but this one had just the right amount of natural sweetness. I have a personal cider scale of Dry like Wine to Jolly Rancher Sweet and I would place this one in the middle, but slightly closer to Dry. I really like it.
I think that this is a really neat product! Small Talk mixed Pinot Noir (10%) with their Apple Cider (90%) to form this award-winning bevvie. They won the People’s Choice third place award at the Ontario Cider Awards 2016. The alcohol content is slightly less than their flagship cider at 6.5%. Before trying this, I had no idea what to expect. I absolutely love the gorgeous pink colour of this cider and the taste was very pleasant. You can taste the wine and you can taste the apple at the same time. It’s like its own cocktail. These cans actually have their own Dry-Sweet scale on it, indicating that this is more on the dry side. I personally thought it was more on the sweet side, but pleasantly so. It is dangerously addictive and I’m looking at getting a case of it.
This used to only be available seasonally, but it’s now available all year! Small Talk uses local peaches, literally harvested across the street from them (Niagara is our peach capital after all!), which is blended with their flagship apple cider. I love peaches and I love this cider. The colour is bright and fun and the bottle is perfect for a picnic or backyard BBQ. 7% alcohol, with medium sweetness. A little bit of a tart kick. It is summer in a bottle.
Overall, I really enjoyed all these products that were sent to me and I would highly recommend all of them. I took a look at their website and found a Quarantine Self-Care Package that includes all the ciders + wine I mentioned, plus a couple of other wines too. They also have an Incider Club (pun intended!) where you receive an assortment of ciders, including exclusive limited edition flavours, several times a year. Many of the flavours are not available at the LCBO, so this is your only way to try them!
Small Talk Vineyards + Shiny Apple Cider deliver throughout Ontario for orders over $75. You can get free shipping by using the code SHIPFREE.
Lamb Infused Quinoa with Date Paste, Carrot, Feta, and Microgreens
I came up with this recipe as a way to compliment the flavours in both the RSVP Pinot Gris and the Pinot Noir Ciders.
The fresh citrus flavour of the sumac, the richness of the lamb flavouring, the warmth of the cinnamon, and the brightness of the cilantro greens really bring out the different tasting notes in the drinks.
Watch my IGTV video here to see how you can make it yourself. Spoiler: it doesn’t involve any cooking, other than the quinoa, which can be made ahead of time!
Enjoy!
