LCBO Food and Drink Autumn 2016

ROSEHALL RUN WINERY & HUMBLE BREAD Prince Edward County

LIKE ALL THE BREADS Henry Willis bakes, this hearty Kalamata loaf is naturally leav- ened using his own sourdough levain—there are no commercial yeasts involved. A mixture of organic wheat and rye flours gives a sturdy, pliant crumb packed with a generous number of juicy black Greek olives. After tasting Willis’s superb artisanal loaves it’s awfully hard to go back to mass-produced bread!

Henry Willis (above left) has had several careers, first as a chef and then in con- struction and now as a baker of hand- made organic breads. It started as a hob- by with a wood-fired oven he built in the backyard of his Scarborough home until friends persuaded him to start selling his loaves. Five years ago, he and his partner, Natalie Normand, bought a small farm in the heart of Prince Edward County and turned the barn into a bakery. Inside, they built a mighty wood-fired oven in which Willis single-handedly bakes

around 400 loaves and 20 dozen bagels a week, which he sells to locals, the Brick- works Farmers Market in Toronto and the Farmers Market in Wellington, Ont. Fu- ture plans include growing his own winter rye on the property, thereby making bread with the ultimate County terroir.    Dan Sullivan (above right), winemaker and owner of Rosehall Run, has his own eloquent definition of terroir. “It’s really the confluence of three things—soil, cli- mate and people. It’s the decisions we make and the way we interact with our

environment that make every site differ- ent and interesting.” The Chardonnay and Pinot Noir vines he planted when he co-founded the winery in 2001 now have the maturity to give full expression to this particular property. Behind the gor- geous cherry and red fruit flavours of the Pinot is a subtle complexity of minerality and spiciness, all lifted by a most elegant, almost ethereal texture. Growing wines somewhere as marginal as the County presents endless challenges; their qual- ity makes it all worthwhile.

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