Cave Spring Cellars Riesling CSV Vineyard 1999-2016

BY IAN D'AGATA | MARCH 12, 2019

I first visited Cave Spring Cellars in 1989 or 1990, and I’ve never stopped going back. It really couldn’t have been otherwise, as I’ve always liked the wine, the place and the people there. A little later, circa 1993 or 1994, my mother, who has never met a good restaurant she didn’t like, got in on the act too, and always seemed to have nothing to do when I was going to Niagara. We made a deal – provided we stopped for lunch at Cave Spring’s winery restaurant, she would do all the driving and I could drink away to my heart’s and stomach’s content. But Cave Spring Cellars’ significance goes far beyond personal memories. Founders Len Pennacchetti and Angelo Pavan (along with other historic Canadian wineries such as Inniskillin and Chateau de Charmes) helped kick-start the Ontario fine wine industry. The two were among the first in Canada to resolutely move forward with the planting of Vitis vinifera varieties, at a time when North American hybrids dominated local vineyards because of the belief that the country was too cold for European grape varieties to survive. Today, after over 30 years in the business, much-acclaimed Cave Spring Cellars produces world-class wines from the likes of Riesling, Pinot Noir and Cabernet Franc. And one wine in particular, the Cave Spring Vineyard Riesling, ranks with the world’s best in its category.

The beautiful Cave Spring Vineyard

How It All Started

If life had worked out as planned, Len Pennacchetti and Angelo Pavan, childhood friends since the age of five, would have never have become professionally involved with wine. Pennacchetti meant to be an Italian Renaissance history teacher (he earned a Bachelor of Arts from Carleton University in Ottawa and followed that up with a Master of Arts from the University of Toronto). However, he fell in love with wine early, thanks to the family heritage. His grandfather Giuseppe, who emigrated to Canada from the town of Fermo in Abruzzo to work as a mason, loved to tend to his vineyard of Vitis labrusca (a native North American grapevine) and make wine from it. His grandson Len (along with Len’s father, John Sr.) used to help Giuseppe prune the vines and in so doing developed a love for viticulture and vineyards. John Sr. successfully transformed his father’s lifework into a successful concrete business, and by 1973 was able to invest in the Niagara region. He bought farmland at Cave Spring, named by late-18th-century European settlers for its limestone caves and mineral springs. Thanks to its hillside location, warmer microclimate and clay-calcareous soils, Len and his father believed that this specific area had the potential to make wines that were likely to be at least a little bit better than Giuseppe’s hobby wine. They didn’t know it then, but they could not have been more right in their assessment. Today, their Cave Spring vineyard is located in the heart of the Beamsville Bench appellation (a sub-appellation within the larger Niagara Peninsula designated viticultural area or appellation of origin), arguably the best spot to grow grapes in Ontario, especially Riesling. In 1978, the Pennacchettis planted Riesling and Chardonnay, making Canadian wine history, as they were among the first to plant these cultivars in the region. In 1981, Len built a house on his property and began turning what had been a hobby and a passion into what would one day become his life’s work. Then, in 1986, Len joined forces with his lifelong friend Angelo Pavan, a former philosophy student with whom he had attended countless wine tastings over the years, and the two founded Cave Spring Cellars that year. As the two friends often like to joke, in the end it was really all a matter of “vino winning over Vico.” (Gianbattista Vico (1668-1744) was an Italian philosopher of cultural history and law and is considered one of the fathers of ethnology.)