Easter Wine and Food Pairing: Haywire Secrest Mountain Pinot Noir 2019

Easter is a lovely holiday for everything it represents, timed in the Spring season when nature comes back to life after the Winter. With family gatherings, turkey is usually one of the first that comes to mind for Easter dinner.

I love turkey, but with just my wife and I dining together, I decided to make a roast chicken instead. Whether you're roasting a turkey or chicken, Pinot Noir should be one of the first red varietals that come to mind for a wine pairing. A Pinot Noir goes well with roast chicken due to the structure and acidity of the wine, without being too tannic, too fruity, or too high in alcohol which can overpower the meat. The acid levels are a perfect match with the fatty elements of the chicken, while the savoury character of the wine pairs with the herbs, spices, and other seasonings. This Easter, we decided to pair our roast chicken dinner with a bottle of Haywire 2019 Secrest Mountain Vineyard Pinot Noir.

Okanagan Crush Pad opened in 2011 to provide a home-base for Christine Coletta and Steve Lornie’s original wine label Haywire, and to serve as a custom crush facility. Today, this winery makes its own wines exclusively, under the labels Haywire, Narrative, Free Form, and Bizou + Yukon.

The Okanagan Crush Pad winery is state-of-the-art, featuring long banks of concrete tanks, clay amphorae, and large format neutral oak casks. The guest center is built into the heart of the facility, offering visitors a rare glance into the art of winemaking.

Three distinct vineyards are owned by this winery: Switchback Vineyard and Garnet Valley Ranch in Summerland, and Secrest Mountain in Oliver. Each site is certified organic with a total of 400 acres between the three. Secrest Mountain Vineyard is a 38 acre, organically farmed site at high-altitude (1,600 ft. above sea level) located just north of Oliver. Since 2010, this vineyard has been farmed under the direction of Okanagan Crush Pad and a conversion to organic farming practices began in 2014. For this Pinot Noir, the aromas are juicy and perfumed with notes of stemmy cherry, black raspberry, earth, and desert scrub. The palate is ripe and plush offering a rich dark fruit profile, savoury spices, earth, cherry cola, velvety tannins with a pleasant espresso finish. In my opinion, the savoury notes in the wine enhanced the herbal notes in the chicken making this a friendly and delicious Easter Pinot pairing!