One of the many great things about Perimeter Institute is the tradition of wine and cheese Fridays at 4 PM.  Dan Lynch, who manages PI's Black Hole Bistro, always lays in a good supply of some good-old-standby reds and whites, a small assortment of other interesting bottles, excellent cheese and hors d'oeuvres.  And there are  the friendly PI scientists, staff, and guests to talk to.  Yesterday I had a half-glass of 2007 Flat Rock  Cellars Red Twisted, an Ontario wine from the Niagara peninsula.  The only red grape the winery names on their website is Pinot Noir, and that's what this tasted like.  Although the website calls it a blend, perhaps that means a blend of barrels of Pinot that didn't make it into the higher-end Gravity Pinot and Reserve Pinot.  It was a nicely balanced, rather French-style, easy to like PN, not too light in body nor tart and green as young Pinot sometimes is, but rather fruity in a low-key, black-cherry and raspberry sort of way, kept in line by restrained use of oak, and with some hints of minerality characteristic of where it comes from.   Before springing $20.15 for it, Flat Rock's list price, I'd want to taste another glass or two... but next time I'm in the area I'll certainly stop by to do just that, and check out their other wines:  various higher-end Pinots, Chardonnays, and Riesling.  A 2008 (?) Nautilus Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc (from New Zealand) was also really nice---with the characteristic gooseberryishness and hints of grassiness of Marlborough SB, but in a restrained, balanced way that I really liked.  (Marlborough Sauvignons can be a bit over the top at times).  Crisp, but not ostentatiously so. Yum.  The good-old-standby on the red side was the Pilitteri 2007 Merlot.  I like this wine fine, it's moderately rich, but a bit rougher and less balanced than I'd prefer, and with some hints of foxiness to the black-cherry fruit.  I'd choose instead another of their wines that PI has in its cellar---the 2002 Reserve Merlot, which Dan chose to serve at a conference banquet I attended last month.  This was excellent stuff, a bit lighter bodied than the 07 regular bottling, but with a suave, even velvety mouthfeel despite a bit of tannin, classic blackberry flavors with a hint of minerality, and a nice bouquet mingling plum and cassis-ish notes with hints of tarriness, spiciness, oak and maybe a hint of coffee.  It's still availabe at Pilliteri for $30.  (I was there last weekend.)  Although it's not a tannin monster, I'd make sure it has time to air and develop over the course of a meal, in the glass or in a decanter, and if you have a cellar, I think it might continue to mellow and perhaps develop further over another 5 or more years.