Apologies in advance to my local Alberta readers: this review will be almost useless to you. I have never seen this bottle in our fair province, or on a retail store anywhere else for that matter. I got it for Christmas a couple years ago from a cousin-in-law out in Vancouver (thanks Brad!), was immediately impressed by the rap-video blinginess of its container (the bottle must weigh 2 pounds empty) and then discovered through research that it was created as part of a unique and forward-thinking experimental line of wines by stalwart Okanagan producer Stag’s Hollow. The Cachet wines are limited edition blends of top quality grapes which are outside of the standard SH catalog; they are made once, as a small run in a single vintage, and then never replicated again. So while this is the 2008 vintage of Cachet No. 01, there is no 2009 or 2010 bottling — the 1500 bottles (125 cases) of this wine from that single year are all there is. I have no idea how this is commercially workable, but I find it fascinating. These high-end one-off blends put the power in the hands of the winemaker to express a different vision with these specialty wines every year…or at least that was the plan. As it turns out, only two Cachets have ever been made: this one, and the sequel Cachet No. 02 (made from Grenache, Syrah, Viognier and Marsanne) that was released around the same time. The world is still waiting on Cachet No. 03, and I’m sort of wondering whether the concept has died before it ever really got off the ground. Read the rest of this entry »
Wine Review: 2009 Venus La Universal Dido
16 01 2013[This bottle was provided as a sample for review purposes.]
Back!!
Almost a calendar month from my last real post, things have finally returned to some semblance of normalcy in my household and all family cold and flu issues are mostly a thing of the past, leaving me free to kick back with a (highly intriguing) glass of wine and blog to my heart’s content. Luckily for me, PnP’s revival from the ashes of neglect comes in the form of a review of a bottle that I could write about for days, a wine that you can buy here for less than $30 and which has been constantly opening and evolving since I opened it over a day ago. I’ve tasted it over many hours and still can’t entirely figure out how to put it into words, but here goes.
Venus La Universal is one of many vinous projects currently being undertaken by Sara Perez, who is considered by many to be the most important female winemaker in Spain. Her roots in wine are familial: when she was young her parents moved the family from Barcelona to the nearby (and now-renowned) area of Priorat, located due west of the city in northeast Spain. Her mother and father became the founders of Priorat’s School of Oenology and early contributors to the wine boom that now envelops the region. Perez’s wines are all driven by a sense of place and a deep connection to the vineyards from which they are derived. I don’t usually include quotes in my review, but this one got to me: in a 2005 interview with Luis Cepeda, Perez maintained that “[t]here has to be absolute complicity between land and winery.” The land that ultimately resulted in this wine is a 4 hectare piece of farmland found in the southern end of the oddly donut-shaped region of Montsant, which forms a complete ring encircling the bullseye of Priorat (and thus can offer wine drinkers Priorat-level taste experiences for value prices). It’s a harsh landscape featuring nutrient-poor granitic soils, high altitudes, hot days and cold nights, terraced vineyards that must be harvested by hand, and vines that have to struggle to survive. Unlike most agricultural crops, however, with grapevines this constant battle to thrive leads to deeper, stronger roots and higher-quality, more flavourful fruit, making areas such as this prized for their ability to coax the most character out of their grapes.
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Tags: 2009, dido, la universal, montsant, priorat, sara perez, Spanish wine, venus, wine blog, wine review
Categories : Wine Reviews
Wine Review: 2009 Il Palagio Casino delle Vie
14 11 2012[This bottle was provided as a sample for review purposes.]
Many celebrities have wine ventures. For the most part, they are side hobbies at best and branding exercises at worst, usually making it hard to see what the famous name on the label has added to the wine inside. Not so with Sting and the lineup of wines coming out of his old-made-new estate in Tuscany. When he and his wife Trudie Styler first came across the historic Tuscan Il Palagio property in the late 1990s, it was dilapidated and poorly tended, in a vast state of disrepair. After they purchased the estate and the 350 acres of land forming part of it, they spent an entire decade restoring the buildings and revitalizing the land, bringing on viticultural experts to convert the property to biodynamic growing methods (a pesticide- and herbicide-free holistic philosophy that focuses on ensuring the vine thrives in harmony with its surrounding environment and ties patterns of vine development to lunar phases, among other things) and giving vineyards that had been producing wine grapes since the 16th century a new lease on life. Instead of rushing the fruits of the estate to market to capitalize on a well-known name and get cash flowing, Sting and Trudie waited until they and their team believed the land was sufficiently rehabilitated and the products of a high enough quality; 13 years after they first came across the property, they are releasing only their second vintage of wines. In addition to a trio of vinous bottlings, Il Palagio is also the source of many other biodynamically-grown agricultural products, including fresh-made honey and cold-pressed extra virgin olive oil (I’ve been lucky enough to try the oil, and though I’m far from an EVOO expert, my layman’s opinion is that it was unbelievable). The amount of time, effort and money that has gone into building Il Palagio back up is clear proof that this is a serious pursuit for Sting, one intended to create a lasting legacy. I will refrain from making a “Message In A Bottle” joke here, but this is no mere vanity project. Read the rest of this entry »
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Tags: 2009, casino delle vie, colorino, il palagio, italian wine, sangiovese, sting, super tuscan, trudie styler, wine blog, wine review
Categories : Wine Reviews
Calgary Wine Life: St. Urbans-Hof Riesling Tasting @ Co-op Crowfoot
25 09 2012[Cross-posted at www.calgaryisawesome.com]
Consider this less of a blog post and more of a public service announcement. If you’re going to remember a single message out of everything I’ve ever written about wine, make it this little piece of advice: DO NOT BE AFRAID OF GERMAN RIESLING. I wish I could tell you that this was self-evident information, but there remains this persistent and lingering seed of doubt planted deep in the brains of casual wine drinkers in North America irrationally warning them that German wine in general, and German Riesling in particular, is something to be wary of. Even (or rather, especially) people who haven’t tried it tend to avoid it, looking askance at its tall tapered bottles and Gothic multisyllabic labels, spouting the well-worn syllogism: ”I don’t like sweet wines. German Riesling is sweet. Therefore, I don’t like German Riesling.” Most people who say this probably don’t realize that:
1. NOT all German Riesling is sweet — in fact, there has been a concerted movement towards drier (“Trocken”) styles of wine in Germany over the past decade or so; and
2. Even sweeter German Riesling isn’t sweet like other wines are sweet. To me, the best expressions of Riesling are those where there is a little residual sugar left in the wine after fermentation, because that hint of sweetness is a necessary counterpart to the firestorm of acidity usually present in good German wines. The delicate razor’s-edge dance between sweet and tart is the very essence of what German Riesling is all about, and to dismiss a key component of that ballet as something akin to what you find in a $6 bottle of insipid white Zinfandel is to do both yourself and these amazing wines a disservice. Most people who say they don’t like “sweet wines” actually don’t like UNBALANCED sweet wines, wines with a bunch of leftover sugar and nothing else to level it out. German Riesling is the antithesis of these kinds of bottles, and the best illustration that not all “sweet” wines are created equal.
If you get past the stereotypes and try a bottle of German Riesling for yourself, I predict you will quickly fall in love; to me they are the most individual, remarkable and memorable wines in the world. And the best part about joining the German Riesling Revolution is that the wines usually offer remarkable levels of quality for a bargain price. Many top producers make entry-level bottles that are widely available for under $20 CDN, some of the most impressive of which come from the well-known Mosel Valley winery of St. Urbans-Hof, instantly recognizable for its striking black and copper label design (see the bottle pics below). Last Thursday, a lucky few of us attended at the Crowfoot location of Co-op Wine & Spirits to hear Urbans-Hof owner and winemaker Nik Weis talk about his property and share a half-dozen of his recent wines.
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Tags: calgary wine, co-op crowfoot, co-op wines and spirits, german riesling, German wine, mosel valley, nik weis, ockfener bockstein, piesporter goldtropfchen, saar, schlangengraben, st. urbans-hof, urban riesling, wiltinger, wine review, wine tasting
Categories : Calgary Wine Life
Wine Review: 2010 19 Crimes Shiraz Durif
19 09 2012I’ve seen this bottle in every wine store I’ve been in over the past couple of months, so I presume it’s attracted some critical mass of popularity and is doing well for itself. I didn’t buy it for that reason, however, or because of its admittedly compelling bottle frosting and showstopper labelling. I bought it because I felt sure that the makeup of this red blend was some sort of elaborate winemaker’s pun. 19 Crimes is a mixture of Shiraz and Durif. Shiraz, as I discussed in my last review, is the same grape as Syrah. Durif also has a more commonly known alias; in North America and elsewhere, it’s usually called Petite Sirah. So this wine is actually a Syrah/Petite Sirah blend…Syrahs of all sizes? Not quite. Petite Sirah is not a type or class of Syrah but a stand-alone grape variety…and while we’re at it, nothing about it is petite at all once it hits the glass: its diminutive first name refers to the size of its grapes on the vine rather than its flavours or structure. Since Petite Sirah’s grapes are smaller, this creates a larger ratio of skins to juice, and since the skins are where a red wine’s colour and tannin resides, this makes most Petite Sirahs deep, thick, opaque and massive. But still not Syrahs. Who said learning about wine was hard? Read the rest of this entry »
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Tags: 19 crimes, 2010, australian wine, best wine cork, deportation, durif, penal colony, petite sirah, red wine blends, shiraz, Syrah, victoria, wine blog, wine review
Categories : Wine Reviews
Wine Review: 2009 Prospect Winery Red Willow Shiraz
13 09 2012[This bottle was provided as a sample for review purposes.]
Another day, another foray into the once-nebulous-and-terrifying world of inexpensive Canadian wine. My connotations of this corner of the market harken back to my university days in Victoria a decade ago, when my roommate and I would stop by the nearest government-run liquor store to pick up a $17 magnum of something local and atrocious before having friends over for drinks. I have only recently started to get over the stigma that built up in my brain due to the bad-wine headaches that ensued from those bottles, and I remain a touch leery whenever I see a bottle from BC or Ontario that dips below the $20 mark. Thankfully for me, I recently received a vinous intervention in the form of a half-case sample of wines from the Okanagan’s Ganton & Larsen Prospect Winery, all of which clock in under the $20 threshold, and one of which particularly intrigued me: this bottle of 2009 Red Willow Shiraz. Read the rest of this entry »
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Tags: 2009, anthony von mandl, artisan wine, ganton & larsen, mission hill, okanagan wine, okanagan wines, prospect winery, red willow, shiraz, Syrah, wild horse canyon, wine blog, wine review
Categories : Wine Reviews
Wine Review: 2010 Pheasant’s Tears Kisi
5 09 2012When I interviewed Tim Hendrickson of Wine Ink for last week’s PnP/CIA dual feature, I asked him what was the single weirdest bottle in his unique and eclectic collection of wares, knowing full well that I would likely be buying his response. The answer was this bottle, the 2010 Kisi from producer Pheasant’s Tears. What makes it weird? Well, what doesn’t? It’s made in Georgia (the country, not the state, although both would be equally weird, I suppose), which is no longer a known winemaking power but is the area of the world with the longest-known history of winemaking, dating back 8000+ years. It’s a single-varietal wine from a grape, Kisi, that neither I nor the dozens of reference books in my house had ever heard of, a white grape indigenous to the Kakheti province of eastern Georgia, located near the Azerbaijan border. However, as you can see in the picture at left, the wine is not really white at all, but a rather lurid shade of orange. And oh yes — it’s fermented and aged by being buried in the ground in a giant clay egg. Intrigued yet? Just wait till you taste it.
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Tags: 2010, amber wine, georgia, kakheti, kisi, kvevri, pheasant's tears, qvevri, weird wine, wine blog, wine ink, wine review
Categories : Wine Reviews
Wine Review: 2010 Mission Hill Martin’s Lane Pinot Noir
22 08 2012[This bottle was provided as a sample for review purposes.]
It was with great sadness that I uncorked (OK, unscrewed) the last of the sample bottles that the Okanagan’s Mission Hill winery had sent my way. When MH sent me their small-batch limited edition Martin’s Lane Riesling a few weeks ago, they included with it the Riesling’s vineyard twin, the inaugural release of the Martin’s Lane Pinot Noir. This bottle of Pinot was many years in the making (the vineyard was planted in 1995), but MH held back on releasing it as a single-vineyard offering until the vines and the grapes were fully ready to show their stuff. I laid out the story behind Martin’s Lane in my Riesling review, but to quickly recap, it’s a high-quality, steeply-sloped vineyard located right by Mission Hill’s winery property just outside of Kelowna, and it’s named as a tribute to MH proprietor Anthony von Mandl’s late father Martin. Only 485 cases of this Pinot were produced, and this is the first bottle I’ve seen in this province, so unless you live near the winery, this bottle is probably hard to come by. All the more reason to enjoy it if you have it! Read the rest of this entry »
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Tags: 2010, anthony von mandl, bc wine, kelowna, martin's lane, mission hill, mission hill winery, okanagan, pinot noir, single-vineyard, wine blog, wine review
Categories : Wine Reviews
Wine Review: 2010 Kirkland Rutherford Meritage
15 08 2012I had to. Every time I’ve gone into Costco to grab a bottle or two, my eyes always linger for a moment with morbid curiosity on the various Kirkland bottles for sale. I can wrap my head around Costco-brand ketchup or Costco-brand paper towel, but I have no idea what to make of Costco-brand wine, particularly since Kirkland (Costco’s proprietary label) keeps spitting out offerings from a vast array of well-to-do regions like Chateauneuf-de-Pape, Champagne, and, as seen here, Napa Valley. These areas have an established pedigree in the wine world: this particular bottle comes from Rutherford, arguably Napa’s most prestigious, highest-quality and most expensive sub-region. Rutherford is a tiny area in the heart of the Valley — when I went to Napa it took about 3 minutes for us to drive from one end of it to the other — and is one of the best places in the world to grow the Cabernet Sauvignon grape, and its name on a label usually signifies that you’re going to be shelling out at least $50-$60 (and often much more) for the privilege of the bottle. This bottle was $17. The utter dichotomy in my head between “Rutherford wine” and “produced by Costco” made me have to see what was inside. One disturbingly inexpensive Napa Cab later, I cracked the Kirkland tonight feeling equal parts anticipation and dread. Read the rest of this entry »
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Tags: 2010, bordeaux blend, costco, kirkland, meritage, napa valley, rutherford, wine blog, wine review, wine score
Categories : Wine Reviews
The Mission Hill Pinot Olympics
17 07 2012[The bottles below were provided as samples for review purposes.]
As tactfully mentioned by the disclaimer above, I recently received a mixed six-pack of sampler bottles from the good folks at Mission Hill Family Estate winery in the Okanagan Valley. Two of these bottles, the 2011 Reserve Riesling and the 2011 Five Vineyards Sauvignon Blanc, have received separate PnP review treatment over the past couple of weeks: see here and here for the full write-ups. But I couldn’t bring myself to split up the other four bottles and rate them separately, because it was clear that they belonged together, bound as they were by a common provenance: the family name Pinot. Pinot Grigio, Pinot Gris, Pinot Blanc and Pinot Noir all sat side by side in the MH sample box like a monochromatic grape rainbow, their shared forename a reminder of their common genetic ancestor (Pinots Grigio and Gris are the same grape, and both PG and Pinot Blanc are mutations of Pinot Noir, which is well-known for being genetically unstable). Since the fortunes of these bottles were clearly tied together, and since it’s July 2012 and our athletes are preparing to head off to London for the Summer Games, I did the only thing I could do and hosted the inaugural Mission Hill Pinot Olympiad at my house over the weekend.
Here’s how our game was played: I invited over a couple of fellow wine enthusiasts, opened all four bottles of MH Pinot, and we tasted through the lineup and separately ranked each of the wines as against its peers, individually coming up with our gold, silver, bronze, and, um, whatever’s below bronze (lead? aluminum? tungsten?) medal choices. I then added all of the placements together to come up with a cumulative judges’ score (for example, a wine ranked 1st, 2nd and 3rd by the three different judges would get a total score of 1 + 2 + 3 = 6); the lower the score, the better. The lowest total score won the overall prize, which basically meant that the bottle was emptied the fastest. We tasted the wines from whites to red, lightest to heaviest, and my notes below are in the same order. Who emerged victorious? Read on! Read the rest of this entry »
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Tags: 2010, 2011, estate winery, five vineyards, mission hill, okanagan, pinot blanc, pinot grigio, pinot gris, pinot noir, pinot olympics, reserve, value wine, wine blog, wine review
Categories : Miscellaneous, Wine Reviews
Wine Review: 2011 Villa Maria Marlborough Private Bin Sauvignon Blanc
4 06 2012[This bottle was provided as a sample for review purposes.]
For my generation of wine drinkers, New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc is a white wine mainstay, both a defining expression of the Sauvignon Blanc grape and one of the first whites that comes to mind during a trip to the wine store. However, this level of penetration into the world’s vinous consciousness is a very new phenomenon: NZSB didn’t attract international attention until the mid-1980s, when the bright, crisp, fruit-packed bottlings from the country’s star Marlborough region first took foreign palates by storm. New Zealand has seen exponential growth in its wine production in the nearly 30 years since, and most of the Sauv Blancs you see on the shelves now are a product of this modern white revolution, only recently arrived to the SB scene. But not this one. In 2011, Villa Maria celebrated its 50th year as a producer, which, in a country that is relatively new to the world wine limelight, makes it a true New Zealand pioneer. Its Private Bin bottling of Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc is sourced from grapes grown all over the region and shows that even recent wine history leaves a strong flavour footprint. Read the rest of this entry »
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Tags: 2011, gooseberry, marlborough, new zealand, new zealand sauvignon blanc, NZ wines, NZSB, private bin, sauvignon blanc, travel, villa maria, wine blog, wine review
Categories : Wine Reviews















