Wine Review: 2010 Tawse Riesling

28 03 2012

Tawse Riesling: Niagara's great white hope?

Long time no speak!  Although it’s been awhile since you’ve seen any activity on this blog, rest assured that it’s not because I’ve been lazy; I’ve been writing, just nothing that was immediately publishable.  Make sure to check back on this site Friday evening, when my third monthly PnP/Calgary Is Awesome joint article will be posted, featuring a one-of-a-kind personality from a wine store that’s near and dear to my heart.  I’ve spent the past few days getting that piece polished up and also writing a feature for a local project that will be unveiled shortly, but at some point recently I realized that I hadn’t actually put anything up on Pop & Pour for over a week.  Let’s remedy that now.

Since last Monday’s post was about Old World Riesling (from arguably the top vineyard in Germany, Bernkasteler Doctor), I decided to pick a New World Riesling for tonight as a counterpoint, the entry-level Riesling from Tawse Winery in the Niagara Peninsula, Ontario.  Tawse is an excellent candidate to represent Canada’s burgeoning ability to produce high-level Riesling:  it was named Canadian winery of the year for both 2010 and 2011 by Wine Access magazine and is one of Ontario’s most respected producers.  I like to see Ontarian and British Columbian wineries showcase their Riesling skills because (1) I love Riesling and (2) it is a grape that matches our climate, growing well in slightly cooler areas and reaching its apex in a country, Germany, that’s on an almost identical latitude to ours.  I’d never had the chance to sit down with a full bottle of Tawse Riesling until tonight, so I was psyched to twist off the cap and get going. Read the rest of this entry »


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Tasting In Stereo with North of 9 Fine Wine: 2009 Dr. H. Thanisch Berncasteler Doctor Riesling Kabinett

19 03 2012

Welcome to the second edition of Tasting In Stereo, a joint effort between yours truly and Tyler Philp of North of 9 Fine Wine that brings you two simultaneous reviews of tonight’s bottle, one immediately below on this page and the other over on the North of 9 blog.  Once you’re done reading the PnP take on this wine, click on over to Tyler to see if he agreed or disagreed with my assessment…we do not share our thoughts or tasting notes with each other before publication, so I’m just as curious as you are to see if this bottle met Tyler’s fancy.  For a bit of background about who Tyler is, how I met him and why we started up this simul-tasting endeavour, check out my inaugural Tasting In Stereo post here.

The one and only Bernkasteler Doctor...that's an actual rendition of the town of Bernkastel on the label with The Doctor rising up behind it.

Tonight’s Tasting In Stereo wine is right in my wheelhouse for a number of reasons.  First, I’m pretty sure Tyler picked up his bottle the last time he was in Calgary, so we’re dealing with home turf inventory.  Second, it’s a German Riesling, and if you know anything at all about me or about this blog, you’ll know that the way to my heart runs right through that grape and that country.  Third, it’s not just any German Riesling:  it’s a German Riesling from the Augusta (for those of you feeling like a golf analogy) of German Riesling vineyards, Bernkasteler Doctor.  By way of quick review, if you look at the label of this or any German wine bottle, and you see two words in a row, the first of which ends in “er”, there is a 99% chance that the “er” word is the name of the village adjacent to the vineyard where the wine’s grapes were grown (with the possessive “er” added to signify that the vineyard is “from” that village) and the following word is the name of the vineyard — this is my Two Word “Er” Rule for deciphering German wine labels.  In this case, the relevant village is Bernkastel, which is in the heart of Germany’s Mosel Valley (don’t ask me why the label spells “Berncasteler” with a C instead of a K…even the neck label of this same bottle spells “Bernkastel” with a K like I’m used to seeing) and the vineyard’s name is Doctor.  Why Doctor, you ask?  Cue the best back story any plot of dirt could ever want… Read the rest of this entry »


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Coming on Monday: Tasting In Stereo, Part II!

17 03 2012

It’s been a few months since the inaugural edition of Tasting In Stereo, a multi-blog collaboration with online wine writer extraordinaire Tyler Philp, founder of North of 9 Fine Wine, that saw us each separately drink a pre-selected bottle, write up our own thoughts independently of each other, and then simultaneously publish our reviews at a set time to give our loyal readers two perspectives on the wine for the price of one.  Our first crack at this blogs-colliding concept back in August proved what a valuable tool it was:  we reviewed the 2008 Sister’s Run Shiraz from Australia’s Barossa Valley and had fairly contrary impressions of the bottle, but discovered after the fact the context that explained and justified our disparate points of view.  Tyler wasn’t a fan of the Shiraz and thought it was overly jammy and alcoholic…because he drank it outside on a hot, sunny evening on his patio.  I thought the Sister’s Run was a remarkable bargain that offered great fruit without going overboard…because I drink my reds colder than most people and had this one after it sat for about 30 minutes in my fridge.  The whole simul-review turned out to be a cautionary tale about the impact that service temperature can have on any given wine, which was a pretty unexpectedly cool result.

Tyler's site -- click the pic to visit. Well worth the trip!

And now, 6 months or so later, we’re doing it again.  Join us on Monday, March 19th at 9:00 p.m. Mountain time, when we will simultaneously unveil on our respective sites our write-ups of the latest lucky bottle we’ve chosen for double scrutiny.  I won’t tell you what the bottle is, but I’ll say that it’s German, which means I’m almost guaranteed to be very happy with it.  Hopefully Tyler isn’t as biased by Teutonic wine-love and can act as everyone’s voice of reason…you’ll just have to check back Monday to find out!

 

 

 


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Burgundy: The Drinking Plan

14 03 2012

Burgundy, I haven't forgotten about you.

At the start of 2012 I waxed poetic about my newfound commitment to drink more Burgundy this year.  Two days later, I followed that up with a momentum-sustaining red Burgundy review of the 2009 Alex Gambal “Cuvee Les Deux Papis” Bourgogne Rouge.  I have since gone over two months without drinking or mentioning Burgundy at all.  What gives?  Am I like one of those New Year’s Resolution fitness disciples who goes to one workout on January 2nd and then gets back on the couch?  Not exactly.  Have I been turned off of the Burgundy quest since early January?  Nope.  Am I quietly getting the pieces put together on a massive mind-blowing Burgundian wine journey of epic proportions?  Oh yes.

My original idea about how to start drinking more Burgundy was to, well, start drinking more Burgundy:  head to the France section of various wine shops, buy a few bottles, crack them, write about them.  But when I asked Highlander Wine & Spirits’ Matt Browman for advice on how to approach his favourite wine region, he got me thinking in a more structured fashion.  His Burgundy drinking plan contemplated village-by-village comparisons of wines from high-quality producers across the entire hierarchy  of the area’s wine classification system…but more importantly, it called for all of the all of the test subject wines to be opened AT THE SAME TIME.  Faster than you could say “Burgundy tasting party”, I was on board.  It’s taken me until now to source (and pay for) the various bottles going into the tasting, but next weekend I’ll have a dozen bottles of top-notch Burgundy open and the wait will definitely be worth it.  Here are the official details of the Matt Browman Burgundy Drinking Plan in case you ever feel like trying this yourself: Read the rest of this entry »


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Happy Anniversary, PnP

12 03 2012

I'm reasonably sure that both birthday and anniversary pics are applicable.

I guess it’s sort of trite to wish yourself a happy anniversary, and borderline creepy to do so to a non-sentient website that you’ve created, but here we are.  This past Friday, March 9th, was exactly one year from the date of my very first post on Pop & Pour.  The brevity of that piece (something that got lost along the way) didn’t conceal my evident ignorance about what I was getting myself into and my indecision about what I wanted this site to be.  152 posts, 730 tags and 181 comments later, it’s turned into more than I ever could have hoped.  By big-game Internet standards it’s still a tiny operation, a blip on the search engine radar, but I initially didn’t know if I’d keep up my posting beyond the first couple of weeks, and I especially didn’t know if what I put out there would be picked up by anybody.  Twelve months later, I’m psyched that there are people who actually read this blog (I was at a very good friend’s wedding this past weekend, and when I was introduced to the groom’s mom, the first thing she said to me was that she was a regular PnP reader!  Thanks Chris!) and humbled by the opportunities that have come my way because of it (my monthly calgaryisawesome.com column, as well as a sweet new gig that will be announced shortly).  Here are a few insider Pop & Pour stats, accurate as of today thanks to the crack team at the WordPress Analytics Department, detailing some of the numbers behind PnP’s first year: Read the rest of this entry »


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PnP Ratings Database Update — March 2012

7 03 2012

This has nothing to do with the ratings DB...but it is cool.

I decided to hold off on this update until I had accumulated enough new reviews to make a revised spreadsheet worthwhile, and that time has come with PnP poised to reach a couple of major milestones.  First, I’m 4 wine reviews away from 100, a mark I should attain sometime this month.  Second, this Friday, March 9th, is the one-year anniversary of Pop & Pour (so yes, if you do the math, I’ve drunk almost a hundred bottles of wine in a calendar year…but at least my vinous consumption has made some contribution to online society).  Holy crap.  I’m excited (and amazed) about both events…but I need some filler material until they get here and can’t drink wine this week (lead-in to a new diet), so in the meantime I’ll aim to be equally excited about this routine ratings database update.  The March 2012 instalment of the ratings spreadsheet reveals a new member of my top ten QPR wines (my rendition of the Quality/Price Ratio score shows you how many dollars you have to spend on a bottle for every PnP ratings point about 75), the Beso de Vino Seleccion…a.k.a. the bull testicle wine.  This bottle makes the cut not because of its impressive score (84+), but because of its bargain-basement price ($12), though the argument can be made that generally-acceptable wine for $12 is still a bargain.  Download the updated ratings database here (new Excel file first, then old Excel file):

Pop & Pour Ratings Database Mar 2012

Pop & Pour Ratings DB Mar 2012 Old Excel

New wine reviews coming next week once I can drink again!


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Wine Review: 2009 Antiyal “Kuyen”

29 02 2012

The name says it best: this is a lunar sort of wine.

I’m hoping this is a glimpse at the future of Chilean wine.  While until recently the Chile section of your local wine shop was probably best known as a half-decent place to get a $15 bottle, there has been an increased focus in making wines of quality and interest in the country that is perfectly highlighted by this producer and this bottle.  Antiyal is the brainchild of winemaker Alvaro Espinoza, whose wines are all the product of organic and biodynamic viticulture (a pesticide/herbicide-free method of farming that makes use of cover crops, natural predators, and even lunar cycles to grow grapes harmoniously with the surrounding ecosystem), an approach growing in popularity and one very well-suited to Chile, whose wine regions are in mostly drier climates with consistent weather and few natural pests/diseases.  The winery’s eponymous wine Antiyal (which means “sons of the sun”) still stands out in my memory a couple of years after I last tried it because of its sheer purity of flavour.  You know how some wines are the perfect example of a certain type of taste?  Antiyal is THE standard-bearer for the flavour “black currant”…I’ve never tasted anything like it.  Ever. Read the rest of this entry »


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Calgary Wine Life: Jim Barry “The Armagh” Tasting @ Bin 905

27 02 2012

[Cross-posted at www.calgaryisawesome.com]

In all its glory.

Nothing improves a good bottle of wine more than a good accompanying back-story, and I ended up at the Jim Barry Armagh tasting at Bin 905 in Mission on Friday night due to one of the best wine tales in my recent memory.  The Armagh Shiraz, one of Australia’s rarest, priciest and highest quality bottles, was named after the hamlet of Armagh adjoining the Clare Valley wine region in South Australia, a small village that was initially established by Irish settlers and named after the county of Armagh in Ireland…which in turn is where my friend Fiona was born.  Upon walking into Bin 905 and seeing a sign advertising an “Armagh” wine tasting, Fiona immediately grabbed a ticket for it and also ordered a bottle, not knowing that it cost around $250 and not caring when she found out.  Not one to turn down a chance to drink ludicrously expensive wine for a less-than-ludicrous price, and not being likely ever to come across a wine named after my homeland (the Jim Barry “Edmonton”?), I jumped at the chance to come along to the event. Read the rest of this entry »


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Wine Review: 2009 Beso de Vino Seleccion

22 02 2012

How many of you really needed to see full frontal bull nudity?

I’m sure the first thing the folks at Beso de Vino wanted me to see on this bottle was the 90-point score it received from Jay Miller of The Wine Advocate (which is likely why that number was posted front and centre on the neck in bigger font than the wine’s name).  Instead, the first thing I saw was:  testicles.  Yes, for reasons only known to a marketing department that should be immediately fired, BdV’s loveable mascot Antonio the Bull is drawn on the main label of the wine as a blatantly anatomically-correct stick figure.  Is it really necessary to showcase the animated gonads of a cartoon bull?  It has horns; I can already tell it’s a bull without any more explicit gender identification.  I don’t think the testicles add anything in particular to the artist’s rendition, and it’s not like the bull is really central to the wine or its faux back story (that Antonio kissed the wine and fell in love…not exactly deep stuff).  I am at a loss to explain this, but it’s hard to think of anything else when I look at the bottle.  Most unnecessarily X-rated critter wine ever. Read the rest of this entry »


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Wine Review: 2008 Fog Crest Vineyard “Laguna West” Chardonnay

15 02 2012

I had to use the promo pic from the website instead of my actual pic, for obvious reasons. Sure is foggy.

I just finished reading the book Judgment of Paris by George Taber, which is primarily a recounting of the now-legendary 1976 Judgment of Paris tasting where California Cabernets and Chardonnays shockingly upset top French Bordeaux and Burgundies in a blind tasting evaluated by renowned French judges, but which also tangentially describes the birth and rapid growth of the California wine industry.  The truly amazing thing about the J of P tasting wasn’t that the California wines upset the French; it was that the California wineries represented in the competition didn’t even exist a decade earlier.  Many of them entered their first, second or third vintages EVER in a tasting contest against historic French bottlings that dated back centuries, which in the world of wine should have been a recipe for embarrassment.  I now think about this every time I open a Cali Cab or Chard because, as a recent disciple of wine, I’ve only ever known California as a world vinous powerhouse; it’s remarkable to think that 40 years ago it would have been laughable to describe it that way.

To coincide with my finishing the book, I felt it only appropriate to open a California wine in commemoration, and the Fog Crest has been a bottle I’ve been very interested in trying, largely because the producer brings in ultra-famous Cali winemaker David Ramey as a consultant to help craft its Chardonnays and Pinot Noirs.  Fog Crest is based out of the Russian River Valley sub-region of Sonoma County, an area known for having a notably cooler climate than the surrounding area, helped in part by cold morning fogs (hence the winery name).  These climatic conditions make RRV an ideal spot for growing grapes like Chardonnay that show their best in cooler sites.  My favourite thing about this wine has to be its thematically-accurate, dry-ice-induced foggy promo pic from its website (see above left), the set up for which almost inevitably involved some marketing guru saying:  “See, FOG Crest?  Get it?”  (I get it.)   Read the rest of this entry »


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Wine Review: 2007 Chateau de la Gardine Chateauneuf-de-Pape

9 02 2012

Try to fit THAT in your wine rack -- I dare you.

Tonight’s review was supposed to be posted last night, but some insomniac infant adventures from the night before made me more or less comatose by dinnertime, so I had to take a PnP rain check.  However, all is quiet in the house now, so fresh off a better night’s rest and a ton of caffeine, it’s go time…although I’m still tired, so I’d better write quick.  This blatantly asymmetrical bottle of Chateauneuf-de-Pape was a generous Christmas gift from a good friend of mine (thanks Josh!) and a wine that I couldn’t bring myself to wait to open.  Considering the last time I opened a weirdly-shaped bottle of CNDP, it was a wholly depressing experience, I was fervently hoping for better luck this time…I’d hate to be permanently pulled out of the sway of a good marketing gimmick.  Fingers crossed!

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WSET Celebratory Wine Review: 2007 Cayuse Cailloux Vineyard Syrah

6 02 2012

When people ask me what kind of wine I like, I'm going to pull out this pic.

Ever since I found out that I passed my WSET Advanced course last week, I’ve been wanting to break open something truly special to celebrate.  However, sickness intervened, so rather than crack a $100+ bottle and write stuff like “smells like nothing” and “my throat hurts” in a review, I decided to wait until the congestion clouds had cleared.  This weekend I pronounced myself fit to taste and rummaged through my cellar to find a suitable victory bottle, and as soon as I came to this one, I stopped thinking about any other.  However, it’s a bottle built for the long haul, so I was faced with the quandary that every wine lover about to pull the cork on an expensive bottle has had to face:  should I open the wine now so I can try it, or will I be undercutting its long-term potential by having it too early?  After getting some savvy advice from the amazingly-informed wine community on Twitter (thanks, @peterzachar and @nwtomlee!), I turned to Cayuse’s website for the final verdict.  On their FAQ page, there was a question that said:  “How soon can I open my wines?”  Cayuse’s answer?  “A Latin saying insists, ‘There are four reasons for drinking wine: the arrival of a friend; one’s present or future thirst; the excellence of the wine; or any other reason.'”  I opened the wine.

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Wine Review: 2010 Painted Rock Chardonnay

3 02 2012

Although a newer vintage than the 2009, it's still like going back in time.

The coolest thing about this blog having been around awhile, other than the fact that I’ve miraculously managed to regularly publish an Internet wine blog for the better part of a year, is that I’m starting to come across second vintages in the bottles I open:  current vintage wines whose predecessors I have previously featured on PnP.  Case in point:  the 2010 Painted Rock Chardonnay from the Okanagan Valley, which is probably already facing an uphill battle in this review due to monstrously high expectations because I totally loved the 2009 PR Chard back in September.  I think Painted Rock is a producer on the forefront of the Canadian wine scene, one that is starting to show that we don’t have to settle for local wines that only measure up as against their neighbours, but that can also stand tall on the international market.  While PR focuses primarily on red wine, their lone white is a testament to the wonders of cool-climate Chardonnay, and I thought enough about the ’09 vintage that I absolutely loaded up on the 2010 as soon as it became available.

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Wine Review: 2010 Dona Paula “Los Cardos” Malbec

1 02 2012

Marketing note: maybe don't name your wine after a weed.

Many apologies for the blog radio silence over the past few days:  after weeks of avoiding it, I finally ended up catching the sinus/chest cold that every single person in Calgary currently has, so I had to shut down my wine consumption until I was more or less healthy.  The worst has now passed, but I still have a bit of residual congestion, so be warned in advance that the following review could be completely inaccurate…but it’s free, so what do you care?

Malbec!  I have no idea how this is possible, but this is the very first Malbec that has been the feature of its own PnP review.  The grape that has been a part of the blend in red Bordeaux wines for centuries but that has taken the drinking world by storm in the last decade with its single-varietal Argentinian incarnation is definitely the Shiraz of the 2000s, the new red wine that offers such an inexpensive and enjoyable experience that it has put a previously-ignored winemaking country on the vinous map.  I haven’t been avoiding it on purpose — like everyone, I’m a fan of a good Malbec — but after a couple sips of this wine, I knew I was going to regret making it my initial foray into the grape.

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Calgary Wine Life: Meet Matt Browman @ Highlander Marda Loop

27 01 2012

[Cross-posted at www.calgaryisawesome.com]

I am truly excited to kick into gear what I hope will be a long and, well, awesome collaboration with site-around-town extraordinaire Calgary Is Awesome.  For those regular CIA visitors who don’t know me, I’ve been writing local wine blog popandpour.ca for almost a year now, a site that contains reviews of a number of bottles available in town and other thoughts and musings aimed at demystifying (and glorifying) the incredible world of wine.  One of the things that I’ve wanted to do with Pop & Pour, but that I couldn’t really figure out how to approach, was to highlight the remarkable people and places that illuminate Calgary’s local wine scene, which remains almost criminally underrated.  Well, CIA has given me that chance.  My monthly posts for Calgary Is Awesome will focus on YYC wine shops, events, personalities and other home-based vinous topics of interest that will hopefully showcase the amazing depth of talent and energy that our fair city has directed towards my favourite beverage.  If you want to know how lucky you are to be a Calgarian who likes wine, read on.

Tasting, anyone?

I used to live in Altadore three places and five years ago, and even back then I thought that the area needed a specialty wine store…Liquor Depot wasn’t quite cutting it.  Now that land in my old neighbourhood costs more than my soul and Marda has become THE inner-city-but-not living destination for many Calgarians, this need has only amplified, and in December 2010 it was finally addressed when Highlander Wine & Spirits opened a massive new store in the heart of the Loop (2112 – 33rd Avenue SW).  As soon as you walk in, you can immediately tell that the shop was designed to be a temple of wine.  The large, open-profile modern space is lined with dark-wood-rack after dark-wood-rack of bottles, organized by country and region; there’s a huge tasting table in the back of the store, right beside cupboards full of wine glasses and an Enomatic machine that keeps a dozen or so open sample bottles free of invading air; it’s an oenophile’s dream.  Of course, there’s still plenty of beer and spirits available for sale, but if you were to walk in the front door and take a look around, you would definitely say:  “This is a wine store.”  This focus on fine wine is completely intentional.

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