Wine Review: 2010 Dirty Laundry “Hush” Rosé

7 12 2011

Maybe it's season-suitable after all -- it looks like a Christmas light. That's turned on.

I don’t drink as much rosé as I should.  Even though I know that most of it isn’t the sweet and insipid stuff of stereotype, whenever I’m in wine-buying mode there always seems to be something else on the shelf that pulls me in more.  In fact, I’m pretty sure that this, Wine Review #82, is Pop & Pour’s first rosé write-up.  Yikes.  I promise to do better in the future.

While this is PnP’s inaugural rosé feature, it’s the second wine from the Dirty Laundry winery in Summerland, BC that I’ve reviewed, and (thankfully) the first I haven’t been horribly disappointed in.  For those of you who missed the tale of my September visit to Dirty Laundry and my lack of admiration for their Madam’s Vines Gewürztraminer, click here for the full scoop.  This rosé was the only other wine I grabbed from DL, and the wine in their cellar-door tasting lineup that I liked the most, so I popped and poured tonight hoping for bigger and better things.

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Wine Review: 2010 Tantalus Riesling

23 11 2011

I feel like I’ve been remiss in not writing this review until now, seeing as how my visit to Tantalus might have been the highlight of my trip to the Okanagan in September.  I’ve been a fan of the winery (one of the few in Canada about which I can honestly make that claim) for awhile, and actually getting to go there and meet some of the people behind the eye-catching mask-labelled bottles only heightened my respect for who they are and what they do.  I was lucky enough to get a guided tour of both the vineyards and the winery from winemaker David Paterson — which is probably the only reason I was able to answer WSET Advanced exam questions about vertical shoot positioning and replacement cane pruning — and I left there as excited about wine as I’ve ever been.

Believe it or not, this is in a city. Did I mention I'm moving to Kelowna?

Unlike many Okanagan wineries which are based in the hotter, drier southern portion of the valley, Tantalus is located right within Kelowna’s city limits, in as pastoral a setting as possible given that the closest Starbucks is less than 10 minutes away.  All of their wines come from grapes grown directly on their estate, and on the rolling slopes of their vineyards they have planted Pinot Noir and a growing amount of Chardonnay; however, to me at least, they are synonymous with brilliant, high-quality Riesling.  They have some of the oldest Riesling vines in Canada (40+ years) on location, where Kelowna’s relatively cooler but lake-moderated climate is ideal for this hardy, late-ripening Germanic grape.  The winemaker has a clear vision about what he’s trying to achieve with this privileged source material, letting the fruit speak for itself and preserving natural acids, and consistently delivers on the site’s potential.  Although Tantalus also makes a reserve Old Vines Riesling from their decades-old vines (and is starting to experiment with sparkling Riesling as well), tonight’s wine is the producer’s base Riesling bottling, which packs more of a punch than anyone has a right to expect for the sub-$25 price.

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Botani Cork Mystery – Solved!

28 07 2011

OK,  yes I said I was going on vacation, and I am, but I had to post this quickly before I left.  I reviewed the 2010 Jorge Ordonez Botani white from Christopher Stewart Wine & Spirits Imports a couple weeks ago and was a huge fan, but I couldn’t figure out the elaborate graphics on the cork.  Here’s what I saw and the Cork Rating I doled out:

Cork Rating: 6.5/10 (I'm a huge fan of cork graphics, but what is this? A cruise ship and some mountain-castles? I don't get it.)

I had almost forgotten about my confusion over what this cork art represented until this morning, when a comment showed up under my Botani post…from Victoria Ordonez, Jorge Ordonez’s sister and official blogger of Jorge Ordonez & Co.!  Victoria wrote a great piece on the Jorge Ordonez site clarifying what the actual image is on the JO corks (it’s a three-masted ship, not a no-masted ship with mountains behind it, as I myopically guessed) and, more importantly, what it represents of the history of wine-making in Malaga, Spain…check it out here:

http://jorge-ordonez.es/blog/2011/07/28/ship-in-a-bottle/

As a result of this response, I have booked an eye exam and have also retroactively bumped the Botani Cork Rating up to a stellar 8.5/10 — anytime a cork can combine substantial graphics with historical significance, it’s an absolute winner.  If only every producer put this kind of thought and effort into its bottle closures…the world would be a better place.

Officially on vacation now…see you next week!


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Wine Review: 2010 Forrest Wines The Doctors’ Riesling

26 07 2011

If you have ever read this blog before, it will likely not shock you to learn that I love Riesling.  It is probably my all-time favourite grape, and even though I drink more red wine than white, I probably drink more Riesling than any other varietal.  I’ve had Rieslings from Germany and Austria, France and Australia, Canada and the US…but never from New Zealand, until tonight.  I wasn’t even aware that any meaningful focus was being placed on Riesling in NZ until last week; even though it’s a cold climate wine country that seems particularly well-suited to grow the grape, the world’s (and my) focus on New Zealand wine has been locked squarely on the country’s star vinous attraction, Sauvignon Blanc, with Pinot Noir starting to make rumblings far behind.  At the moment, Riesling barely registers.  But I think it makes such food-friendly, versatile, intriguing and profound wines that the right people growing Riesling in the right spots in the country could open a lot of eyes, sow the seeds of a new NZ white wine revolution and start budging the Sauv Blanc monolith.  Forrest Wines could well be one of the producers at the forefront of this kind of movement. Read the rest of this entry »


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Wine Review: 2010 Zestos Vinos de Madrid Blanco

20 07 2011

Malvar! You can't really see it in this picture, but the neck of the bottle says "Ole 'No Brainer' NB". Randomest neck foil ever?

Time to venture into the obscure!  Aside from being the first wine I’ve ever had out of an orange-tinted bottle, tonight’s vino is also the first wine I’ve ever had made from the Malvar grape.  Raise your hands if you’ve ever heard of “Malvar” before.  If your hand is currently resting on your lap, or if it’s up in the air but you’re lying through your teeth, you’re not alone:  even my most reference-y wine books had never heard of it.  The New Wine Lover’s Companion by Ron and Sharon Herbst is literally a dictionary of wine knowledge, but “Malvar” doesn’t show up in it.  Oz Clarke’s Grapes & Wines is a 300+ page book ONLY about the various different grape varietals, hundreds of them listed in alphabetical order, and “Malvar” is nowhere to be found.  In Jancis Robinson’s The Oxford Companion to Wine, which is a monolithic 800-page wine encyclopedia and probably the most famous wine reference book in the world, “Malvar” gets less than 30 words of attention:  “Malvar, white grape commonly grown around Madrid producing slightly rustic wines but with more body and personality than the ubiquitous Airen.”  Wow, thanks.  Basically, we’re on our own for this one. Read the rest of this entry »


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Wine Review: 2010 Jorge Ordonez Botani Moscatel Seco

6 07 2011

Summer is finally, briefly here -- I have just the wine.

It’s wines like this that make a good local wine shop (or a friendly neighbourhood blog) so important.  Apart from an atypically stylish label, this wine has nothing going for it that would normally make you pick it up off the shelf:  it’s not bargain-basement cheap (usual retail is $25ish), it comes from a completely obscure region (Sierras de Malaga) in a country (Spain) that is not at all known for its white wines, and it’s made from a grape (Moscatel Seco, otherwise known as dry Muscat) that doesn’t exactly have Chardonnay-esque market appeal.  Why have a $25 Muscat from southern Spain when you can stick to Wolf Blass and Kim Crawford and avoid risking that kind of cash on the unknown?  Because it’s freaking awesome, that’s why.  Thanks to a good wine store initially talking me into taking the plunge, I’ve now tracked down Botani in three successive new vintages, possibly the longest streak in my brief wine-collecting career, and if I can encourage some of you to be similarly adventurous then this blog will be worth its while. Read the rest of this entry »


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Wine Review: 2010 H. Stagnari Chardonnay “De Virginia”

10 05 2011

Brian from Ferocious Grape doesn’t owe me money.

When I was somewhat skeptical (read: incredulous) about the idea of paying over $20 for a Chardonnay from the vinuous hotbed of Uruguay as he was suggesting, we made a bet:  if I tried the wine and gave it less than 85 points on PnP, he’d buy it back from me.  Always one to step up to a challenge and jump at the chance of drinking guaranteed wine from random South American countries, I grabbed the bottle and made plans to crack it ASAP.  After a weekend of extravagant wine drinking, I thought there was no better way to get my palate down to Earth than with a solid bottle of Uruguaian Chardonnay… Read the rest of this entry »


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Wine Review: 2010 Kung Fu Girl Riesling

5 04 2011

Don't judge a book by its annoying gimmicky cover.

Since I went higher-end last time and reviewed a wine that was likely too expensive, too uncommon and too mediocre for anyone reading this to ever try it, I thought tonight I would go with a wine that you can find EVERYWHERE and that comes in at under $20 CDN:  the Kung Fu Girl Riesling by Charles Smith Wines in Washington State.  You’ve probably seen the black and white labels of Charles Smith’s line of value wines, which also include the Velvet Devil Merlot and Boom Boom Syrah, in almost every liquor store you’ve been in over the past few years; I got this one at Superstore Liquorstore for $17.  Smith is an icon on the Washington wine scene, partly due to his bizarre background (he was a rock band manager before becoming a winery owner, and still has the hair to prove it), partly because he’s a natural born marketer, and partly because he’s becoming increasingly adept at combining solid quality with value price in a bottle of wine.  He has a few Serious Wine labels like his K Vintners production line, which focuses on pricy and top-quality Syrah from some of the best vineyards in the State, but his main focus seems to be on his more budget-conscious lines.  This Riesling is actually a single-vineyard bottling (quite surprising at this price — usually cheap wines are blends from multiple vineyards), from the Evergreen Vineyard due west of Spokane in eastern Washington. Read the rest of this entry »


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