Bricks Wine Advent Calendar 2019: Day 24

24 12 2019

By Peter Vetsch

Another year, another Advent, another calendar complete, and another December blogging marathon brought to the finish line.  After 24 days and 24 different half-bottles, I am left partly eager to again regain access to my own cellar and my own agency in terms of nightly wine selections, but mostly impressed at the tremendous range and consistent quality of the 2019 Bricks Advent Calendar.  For my money, this third edition of Bricks’ December crate was by far the best to date, with no bottle (other than the one impacted by the Chateauneuf-du-Pape curse, a mystic force beyond mortal defences) a disappointment and all of them compellingly showcasing their varietal and region with admirable typicity, all for a price tag averaging a shade under $20 per split.  That’s not an easy feat, but it was accomplished with flair — mark me down for next year’s calendar already.

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Our annual Pop & Pour Advent tradition is to wrap up our calendar coverage with each author’s Advent podium wines, as well as a dark horse candidate that particularly captured their attention.  In order to ensure neutrality and avoid cross-contamination of opinions, all three of us separately wrote down and submitted our lists; any overlaps (and there were many) are a testament to the wines involved and not a function of any groupthink.  If you had a Bricks calendar for 2019 and have been following along, let us know your top 3 wines in the comments below!  Without further ado, our list of winners:

Ray Lamontagne’s Top 3 Wines

  1. 2015 Ken Wright Cellars Freedom Hill Vineyard Pinot Noir (Day 23):  A  pure, seamless meld of power and complexity.
  2. 2016 Kettle Valley Winery Pinot Gris (Day 11):  The freshest side of orange wine.
  3. 2017 Robert Biale Vineyards “Royal Punishers” Petite Sirah (Day 14):  A purple behemoth that is not without subtleties.
  4. DARK HORSE — Porto Quevedo 10 Year Old Tawny Port (Day 8):  An old style from a small yet classic house.

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Tyler Derksen’s Top 3 Wines

  1. 2015 Ken Wright Cellars Freedom Hill Vineyard Pinot Noir (Day 23):  Bold yet structured, this wine delivered at every level.  Perhaps a bit predictable after last year’s Top 3 lists from Peter and Ray, but this bottle deserves the top spot.
  2. 2016 Kettle Valley Winery Pinot Gris (Day 11):  Easily the biggest surprise of the calendar for me.  Mild disappointment (I’m not a huge fan of Pinot Gris) turned a complete 180 when I brought the glass to my nose.  Wonderfully balanced, this exemplifies what orange wine can be when done right.
  3. 2016 d’Arenberg “The Noble” Wrinkled Riesling (Day 22):  This made my list for pure hedonistic pleasure.  It may not be perfectly balanced, but a flower-shop nose keeps this from being one-note.
  4. DARK HORSE — 2017 Robert Biale Vineyards “Royal Punishers” Petite Sirah (Day 14):  This was definitely in the running for the podium until the last few days.  Evilly dark, the myriad of notes on the nose and palate made this both delicious and interesting.

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My Top 3 Wines

  1. 2015 Ken Wright Cellars Freedom Hill Vineyard Pinot Noir (Day 23):  A Ken Wright back-to-back calendar sweep.  He takes no Advent prisoners.  The biggest point of intrigue this year was the remarkably stark difference between this dark, rocky Freedom Hill Pinot and last calendar’s bright, elegant Shea Vineyard Pinot, especially since each hail from the same 2015 vintage!  Terroir indeed.
  2. 2016 Kettle Valley Winery Pinot Gris (Day 11):  Probably my most memorable calendar wine, that perfect combination of orange wine’s bitter phenolics and white wine’s purity of fruit.
  3. 2017 Robert Biale Vineyards “Royal Punishers” Petite Sirah (Day 14):  A true statement of identity, and a clarion call of Petite Sirah’s suitability in California.  A deep, dense, gritty, lasting experience.
  4. DARK HORSE — 2016 K.H. Schenider Dornfelder Trocken (Day 2):  The World’s Best Dornfelder™ is an old friend whose acquaintance I made a while ago, but it never ceases to thrill and impress.  Each successive bottle is a reminder of the potential of this grape when grown in the right spots and handled the right way.

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All I know is that I will be heading out and grabbing some Ken Wright (full bottle versions) during Boxing Week — no Advent calendar will ever be the same unless he’s involved.  As Advent reaches its zenith, consistent with Bricks tradition, we finish off the long and winding road of the calendar with both a toast to the journey of the past 24 days and a half-bottle of bubbles to allow us to make it.  Tonight’s wrapping paper slips off to reveal the Pol Roger Brut Reserve NV, probably the most compelling sparkler to grace a calendar to date, from one of my favourite Champagne houses.  I first tried Pol Roger in WSET class, where it was held up as an exemplar of what classic Champagne should resemble.  This Reserve version of Roger’s standard NV Brut bottling takes its status as comparison reference seriously:  it is a roughly equal blend of all three grapes of Champagne (Pinot Noir, Pinot Meunier and Chardonnay), with 25% of older reserve wines from Pol Roger’s cellars added to the base vintage (2013 or 2014, if I had to guess).  After blending, secondary fermentation and disgorgement takes place 33 metres below ground after regular hand-riddling and around 4 years maturation on lees.

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Our collective Christmas Eve present is a deep straw colour run through with millions of racy pinpoint bubbles that continue their ascent to the top of the glass even after over an hour’s worth of exposure to air.  The eager and festive nose combines vanilla bean, tapioca, butter croissant, lemon drop, black jujube, aloe and toasted almond, albeit in a more focused and chiselled way than the largely confectionary descriptors might suggest.  Rich and almost custardy on the tongue, the Brut Reserve is firmly structured on rails of electric acidity, the only thing restraining the expansive flavours of salted butter, charred lime, matchsticks, Golden Delicious apple, crystallized ginger and fresh caramel.  An extended persistent finish allows for plenty of reflection on where are now are and how far we have come.  A delightful toast to the season, to the upcoming joys of tomorrow morning, and to the sheer lazy pleasure of not having to blog for the rest of the month!  Merry Christmas, all.  Until next Advent.

90- points

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Cork Rating:  7.5/10 (I love the little “PR” logos ringing the metal cork cap. Classy and classic.)


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Bricks Wine Advent Calendar 2019: Day 22

22 12 2019

By Peter Vetsch

Here’s a crazy stat:  this is my FIVE HUNDREDTH published post for Pop & Pour.  The blog itself passed this threshold some time ago thanks to the remarkable contributions of Ray and Tyler in recent years (as brilliantly evidenced by their kick-ass daily Advent coverage this month), but this is my personal milestone post.  It’s been close to nine years since I started this blog with limited direction or aspiration, as a vehicle for a passion I didn’t fully know how to express.  I don’t know what I was expecting out of it, but to still be dutifully doing it so many years later (and to have at minimum elevated myself to a self-professed connoisseur on boozy Advent calendars while I’m at it) probably already surpasses any initial blogging goals.  Thanks for reading along; if it wasn’t for you, this probably wouldn’t still be happening.

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Perhaps Bricks cosmically knew that this was going to be a more monumental night of blogging, or perhaps I subconsciously lined up my name on the Advent schedule to align with the one bottle in this year’s calendar that was definitively not like the others, but it became apparent almost immediately that this was not a standard half-bottle of wine.  First, it was taller than a standard-sized 750 mL bottle (!!), a good 3-4 inches taller than any other bottle in the Bricks crate.  Second, it was slender throughout, a thin lengthy cylinder without curves.  Before the wrapping even came off, only one style of half-bottle seemed to fit:  dessert wine.  But it wasn’t in a Germanic flute shape or a standard Bordeaux bottle, and I had my doubts that the calendar would culminate in ice wine, sooo…what’s left?

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The 2016 d’Arenberg “The Noble” Wrinkled Riesling, that’s what; a continuation of Australia’s surprisingly rich tradition of sweet winemaking.  This particular bottling began by pure circumstance:  in 1985, one of d’Arenberg’s Riesling vineyards was discovered to have become infected with the beneficial mould botrytis cinerea, which grows on the surface of the grape berries and gradually leaches the water out of them, leaving them shrivelled, dehydrated, fuzzy and rather gross-looking but internally composed of ultra-sweet, ultra-concentrated, ultra-flavourful essence (all of the acids and sugars and flavours of the grape, without the extra water to dilute them) that when vinified creates the most majestic sweet wines known to man (for my money, anyway).  There’s nothing to be done when you discover botrytis but to (1) make wine out of the result and then (2) try to duplicate the conditions to have it show up again next year:  humidity, especially fog, in the morning, followed by sun and drier conditions later on, so that the cinerea fungus attaches to the grapes but does not accelerate into full-blown grey rot.  It is a difficult balancing exercise that results in precious little wine (imagine pressing and vinifying juice out of a raisin to understand why), but the reward is emphatically worth the risk and the effort.

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Size comparison: a standard 750 mL bottle (L) and this freakishly tall half-bottle (R).

After their initial accidental introduction to the world of botrytized winemaking, d’Arenberg has become something of an old hand at it, now producing three different nobly rotted dessert wines under their “The Noble” lineup.  This bottling used to simply be known as The Noble Riesling before later being revised to the Wrinkled Riesling to reflect the physique of the grapes after botrytis has had its way.  I would have loved to be in the marketing meeting where that decision was made.  Not that I have any doubt about d’Arenberg or its branding, all of which is specifically selected to tell a story.  The winery is named for the maiden name of founder Frank Osborn’s wife Helen, who died tragically immediately after childbirth at the age of 31; the child who was born healthy just before this event was Frank and Helen’s son Francis d’Arenberg Osborn, who everyone simply called d’Arry, partly in honour of his mother’s lineage.  It was d’Arry who give the winery its current name (in 1959, well after Frank started growing grapes in 1912, or making wine in 1928), as well as its distinctive red label stripe on a white background, representative of the crimson and white striped school tie that d’Arry wore in college.  The d’Arenberg coat of arms features that stripe, a symbol of fertility, a bunch of grapes, and the motto “Vinum Vita Est” — “Wine Is Life”.  Says it all.

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Stelvin Rating: 9/10 (The colour, the coat of arms, the motto – pure poetry.)

Every single one of d’Arenberg’s myriad of wines is fermented via traditional basket press, including this one, and all the reds are foot-trodden to this day.  The Wrinkled Riesling is a 50/50 blend of McLaren Vale and Adelaide Hills Riesling, hence the dual-appellation labelling that I’m not sure I’ve ever previously seen on any bottle.  The tech specs beggar belief:  a 2.98 pH and 10.8 g/L of Titratable Acid run smack dab into an astonishing 253.3 g/L of residual sugar at 9.5% ABV — this was surely the alcohol level where the fermenting yeasts simply gave up and died in such a densely sweet environment.  This is unbelievably viscous emerging from the bottle, like motor oil, and eventually settles in the glass a majestic steeped-tea-meets-maple-syrup deep amber colour.  Then the fireworks begin.

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An explosion of florals is the first sensation I record — Easter lily, daisy, marigold, daffodil.  Then comes the cavalcade of dessert aromas, in rapid-fire fashion:  key lime pie, Fuzzy Peaches, manuka honey, marmalade.  This intoxicating mixture is cut only by that telltale orange peel, lemongrass, apple cider vinegar citric/herbal tang that botrytis cinerea leaves behind at the scene of the crime, the calling card of its dehydration caper.  After I resign myself to the fact that I can’t possibly drink this all in one sitting, I settle into its exquisite, eye-opening sweetness and its sensual lusciousness, sliding in slow motion down the throat and coating every square inch with layers of lemon curd, salted caramel, rosehips, dried mango, apricot and pineapple upside-down cake, still pulsating for at least a minute after I swallow.  The recorded acid is elevated, but it is barely present in the field, not quite able to maintain a sense of liveliness in the face of the torrent of glorious sugar.  This leads to a slight yet growing sense of heaviness as the wine warms up and the sips multiply, so enjoy in moderation…but that can be the hardest thing to do when what’s in the glass is this unspeakably delicious.  Two days left and we’re headed to a crescendo.

90- points


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Bricks Wine Advent Calendar 2019: Day 19

19 12 2019

By Peter Vetsch

Some New World sites are unlike anything that came before them, with no obvious comparator from the Old World to help tell their story; Australia’s Barossa Valley and Washington’s Rocks District of Milton-Freewater are good examples of places that, to me at least, don’t taste like anything except themselves.  Other non-European regions have a clear cross-reference to a classic vinifera haunt, a reasonable facsimile in the Old World that allows for an easy introduction.  Think the Willamette Valley and Burgundy.  Australia’s Margaret River falls in the latter camp, and has the benefit of two different European doppelgängers:  its Cabernet-based reds are routinely compared to those of Bordeaux, but its other specialty, Chardonnay, is very Burgundian in essence, combining acid and texture and a regal sort of presence in a way that makes you understand why this recently maligned grape remains at or near the pinnacle of white wine expressions.  I have a massive soft spot for the wines of Margaret River, so it was with great delight that Day 19 was revealed to have come all the way from Down Under.

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Voyager Estate was one of the first wineries to be established in Margaret River, located south of Perth in the southwest corner of Australia.  Its first vineyards were planted in 1978, a decade or so after the inaugural winery in the region saw its start.  Voyager now has five different estate vineyards spanning roughly 110 hectares, all located in a privileged position:  in the Stevens Valley, a spit of land that protrudes directly out into the Indian Ocean, to the point where its vineyards are surrounded by water on three sides, in the so-called “Golden Triangle” of Chardonnay, according to James Halliday.  Voyager is one point of the triangle; its neighbours Leeuwin Estate (along with Vasse Felix’s Heytesbury, the makers of the finest Margaret River Chard I’ve had to date, courtesy of its Artist Series) and Cape Mentelle form the other two.  The vineyards in this area have the benefit of taking root in the oldest soils in the country, gravel-based lands dating back thousands of millions of years (!!), and being kept cool by continuous swirling breezes that help prevent rot and allow for longer hang time.

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The team at Voyager is meticulous to near-OCD levels in the vineyard, striving for absolute uniformity in each block of vines:  careful pruning aims for the exact same number of buds, shoots and bunches per vine to ensure even and contemporaneous ripeness.  The winery is serious about its non-interventionist approach and its goal to express the purity of its soils, which plays out across all steps of the planting, picking and winemaking process:  the vineyards are organic (or in the process of converting thereto), all fruit is from estate plantings, all grapes are hand-harvested, all fermentation is with natural yeasts, and the winery has recently become carbon neutral.  Tonight’s offering, the 2016 Voyager Estate Chardonnay, spent just under a year in tight-grained French oak barrels with only partial malolactic fermentation in an effort to hit that intoxicating combination of texture and acid that only this grape can do justice.

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Stelvin Rating:  6/10 (This screwcap is weirdly difficult to photograph in focus, but it’s a Stelvin + in my book.  I should really fix that dent in the table.)

Everything starts out in highly promising fashion:  the wine is a brilliant gleaming lemon-gold colour as it hits the glass and starts beaming aromas before my nose is even halfway there.  It is a Burgundian dream aromatically, toasty chestnuts (open fire included), coconut crisps, pecan pie and popcorn kernels joyously interweaving with lemon curd, fresh pear and apple crisp fruit.  There was some consensus amongst our Advent blogging group that this might be pretty close to the nose of the calendar so far.  Then a few seams start showing.  The acid is vicious but almost hyperactive, like a tiny lapdog constantly nipping at your ankles.  The broad, full texture seems like a disparate entity, hitting just a touch out of rhythm, almost like you’re drinking two wines at once.  It’s a vertigo-inducing feeling, like a bassist that’s half a beat behind the rest of the band.  Smoke, custard, bananas Foster, lemon meringue and toffee notes play an enticing song, but I’m too stuck wondering why the tempo isn’t in sync to be able to fully sink into it.  I know this is a winery of impeccable credentials, and I can tell this Chardonnay has all of the elements of a winner, but despite being delicious it currently comes across a little bit scattered.  By this point in the calendar, I feel the same way.

88- points


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Bricks Wine Advent Calendar 2019: Day 17

17 12 2019

By Peter Vetsch

Ladies and gentlemen, there is a week left in Advent.  As our December wine journey starts wending its way to the finish line, Tyler yesterday rightly complimented the calendar on its diversity and variety to date, commenting on how every day has been a fresh and exciting adventure to a different place, grape or style.  Perhaps that triggered the jinx, or perhaps we fell into a trap set by the 7s, but tonight’s Day 17 reveals a strikingly familiar face, one just seen back on Day 7:  Clarence Dillon’s Clarendelle.  Whereas our first week of Advent ended with the Clarendelle red, our last week of the calendar starts with the 2018 Clarendelle Bordeaux Blanc.

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Tyler covered the history of Clarendelle in detail in Day 7’s entry, noting that it was a recent effort of Clarence Dillon Wines to create a brand-based and price-conscious Bordeaux wine “inspired by Haut-Brion”, another winery forming part of the Dillon empire, with some help from the Haut-Brion winemaking team.  I’m not sure I fully buy this motto, which is notably plastered on this half-bottle’s front label; “inspired by Haut-Brion” is largely code for “I also own Haut-Brion and can say this without being sued”.  That said, if I owned Haut-Brion I would probably put its name on everything else I owned too.  The man who purchased the great First Growth in 1935 has a few impressive buys on his resume:  a legendary financier, Dillon pulled the Goodyear company out of receivership, and then later bought Dodge, and then Chrysler, all within the span of six years and all before dropping 2,300,000 francs on Haut-Brion.  He was basically the Monopoly man.  His son, also named Clarence Dillon, was the US Secretary of the Treasury and the Ambassador to France.  And the prince of Luxembourg is in the family tree somewhere.  You get the idea.

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White wines used to make up half of Bordeaux’s production not even 60 years ago; now they are less than 10%, as a combination of soil-based vineyard replanting and shifting consumer tastes have seen the region focus more and more on Cab- and Merlot-based red blends.  Most of Bordeaux’s whites are blends of Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon, with a smattering of Muscadelle here and there (I initially thought these three were the only permitted white grapes of Bordeaux, only to be roundly corrected by the following Rolodex of allowable white varietals:  Sauvignon Gris, Ugni Blanc, Colombard, Merlot Blanc (??), Ondenc and Mauzac [at least possibly made-up], Albarino, Petit Manseng and Liliorila).  There are less than 1,000 hectares of Muscadelle planted in all of Bordeaux, the bulk of which is used as a floral-accented blending component to sweet wines like Sauternes. It is a delicate, fragile and discreet grape, not known for prominence either in any part of its flavour profile or in any notable white Bordeaux blends.  Its name notwithstanding, it is not related at all to the Muscat grape family, instead arriving on the scene as a crossing between an unknown vinifera parent and Gouais Blanc, a grape that’s utterly un-noteworthy on its own but has some remarkable procreation skills, acting as parent for a large swath of vinifera grapes (like Chardonnay) that we currently know and love.

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I mention all of this because my first thought when I saw the blend composition on this bottle, uttered out loud in spite of myself, was:  “That is a sh*t ton of Muscadelle.”  The Clarendelle website helpfully advises that they sometimes add “a touch of Muscadelle in certain vintages” of their Bordeaux Blanc; the 2018 vintage is 42% Semillon, 30% Sauvignon Blanc and 28% Muscadelle.  I have never seen that much Muscadelle in a single wine ever (although there is apparently a 100% Muscadelle Bordeaux Blanc out there, which I now must track down).  The combo of Muscadelle and Semillon means that 70% of this white is made up of restrained, reticent varietals — can the Sauvignon Blanc minority pump up the volume and bring out the extrovert in this wine?  (Spoiler: no.)

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Cork Rating:  5.5/10 (Elegant font and graphics, although the composites aren’t my favourites.)

The 2018 Clarendelle is a pale but vibrant lemon colour and emerges elegantly if cautiously in the glass.  Its strikingly alpine, floral nose conjures up crystal clear images of that mountaintop field of flowers in every Sound of Music poster or Ricola commercial, honey-lemon Halls meets honeysuckle meets liquid nitrogen, with hints of crystallized pineapple lurking around the edges.  This delicate Swiss chorus is joined on the palate by white grape (maybe Muscadelle is like Muscat in actually bringing out grape flavours), pear, tonic water, lime popsicle, rock dust and white tea flavours, laced with a touch of Semillon’s lanolin, the acid quietly tremulous as if unsure where to cut in.  The overall combination is pleasantly neutral, if sort of self-effacing as a result, the wine not really flashing its personality until a finish that lasts way longer than you might expect.  Haut-Brion it is not (percentage of Muscadelle in the 2018 Haut-Brion Blanc:  0%), but as far as introductory signposts to Bordeaux blanc go, it strikes the right chords, if in a slightly tentative manner.

87+ points


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Bricks Wine Advent Calendar 2019: Day 16

16 12 2019

By Tyler Derksen

After a bit of a hiccup on Friday (the 13th, so you’d think I would have seen it coming), things quickly got back on track with the Bricks Advent Calendar, and today continues that trend.  Over this past weekend, I was speaking with a friend and extolling the virtues of a wine Advent calendar.  The obvious benefit is that I get a couple glasses of wine every evening to help me get into the holiday spirit.  The other benefit is that the wine world is so varied and this year’s calendar is taking full advantage, allowing for a vast exploration of styles, grapes and regions over a quick 24 days.  And so it is that on Day 16, we get to taste yet another classic varietal from a storied wine-making area.

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Tonight’s wine is a Nebbiolo from Langhe in Piedmont, Italy.  While Barbera and Dolcetto are also grown in Piedmont, the true star of the region is Nebbiolo.  The wines made from this grape can vary in style depending on where it is grown, even within Piedmont, but it is the grape from which both Barbaresco and Barolo, true all-stars of Italian wine, are produced.  Interestingly, the wines produced in Piedmont are very often single varietals, as compared to much of the rest of Italy where the wines are often blends (much in the same way that Burgundy differs from the rest of France for this same reason).  Langhe is a region within Piedmont that itself includes Barolo and Barbaresco.  The more general Langhe designation is given to wines that do not adhere to the strict  geographical or production requirements of Barolo, Barbaresco or other D.O.C.G. requirements.

La Spinetta, the producer of today’s libation, is one that is well known to me.  I was first introduced to the winery when I tried its Bricco Quaglia Moscato d’Asti.  Truth be told, I’m not a huge fan of bubbles (aged Champagne excepted of course), and so this was a revelation to me.  Inexpensive and low in alcohol, the Bricco Quaglia quickly became my go-to bottle whenever bubbles were needed, and it has become a bottle of choice for my extended family for pre-dinner drinks.  As it turns out, there is very good reason for this, as La Spinetta began its life as a Moscato d’Asti producer.  While it may not have the lengthy multi-generational history that some of the producers highlighted in the past couple of weeks have had, it has been in operation for over 40 years.  The winery was founded in 1977 by Giuseppe and Lidia Rivetti in Castagnole delle Lanze in the Italian province of Asti, and it remains a family-owned and -run winery to this day.  In 1978, it produced its first Moscato d’Asti (the aforementioned Bricco Quaglia), which was the first ever single-vineyard Moscato d’Asti in Italy.  It was not until 1985 that the first red wine was produced.  Since that time, after purchasing several other vineyards in Piedmont and Tuscany, La Spinetta now produces wines from a range of varietals, making approximately 650,000 bottles of wine per year: 30% Moscato d’Asti, 24% Sangiovese, 22% Barbera d’Asti and Barbera d’Alba, 10% Nebbiolo, 8% Barbaresco, 4% Barolo (note: Barbaresco and Barolo are also made from the Nebbiolo grape) and 2% Chardonnay.

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Anyone familiar with La Spinetta’s line of red wines will immediately recognize the image of the rhinoceros on the label (the winery’s bottlings of Barolo use a lion on the label instead).  La Spinetta’s website has a page dedicated to the label rhino and I was excited to learn the significance.  Remarkably, there isn’t one, which kind of makes the use of the rhino on so many of La Spinetta’s wines that much more amazing.  The lead winemaker (and son of founder Giuseppe Rivetti) Giorgio Rivetti has always been fond of this rhino woodcut by German artist Albrecht Dürer and decided that it would be used on the labels.  I love that the story behind the image is actually a non-story and, as with so much when it comes to wine, “because I like it” is the only reason needed.  [Note: After I wrote this, I looked back at last year’s calendar and realized that much of this was already covered with great eloquence by Ray Lamontagne when he wrote about this wine’s sibling, the 2013 Ca’ Di Pian Barbera d’Asti.]

That’s all well and good, but we’re here tonight to talk about the 2014 La Spinetta Langhe Nebbiolo.  The grapes for this bottle are harvested from vineyards in Starderi and Neive, which are located south of Asti and just slightly to the northeast of Alba, from vines approximately 19 to 22 years of age.  After being harvested in early to mid-October,  the wine is aged for 12 months in used French barrels that have been medium toasted.  From there, the wine is aged for two months in stainless steel vats before being bottled.

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Cork rating: 3 out of 10.  It gets points for correctly identifying the region and varietal…that’s it.

The wine is a light transparent red in the glass and at just five years of age is already starting to show some brick colouring at the edges, a clear characteristic of the varietal.  The nose is classic Piedmontese Nebbiolo: newly paved roadway, dark cherry, liquorice, leather upholstery, fresh dirt, ammonia, dried roses, oregano and rosemary come together to present a bold precursor to the palate.  Wow, that first sip.  Nebbiolo as a grape produces wines that contain massive amounts of both acid and tannin, and this wine hits you with both.  Yet the wine assimilates these with ease and places the focus more on flavours of strawberry, black currant, fig, prune and Terry’s Chocolate Orange, and a soft, elegant floral/perfume note that leads into a lengthy finish.  A modern, friendly and delicious take on old-school Nebbiolo.

89 points


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Bricks Wine Advent Calendar: Day 13

13 12 2019

By Tyler Derksen

While this is my first year contributing to Pop & Pour’s Advent Calendar blogging efforts, I have been a loyal reader since the site’s inception and followed the recounting of the wines in prior calendars with great interest.  Like fan of a TV show seeing a character from past seasons rejoin the cast, I was excited and trepidatious in equal measure when I removed the wrapping on today’s wine: Chateauneuf-du-Pape!  Bottles of Chateauneuf-du-Pape have had a…spotty…calendar history (both the 2012 Domaine Chante Cigale in 2017 and the 2013 Domaine de Cristia in 2018), so much so that Peter, blogging both of them, worried that he might be cursed.  So, will history repeat or will the one year that Peter doesn’t write about it be the year that Chateauneuf-du-Pape shines?  Let’s find out!

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While the wine making tradition at Chateau de la Gardine dates back to the 1700s, the current ownership of the winery began in 1945 with its purchase by Gaston Brunel.  It is now run by his two sons, Patrick and Maxime, along with their wives and children.  The Chateau originally consisted of 10 hectares of vineyards when acquired by Brunel and has grown dramatically since then, now consisting of 52 hectares, the vast majority of which (48 of the 52) grow the various red grapes permitted in Chateauneuf-du-Pape that make up their blend.  In regular format, the Chateauneuf-du-Pape from Chateau de la Gardine is bottled in distinct and unique bottles that found their original design from a hand-blown bottle uncovered by Gaston Brunel when he was looking to expand his cellar.  Struck by the design, he decided that all of his wines would use a similar bottle.  His dedication to this aesthetic was so great that he had to go to Italy to find a glass supplier that was able to produce it for him.  As with many bottles from the region, the regular 750 mL format also has the traditional keys of Saint Peter, the hallmark of Chateauneuf-du-Pape, embossed in the glass.  Sadly the half-bottle contains neither the unique shape nor the embossed keys (they are, however, on the label…it wouldn’t be a Chateauneuf-du-Pape without them).

Today’s bottle is the 2015 Chateau de la Gardine Chateauneuf-du-Pape.  Although legally permitted to use eight different red grapes in its blend (Grenache, Syrah, Mourvedre, Cinsault, Muscardin, Counoise, Vaccarese and Terret Noir), Chateau de la Gardine uses only four: 60% Grenache, 20% Syrah, 15% Mourvedre and 5% Muscardin, all picked from vines between 40 and 60 years of age.  Those vines are grown in three different types of soils.  The first is comprised of large, round alpine stones; second, Urgonian limestone; and third, sandy clay soils, all of which impart different characteristics into the grapes and then into the wine.  Unlike many producers, Chateau de la Gardine blends the grapes before vinification.  The producer believes that using this more regionally traditional method gives the wine better balance than if the grapes are fermented separately and mixed afterwards.  Once fermented, the wines are then aged between 9 and 14 months, 60% in vats and 40% in oak barrels.  The winery suggests that its Chateauneuf-du-Pape can be cellared for between 10 to 15 years, so we’re diving into this bottle early — good thing the half-bottle format speeds up maturation.

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Cork rating: 5 out of 10.  While the image of the chateau is a nice touch, I was really hoping to see the Keys of St. Peter on the cork.  How am I supposed to know this is a CNDP?

So, have we shaken the Advent Calendar CNDP curse or did CNDP score the most unfortunate of hat tricks?  As it turns out, the latter.  This should come as a bit of a relief to Peter as it proves that he is not personally cursed, just all Chateauneuf-du-Papes in all Advent Calendars.  Based on my own personal experience tasting wines from this region, and also based on tasting notes of others for this particular wine (both Peter’s and Ray’s half-bottles tonight were corked), I have to assume that my bottle is also flawed and that the liquid in my glass does not reflect what this wine truly has to offer.  The nose is incredibly muted and what notes are there are reflective of my past experiences with corked bottles and contains little of the hallmarks of traditional CNDP wines.  Musty locker room shower, carpet, ash, and vegetable peels dominate what little nose there is.  The palate is incredibly thin, displaying none of the dark berry, kirsch, tobacco and leather notes I’m told should be present.  It’s a shame that this wine did not show its potential as I truly love wines from this region.  If nothing else, this continues a humorous, if luckless, storyline.  If there’s a Chateauneuf-du-Pape in next year’s calendar, Ray’s got to write about it.

Not scored: flawed


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Bricks Wine Advent Calendar 2019: Day 12

12 12 2019

By Peter Vetsch

Halfway!!  As I picked up bottle #12 of the Bricks half-bottle lineup and noted that my yearly Advent crate was starting to look considerably more spacious than it once did, the thought briefly flickered that I should celebrate getting this far.  And as soon as I held the bottle in my hand, I knew that the calendar was giving me my wish.  It was heavier, heftier, thicker, the top oddly bulbous beneath the wrapping paper.  Bubbles.  Again.  I started off this year’s Advent adventure with some excellent Ontario fizz, and I’m scheduled to be on deck for December 24th, when the Bricks calendar has finished off for the past two years with more sparkling wine, so I am apparently the 2019 bubbles guy.  I do Advent bubbles like Ray does Advent Austria.  Bring it.

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The halfway point celebration wine is perhaps slightly more ubiquitous and within-the-lines than the starting line Tawse Spark, featuring the sparkling wine that now seems globally inescapable:  Prosecco.  Hailing from a rather vast area encompassing both the Veneto and Friuli regions in northeast Italy, and made from the Glera grape (which used to be confusingly called “Prosecco” as well, because Italians responsible for wine designations love confusing people), Prosecco has recently exploded in popularity, in part because it’s tremendously inexpensive as compared to Champagne, in part because its cheaper and volume-friendly pressurized tank secondary fermentation process (the Charmat process) results in no yeasty autolytic flavour characteristics that can be challenging for casual drinkers, and in part because the trade body there knows a thing or two about marketing.  The wines are almost uniformly pleasant, crisp and inoffensive, although higher quality offerings exist:  within the broader Prosecco DOC there are four much smaller area-focused DOCGs, the most well-known of which is Prosecco Conegliano Valdobbiadene Superiore DOCG.  Tonight’s bottle, the Adriano Adami “Garbel” Prosecco Brut, comes from a middle-ground subregion, Prosecco Treviso DOC, located in the heart of the region and just beneath all of the DOCGs.

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When I say “beneath”, I mean both “south of” and “below”, as the DOCG vineyards tend to be on steep green hillsides, with Treviso a bit lower in the foothills.  The Adami family was one of the pioneering growers in Valdobbiadene, but third-generation owners and brothers Armando and Franco Adami have expanded the winery’s foothold and boosted their production to 750,000 bottles annually, about 25% of which is from estate vineyards and the rest from trusted growers.  The Adamis have recognized the quasi-flatland Treviso roots of this particular bottling by having the label stretch similarly flat and horizontal, “to indicate the origin of the grapes from vineyards on the plain”; all of Adami’s other labels are oriented vertically (portrait as opposed to landscape), but this one stretches out to the horizon.  The name “Garbel” is a word from the local dialect for a dry, light, crisp, fresh drink, their goal and approach for this style of wine.

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The Garbel first undergoes temperature-controlled fermentation in stainless steel and then surprisingly gets 3 months of lees contact in tank before being shuttled off to a second and much larger pressurized steel tank for secondary fermentation, whose date (the “Presa di spuma”) is noted on every bottle (in this case, April 2018).  At 13 g/L of residual sugar and 3.2 pH, it is as primed to party as any good Riesling, straining at the very edge of its “Brut” designation.  The wine’s pale lemon colour is accompanied by a cascade of larger, foamier bubbles and clipped aromas of lime zest, green apple, white flowers, cardboard and wildflower honey.  Piquant acidity is turbo-boosted by flailing bubbles, tiny pinprick daggers across the tongue, energetically propelling straight-line Asian pear, honeydew and starfruit flavours laced with a slight bruised-apple mealiness but stopping somewhat abruptly on a finish that reminds me most of pennies in a mall fountain.  2019 Advent has yet to provide a sub-par offering, although this one feels more like a supporting player than a star.

87- points

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Cork Rating:  7/10 (Love the “a d r i a n o  A D A M I” encircling the cork as a mirror of the logo, complete with rectangle border. You never see bubble corks get fancy.)


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Bricks Wine Advent Calendar 2019: Day 11

11 12 2019

By Peter Vetsch

It’s been six days since I have made an Advent wine post, which is almost assuredly the longest Advent blogging break I’ve had in half a decade.  (We won’t talk about the separate full wine review that I published in the meantime, as I prefer to bask in my pretend meandering pace of blogging life.)  Ray and Tyler have done yeoman’s work in the meantime on an array of bottles from the great classic regions and grapes of the world:  Cali Cab and Chardonnay, Bordeaux, Rioja, Port.  This year’s Bricks calendar has done an excellent job canvassing pinpoint takes on the top appellations of wine’s illustrious history.  Surely my return to the fray will yield a similar textbook treasure.

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Um.

Just when the calendar is expected to keep zigging, it zags, and right into an area and grape that I have never found overly compelling in combination.  I don’t pretend to own an encyclopedic knowledge of British Columbia Pinot Gris, but in my experience with it, it has always struck me as a sort of afterthought grape in the province, the kind that you can fairly easily wring some nondescript quasi-tropical tutti fruitti flavour out of and sell for $18 in the tasting room to maintain cash flow year over year.  The great Pinot Gris wines of Alsace, southern Germany (Grauburgunder 4ever!) or even Oregon can be thrillingly rich and savoury and complex, but there is not a ton of striving for greatness with this particular varietal in my home and native land, with the primary focus of the local industry on other, more intriguing vinous options.  So I readied myself for a limpid and forgettable white patio blast, and then…

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Um.

You may think that this is a rosé.  It certainly looks like one.  But the “White Wine” identifier on the bottle label and the 100% Pinot Gris composition of the wine make this impossible; rosé wines must hail from red (or partly red) grapes.  This is an orange wine, a white wine made like a red, where the juice from the crushed grapes is allowed to sit in contact with the skins before or during fermentation and pull out colour, flavour and tannin.  This increasingly popular (or re-popularized, since orange wines date back almost to the start of winemaking history) style of white usually results in wines that are golden or slightly amber in colour, not the brilliant rose gold/bronzed salmon blaze of glory seen in the glass here, because most white wine skins don’t have a ton of pigment to them.  Not so Pinot Gris, whose very name (“grey”) is a nod to the surprising darkness of the grapes’ skins:

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Pinot Gris.  Photo Credit: Rod Heywood. (https://www.flickr.com/photos/15511924@N03/37010425430)

This depth of colour allows for all sorts of interesting orange wine possibilities, including the one brought to us by a Naramata Bench pioneer tonight:  the 2016 Kettle Valley Winery Pinot Gris.  Kettle Valley’s owner/winemakers Tim Watts and Bob Ferguson started out as home winemaking hobbyists before they decided to put an academic background in geology to use and plant their own vineyard.  They were one of the first to plant in Naramata in 1987, and shortly afterward became the third ever licensed winery in the region.  Nearly thirty vintages later, they might be one of the quietest under-the-radar names on the Bench, making a vast assortment of wines, from Merlot/Pinot blends to Zinfandel to solera-style reds; however, they focus equally on the classics, particularly their North Stars, Pinot Noir and Chardonnay.  Orange Pinot Gris slides right into the menagerie.

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The first thing I noticed about this wine was its general “Product of British Columbia” designation in lieu of an appellation name.  This is because the grapes for this Pinot Gris come from multiple different vineyards across more than one recognized wine appellation:  grapes from Okanagan Valley subregions Summerland, Naramata, Okanagan Falls, Penticton and Oliver have variously been employed in the blend over the years, but also grapes from a couple different spots in the neighbouring Similkameen Valley, with the resulting cross-regional mix therefore required to take on the broader provincial designation.  The second thing I noticed was the hefty 14% ABV, the product of these Pinot Gris grapes being harvested into November after a lengthy ripening period and a ton of hang time.  The grapes were crushed and then left to soak for 2-3 days on Pinot Gris’ hyper-pigmented skins before a fermentation that took place partly in barrel and partly in steel tanks.

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Cork Rating:  2/10 (I hereby ban the inclusion of any phone numbers or websites on corks.  Will that work?  Put a train on here or something, guys.)

This is a back-vintage version of the Kettle Valley Pinot Gris, as they have recently released the 2018 version to market, but the bit of extra time in bottle has not slowed this  racy deep pink and copper powerhouse one bit.  The amount of skin contact was expertly timed so as to provide additional complexity and structure without the corresponding bitterness or oxidation that can leach the freshness out of some orange wines (often on purpose).  Piercing aromas of kids multivitamin, freeze-dried watermelon, orange Life Savers and sweet pea are startling in their purity, accented but not hindered by more eclectic notes of salt and vinegar chips and parchment.  This is shockingly vivid, the acid buoyant, the dainty but subtly scrubby tannin providing a three-dimensional tasting experience; tangerine, apricot, public pool and lemon-lime Gatorade (or more accurately its equivalent Gatorgum, if that still exists) strut across the tongue and remain anchored there long after you swallow, demanding that you check your premises and not prematurely abandon hope in any given grape’s potential in a region.  You can keep your Bordeaux and your Riojas — this is currently the wine of the calendar for me.

90+ points


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Bricks Wine Advent Calendar 2019: Day 6

6 12 2019

By Raymond Lamontagne

Oh, California Cab. As one of the world’s benchmark wine styles, victor over Bordeaux in the infamous 1976 Judgment of Paris tasting, this will of course have a place in any wine Advent calendar worth its salt. I also cannot prevent my mind from conjuring up such pejoratives as “overly oaked”, “heavily extracted”, “boozy”, and even “Mega Purple“. I will concede that for many consumers at the time, and many even now, massive size is a virtue. Fortunately a sea change began in the 2000s. A much-needed shift started taking place, from a winemaking culture focused largely on harnessing a technical wine science to yield a consistent product to please the average consumer, towards a “grassroots” middle path where science still matters but is now free to marry more European notions such as restraint, finesse and elegance, and even the notion that reasonable vintage variation can add interest and pleasure to the wine-drinking experience. It is no longer safe to make black and white assumptions about the monolithic nature of Cali Cabernet, and wineries like Starmont have played a key role in this paradigm shift.

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The name Starmont originally graced a bottle of Carneros Chardonnay in 1989. From there the name grew into a full-fledged brand, relocating from its original home with the more established Merryvale brand to the Stanly Ranch property, home to a couple of quality Carneros vineyard sites. Although the wines are no longer produced at a “green” facility built at one of these sites (that facility was sold this year), the commitment to sustainability remains. Although best known for Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, Starmont does not shy away from Merlot or Syrah. There is an interest in seeing how each varietal does in its place, whether said place is the Stanly Ranch itself, the Carneros AVA, or the broader Napa Valley and North Coast AVAs, and this interest in terroir may have something to do with one of the men at the helm.

Starmont winemaker Jeff Crawford was born in Alaska but has managed to become superbly well-travelled, picking up bits and pieces of winemaking knowledge from places as far-flung as Greece. His general approach is to use his travels and reading to cram his brain with as much history, winemaking philosophy, technical acumen, and tasting experiences as possible. His unceasing quest has led to equipment upgrades at the winery, yet Jeff wishes Starmont to remain a “microcosm” of the Carneros region: a source of even-handed, balanced yet structured wines that can still convey some degree of subtlety.

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The 2017 Starmont North Coast Cabernet Sauvignon is bottled under the very broad North Coast AVA appellation, with the grapes hailing from vineyards across the northern part of the state (41% Sonoma, 37% Lake, 13% Napa, 9% Mendocino). The wine is 81% Cabernet Sauvignon, 11% Petite Syrah, and 8% Merlot. This blending approach renders much of the philosophy behind terroir irrelevant for this particular bottle, unless the concept of site specificity is somehow extended to rather large tracts of land that exist as legal entities rather than embodying bona-fide “climats”. Nevertheless, the goal here was to obtain a mix of sites that reveals restraint in the final execution. Handpicked, hand sorted, and de-stemmed fruit was not crushed at the winery, leaving over 90% of the berries whole. This approach, if you were wondering, can prolong fermentation, as sugar release from the berries is delayed. This gives winemakers more control over the process, and can also enhance fruitiness and yield a more delicate, silky texture in the finished wine. After a cold pre-soak, the wine spends an average of 14 days fermenting on the skins and is then aged for 15 months in a combination of American and French oak (30% new).

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Stelvin Rating: 6/10 (hey, this is a decent Stelvin: vinous colour, nice font.)

This is indeed pretty silky in the mouth, with a supple, velvet-like latticework of tannins reinforcing a rather light-bodied frame. The aromas do tick all the right boxes: blackcurrant (duh!), some cool climate black cherry, even maybe red cherry Nibs, Aero bar, Swiss mocha instant coffee mix, nutmeg, MacIntosh’s toffee, very slight red pepper flake and well-worn cedar plank. The oak notes I am pulling off this are assertive but not overly intrusive. All of the ripe yet fresh fruit is powdered with graphite and waves goodbye with a medium-duration plume of oaked red currant jelly. An efficient, seamless purple elegance, one that you will likely enjoy but that is unlikely to provide total recall a year from now.

88+ points


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Bricks Wine Advent Calendar 2019: Day 5

5 12 2019

By Peter Vetsch

I think it’s safe to say that we’ve migrated into our “classics” phase of the 2019 Half-Bottle Wine Advent calendar.  After Canadian bubbles, German red crossings and New York cans, yesterday’s Chianti Classico signalled a bit of a vibe shift, and tonight’s offering got the message loud and clear and has continued the trend.  You don’t get more throwback textbook Old World than Sancerre, a region that has stood the test of time but also run the fairweather gamut of popular opinion over the past few decades.  If this was the 1982 Half-Bottle Advent Calendar, it might be entirely composed of Sancerre; fifteen years before or after might have seen Sancerre wholly excommunicated.  Now it’s making a cautious return, seeking to reclaim (or maybe just re-assert) its status as the spiritual home of Sauvignon Blanc.

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Sancerre is one of the most easterly sub-regions of the long, thin, west-to-east Loire Valley, which ultimately connects to the Atlantic Ocean but extends all the way to the dead centre of France on its other end.  Monks first planted vines in Sancerre in the 11th or 12th centuries, and subsequent swaths of royalty ensured that its sought-after wines were always available in their courts.  While currently most known as a (if not THE) key French site for Sauvignon Blanc, which now makes up 80% of all plantings in the region, it was previously home to considerably more Pinot Noir and Gamay, the latter of which was ravaged by a phylloxera outbreak in the 19th century and was replanted with Sauvignon.  Pinot retains 20% of the acreage in Sancerre, but this is now firmly a white wine region, and tonight’s bottle has its name all over it.

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I don’t know whether to call this the 2017 Chateau de Sancerre or the 2017 Chateau de Sancerre Sancerre.  It seems completely ridiculous to use the name twice, but I’ve never come across a producer whose name was the name of its region before.  (Chateau de Bordeaux and Domaine de Bourgogne, you missed your chance.)  The Chateau appears quite aware of its unique nomenclature, boasting in almost all of the available online literature, not to mention the back label of this bottle, that it is the “only wine which can be marketed under this exclusive name”.  Well…no kidding?  Isn’t that the case for EVERY SINGLE WINERY on Earth?  You don’t get a lot of non-Beringer wines marketed under the “exclusive name” of Beringer, thanks to the rather handy world of intellectual property law.  But whatever.  The Chateau de Sancerre is actually a Chateau, a castle (re)built in 1879 in the heart of the vineyards of the region, which was purchased in 1919 by Louis Alexandre Marnier-Lapostolle and is still owned by the Marnier-Lapostolle company a century later.  Its name is more familiar than you might think, as Louis Alexandre was also the inventor of Grand Marnier (speaking of exclusive names).

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Cork Rating:  6.5/10 (Pretty boring cork, but I love the swag associated with the tagline “Pass before the best.”  Badass.)

This particular bottling is 100% Sauvignon Blanc, as one might expect, and emerges a deeper lemon colour than I had anticipated given its utter lack of oak contact.  Meyer lemon, salted lime (inching towards margarita), Fuzzy Peaches, Tums, rock dust and straw/dried grass sing a stately yet playful aromatic song…until you sip and the hammer comes down.  The Sancerre Sancerre is bright and instantly alive on the palate but extraordinarily tart, like Sprite if you removed all of the sugar.  Tonic water, (very) green apple, citrus peel, flint and a torrent of biting, punishing acid lead into a chalky, icy, mineral finish that oddly dries out the mouth as it scrubs it clean.  An emphatic and almost angry wine, vociferously expressing its turf in defiance.  Sorry for the IP jokes?

88- points


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Bricks Wine Advent Calendar 2019: Day 3

3 12 2019

By Peter Vetsch

Three days into this year’s half-bottle extravaganza and we haven’t seen a standard-shaped Bordeaux or Burgundy bottle yet.  First off was the reinforced bubbles bottle, followed by the Germanic flute (which trickily held a red), and tonight it became immediately clear that the streak was going to continue.  Can we roll with the punches?  Yes we can.

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This is also the third straight day that I’ve peeled off the tissue paper to find a familiar friendly face:  Day 1’s Tawse has been my go-to Ontario stalwart for years, Day 2’s K.H. Schneider makes the best goddamn Dornfelder in the world, and Day 3’s can is brought to you by the wonderful, hospitable, salt-of-the-earth people at Fox Run Vineyards, from New York State’s gorgeous Finger Lakes area, a winery and a region that I was lucky enough to visit back in 2016.  That was the same year that this wine — sort of — was named the feature white of the Calgary Stampede.  Meet the Fox Run Vineyards On The Run Unoaked Chardonnay, can edition.

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Fox Run is a New York State institution.  This pastoral property on the western shores of Seneca Lake was originally a dairy farm before grapes were first planted there in 1984.  Fast forward 35 years and the winery now owns 50 acres of east-sloping vineyards and focuses on crafting a wide variety of estate wines under the watchful guidance of longtime winemaker Peter Bell.  While they rightly take pride in their excellent Riesling lineup, their Chardonnays are in my mind an equal part of their house identity, both the spritely unoaked Doyle Family Chardonnay and the marvellous barrel-fermented Kaiser Vineyard Chardonnay.  I believe that this can is made up of the former, although the can itself gives away no hints of its specific identity.  The can also strangely does not indicate a vintage, perhaps to avoid the annoyance of having to re-print can labels for each successive harvest; however, I am told that it is most likely not a NV wine and is instead probably the 2018 edition of the Doyle.  This is excellent news, because it means that it is likely also 8% Traminette, a lovably bizarre, slightly soapy, melony hybrid whose vinifera parent is Gewürztraminer (hence the name), which is normally added to the Doyle Chardonnay as a minority blending partner to rev up its personality.  (Fox Run also makes a varietal Traminette, which you absolutely must buy if you ever get the chance.  Traminette is amazing.)

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Cork Rating:  I don’t know what the hell I’m supposed to do with this.  2/10.  Nice tab.

First impressions:  spritz!  The release from the can causes multitudes of tiny bubbles to cling to the sides of my glass for a good ten minutes while a reductive matchsticks and smoke aroma blows off.  What remains is a chiselled aromatic profile of fresh lemon, smoked lime, honeydew, wet grass, pina colada and something oddly like boxed cake powder or Premium Plus soup crackers, the latter two of which I will credit to the Traminette.  The olfactory intrigue does not arise due to any lees stirring or barrel contact, of which there was none — Fox Run built the Doyle in as linear a fashion as possible, save only for the incorporation of this Chardonnay’s mischievous blending brother.  The regimented cool-climate style takes over on the crisp, lean, precise palate, whose relatively neutral flavours of Asian pear, underripe white peach, river rocks and chalk dust are energized by a tight line of acidity that is not undercut by any excess in body or weight.  I almost think this would have been better off being drunk straight out of the can as opposed to splayed out in a Burgundy glass — it is a straight-shot linear wine well-suited to patios and campsites, its low alcohol and pH priming it to provide immediate refreshment, but its mission not extending to unfolding in layers over time.  That said, its consistency and focus are a continual joy with each successive vintage, and, it turns out, with any given container.

87+ points


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Bricks Wine Advent Calendar 2019: Day 2

2 12 2019

by Raymond Lamontagne

After yesterday’s solid start, my anticipation is running high. It turns out that anticipation and trepidation can co-exist in equal measure. How am I going to keep up with all these blogs? The same way I kept up the last two years, I suppose, via doses of careful scheduling and an iron resolve to do what I love: drink wine. As Peter mentioned, this year’s Bricks Wine Advent offering looks like a particularly diverse mélange of different bottle shapes and even alternative packages. The wrapping for Day 2 conceals another distinct bottle shape, this one lanky and elongate. This can only be a flute, speaking to its Germanic (or at least Germanic-influenced) origins.

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Voila. K.H. Schneider! This happens to be one of my all-time favourite German producers from the Nahe, a region whose stony soils continue to provide much inspiration; Nahe winemakers walk a stylistically taut rope between the cool mineral elegance of the Mosel and the riper fruits of the Pfalz and Rheinhessen. To be transparent, there are a few of us here in Calgary who will vociferously imbibe anything and everything K.H. Schneider. I justify this stance by appealing to winemaker Andi Schneider’s emphasis on organic viticulture and spontaneous fermentations, an approach that yields truly honest, authentic wines of place. Increasingly I am inclined to agree with Terry Theise when he argues that such authenticity is a quality criterion that must come before other important yardsticks such as balance and intensity. If the terroir Andi farms is a vinyl record, his deft “low intervention” winemaking touch is the phonograph needle that precisely decodes the soil’s music for our drinking pleasure. But do take note: this is not the expected Riesling. It is something much, much stranger. Are we, team Schneider, being pranked?

I love it already. Dornfelder was created in 1955 by German viticulturalist August Herold. As you can see from the diagram above, Dornfelder is in fact a cross between crosses (!), with some pretty big names among the original four parents. It has been suggested that Dornfelder has genes from every black grape grown in Germany up until its creation.  A rare example of a successful man-made crossing (note that it is not a hybrid, as all parent stock is vinifera), Dornfelder is less obscure that you might think, in recent years becoming the second-most planted black wine grape in Germany. Vigorous and high yielding, Dornfelder also has something that its ancestors Trollinger and Blauer Portugieser do not: loads and loads of colour due to high levels of pigments called anthrocyanins. Dornfelder stands alone in Germany for its ability to make wines that are almost black in their deep purple intensity, with a soft texture, decent acidity, and characteristic aromas that conjure up dark berries, cherries, and more unique herbal/spice notes that some compare to bitters. Unlike many grapes used predominantly as colouring ingredients, this one has its own rather assertive flavor profile. Dornfelder even made inroads into the United States, Canada, and South America. Have you ever been this excited about a viticultural cross? I thought not.

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The 2016 K.H. Schenider Dornfelder Trocken half-bottle features a particularly crumbly stubborn cork, or at least mine did. Ultimately worth the effort. This is dark purple alright, but not completely opaque. The nose conjures up all sorts of underripe blackberry and huckleberry for me right out of the gate, but a balancing woodsy halo of dried violets, allspice, clove, fennel seeds, rosemary, rhubarb, stinging nettles, crushed gravel, and (yes indeed) herbal bitters (orange peel? quinine?), which prevents this from being anywhere near histrionic. Fruits much redder (cherry Nibs, strawberry, cranberry) begin to wink through the strange blueberry-bog-meets-baroque-darkness that was my initial impression. The acidity is buoyant but far from cutting, and the tannins form a light powder. My mind keeps coming back to cough syrup: give this a decent chill to mitigate this effect, unless of course you dig this sort of thing. And don’t get me wrong, this could very well be the world’s greatest Dornfelder, or at least the prettiest. Although I would have to try a few more exemplars to firm up that take, this is clearly winking at me. It is pleasantly odd to feel that a bottle of Dornfelder is an old friend. Thank you August Herold.

89+ points

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Cork Rating: 3/10 (putting aside the difficulties I had extracting this, I like the font but am otherwise underwhelmed, if that’s a word.)


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Bricks Wine Advent Calendar 2019: Day 1

1 12 2019

By Peter Vetsch

And we’re off.  This marks the SIXTH straight year that this site has run a daily play-by-play blog of a boozy Advent calendar (sometimes more than one at once, which inevitably leads to massive regret on my part).  For the last couple years, this has included following along with the wonderfully diverse Bricks Wine Company Half-Bottle Advent Calendar, a concept long considered and now gloriously fulfilled, finding new range with each passing year.  This marks the third annual edition of the Bricks calendar, and if the shapes and tops of the various gift-wrapped 375 mL entrants into this year’s Advent derby are any indication, we may be in for our most intriguing field yet.

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Case in point:  Day 1.  That is NOT a standard screwcap or neck foil that I feel under the wrapping paper.  The prior Bricks calendars have always ended off with bubbles on Day 24, but the wire cage and jumbo pressure-withstanding cork protruding from the gift wrap of this inaugural 2019 offering suggests that this year’s calendar may well be starting off with them too.  And so it is, as the tissue paper falls away to reveal…a hell of a good start.

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The 2016 Tawse Spark Brut hails from my personal favourite winery in Ontario, one that has won the prestigious award for Canada’s Winery of the Year four times (including an impressive three-peat from 2010 through 2012) despite only being 18 years old.  Tawse is a family-owned organic and biodynamic estate that is heavily focused on Burgundian grapes Chardonnay and Pinot Noir (to such an extent that founder and owner Moray Tawse also has a project in Burgundy itself, a collaboration with the renowned Pascal Marchand called, unoriginally, Marchand-Tawse), although it first came to my notice for remarkable Riesling and Cabernet Franc.  Tawse’s focus in the vineyard is to make each swath of vines a complete self-sustaining ecosystem, one that is constantly in balance without the need for any chemicals or external artificial additives to do the balancing.  Animals play a major role in this effort, including chickens (who eat vineyard bugs), sheep (who eat away the lower vine leaves, exposing the grapes to more sunlight) and horses (who are used in lieu of tractors so as to avoid excessive soil compaction).

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The Spark Brut is a traditional-method Champagne-style sparkling wine, made by inducing a secondary fermentation of a previously made still wine within a sealed bottle, which traps escaping CO2 within the resulting wine that is created and allows it extensive contact with the dead yeast cells that remain after the bubble-inducing effort is successful, creating a myriad of textures and flavours not otherwise found in the world of wine.  This offering is made from a surprising 44% Pinot Gris in addition to Champagne stalwarts Pinot Noir (31%) and Chardonnay (25%).  Pinot Gris does not often get the Champagne treatment anywhere outside of Alsace, but Tawse sees fit to elevate it alongside its more renowned Pinot cousin; each of the varietals here are yield-thinned and hand-harvested, then left on lees for 12 months after secondary fermentation before a slight touch of sweetness is added back ahead of bottling.  Each grape used in this wine hails from a different Tawse vineyard, including the Chardonnay, harvested from the mighty Quarry Road (anyone who has had the Tawse Quarry Road Vineyard Chardonnay will understand my singling it out).

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Cork Rating:  1/10 (Shiner cork AND shiner wire cage?  I thought this was Advent!!)

Day 1 emerges an extremely pale lemon colour amidst a steady stream of tiny bubbles, their size and energy a clear indicator of the traditional method at work.  The aromas are pleasantly vibrant for a Champagne-style wine, perhaps a sign of what Pinot Gris can add to a bubble party:  banana leaf, lime curd and honeydew, swirling across southern biscuits and struck match.  Instantly drying on the tongue, the Spark’s lees-induced flavours stand firm and take precedence over the fruit, reasserting the dominance of its winemaking method and erasing any perceptible trace of residual sugar; elastic bands and sourdough bread stretch over tangy melon, tangerine and Granny Smith apple, lending heft and gravitas to an otherwise-playful wine.  This is not ragingly complex, but it’s crispy and approachable and delicious, the kind of thing you would use to kick off a party that sees you crush 24 bottles in 24 days.  Here’s to another wine Advent.

88+ points


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Bricks Wine Advent Calendar 2018: Day 24

24 12 2018

By Peter Vetsch

Merry Almost-Christmas!  We are now 24 days and nearly 24 bottles into December, the Bricks Half-Bottle Advent crate is empty, Santa is somewhere over the Atlantic and we’re into Advent reminiscing mode yet again.  I would say that it went by in a flash, but it didn’t — each bottle and each producer and each story took time to find and understand and tell, and after a dozen such efforts in a month I am wearing the effort of them all, but I would (and will) do it again.  Kudos to the fine folks at Bricks Wine Company, who I think clearly surpassed their inaugural wine Advent effort last year with this year’s magnificent beta model.  The bottles of 2018 were stronger almost across the board, impressively consistent and in some instances simply show-stopping; I feel quite comfortable that I got my money’s worth on this vinous adventure, and all of the work that went into finding and sourcing these two cases of month-long 375 mL glory did not go unnoticed.

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As Ray and I wrap up our run of daily holiday blogging (only to start into our next run of daily holiday blogging TOMORROW, as Vinebox’s 12 Days of Christmas kick off, because we’re deranged), just like last year, I thought we’d finish our Wine Advent run with a look at each of our podium wines, as well as our value Dark Horse.  As I expected, there was some clear overlap in our choices, as well as a second straight year of an unanimous Advent victor.

Ray Lamontagne’s Top 3 Wines

  1.  2015 Ken Wright Cellars Shea Vineyard Pinot Noir (Day 17):  Just a truly ethereal wine, good for the soul.  Deft yet flavoursome.  Fruity yet spicy.  A wine of a specific place yet timelessly delicious no matter where you are.
  2. 2014 Woodward Canyon Artist Series Cabernet Sauvignon (Day 22):  Scratches a classic Cab itch without being tiresomely grandiose.
  3. 2012 Rocche Costamagna Barolo Rocche Dell’Annunziata (Day 15):  Taps into that rare middle-ground wellspring — can drink now or hold, and you won’t be bummed either way.  Still thinking about all those blue flowers.
  4. DARK HORSE – 2014 Bodegas Franco-Espanolas Bordon Rioja Crianza (Day 13):  Tiny cork notwithstanding, this similarly straddled two paradigms (in this case, modern and traditional Rioja) with aplomb.  This region never disappoints.

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My Top 3 Wines

  1. 2015 Ken Wright Cellars Shea Vineyard Pinot Noir (Day 17):  This just was not close for me — the Ken Wright towered over all other wines in the calendar.  Just impeccably balanced, driven and sure of what it was, while still being jaw-droppingly gorgeous from start to finish.
  2. 2016 Weingut Brundlmayer Gruner Veltliner Kamptal Terrassen (Day 3):  The front half of the calendar is gone but not forgotten, and this Gruner (not to mention Ray’s streak of amazing Austria reviews) was about as classic and dexterous as it gets.
  3. 2014 Woodward Canyon Artist Series Cabernet Sauvignon (Day 22):  As a Washington wine devotee and wannabe historian, getting to taste a pioneer of the region and understand why they drew so many more to make such great wines in Washington State is a unique thrill.
  4. DARK HORSE – 2016 Ferdinand Wines Albarino IN A CAN (Day 20):  I got confirmation via Instagram after posting this write-up, from the winemaker himself, that the Spanish-vareital-focused Ferdinand Wines IS in fact named after the big red bull of my childhood story times.  Investigative journalism is not dead.  Let’s change our views of wine vessels; I know we can.

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Just like last year, bottle #24 this year is a Champagne.  Entirely unlike last year, the Champagne is in pristine condition, and is determined to end off the calendar with a bang.  We wrap with the Pierre Paillard Les Parcelles Bouzy Grand Cru NV, and in that list of French words is a compelling story.  Pulling the threads one by one:  Pierre Paillard is a “grower Champagne” house with centuries of history in the region, having planted vines and made wines in Champagne since 1799.  Les Parcelles is one of their Champagne offerings, made from grapes picked from 22 different parcels all within the Grand Cru village of Bouzy, a key home of Pinot Noir within Champagne’s boundaries.  Although this is a non-vintage wine, meaning that the wines within the finished bottle hail from more than one growing season, I can’t help but notice that this particular rendition of Les Parcelles is designated “XIII” on the label.  This seems to refer to the primary vintage used in this specific batch:  this bottling is 80% made from 2013 vintage grapes, 14% from 2012 and 6% from…2004!  It is 70% Pinot Noir and 30% Chardonnay, is made in minimally interventionist fashion, and sits for 4 years sur lie after secondary fermentation in Paillard’s 19th century cellars, located 53 feet underground on the winery grounds, where temperatures are a constant and eternal 10 degrees Celsius. Read the rest of this entry »


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Bricks Wine Advent Calendar 2018: Day 21

21 12 2018

By Peter Vetsch

I will admit it, Advent team:  I am nearing the end of my blogging rope.  The culmination of the calendar, Christmas shopping, pre-holiday work deadlines and child sport activities has me completely drained, so as half-bottle Advent peaks to its climax, I am beginning to wear down.  Nevertheless, we aren’t about to stop with the end so near.  We fight with words and persevere.

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So out of the wrapping paper tonight comes…ANOTHER Pinot?  That oddly makes three in five days, after Monday’s Day 17 Ken Wright Oregon masterpiece and Wednesday’s Day 19 Cristom Oregon encore.  This one is…not from Oregon, I guess?  That’s not entirely fair.  If I had pulled this from the calendar on Day 4, or in the midst of the weird run of 2013s, I suspect I would have been pretty psyched about it.  The 2016 Shaw + Smith Pinot Noir from Adelaide Hills is a $50+ bottle retail, from an exciting new-wave producer known for quality.

The winery was founded in 1989 by Michael Hill Smith and his cousin Martin Shaw, both of whom were impeccably credentialed for the venture:  Smith was initially part of the family ownership of Yalumba before being bought out in 1986, and is also a Cordon Bleu-trained chef and Australia’s first-ever Master of Wine, while Shaw was himself a well-known wine consultant who was sought after by many producers needing winemaking assistance.  They grounded their venture in the chilly Adelaide Hills, which is in central-southern Australia near Barossa but 4 degrees cooler on average during the day and a whopping 8 degrees cooler at night, allowing for longer, gentler ripening and the preservation of precious grape acidity.  Grapes have been planted here for two centuries, but it wasn’t until my lifetime that viticulture really came alive on a global scale (not that I can take any credit).  “Higher, colder, wetter” is how Shaw + Smith summarize their Mount Lofty Ranges subregion as compared to nearby Barossa; while only a half hour from coastal Adelaide, it is at 700 metres above sea level…things go up in a hurry. Read the rest of this entry »


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