Bricks Wine Advent Calendar 2019: Day 21

21 12 2019

By Tyler Derksen

Although this is my first year joining the Advent Calendar blogging team, I read the blog faithfully during its coverage of the inaugural Bricks Wine Advent Calendar in 2017 and then followed along with my own calendar last year.  Almost 70 Advent Calendar bottles have been unwrapped in that time and even though we’ve seen some truly standout bottles, I still find myself caught by surprise today when I pull back the wrapping and see…Brunello di Montalcino, and a critically acclaimed one at that!  A Brunello di Montalcino hasn’t been seen in the Advent Wine Calendar since Day 2 of the first year!  [Editor’s note: let’s not talk about how that one ended up.  Fingers crossed that we avoid a TCA repeat.]

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Brunello is undisputed Sangiovese royalty, exemplifying the very best that the varietal has to offer.  The Brunello di Montalcino D.O.C. (Brunello from Montalcino) was established in 1966 and was given D.O.C.G. status in 1980 when this elevated designation was first created.  With this status comes strict rules governing production.  For example, there are limits to grape yields in the vineyard and the wine produced must be aged for a minimum of two years in wood barrel and four months in bottle and cannot be sold until five years after harvest. It is thanks to this time-intensive aging method that we get to enjoy a wine that has already seen some aging (and avoids, at least somewhat, the eternal struggle of keeping a bottle in the cellar to age when all I really want to do is try it).

Tenuta Il Poggione, the producer of today’s bottle, has a very long history (spanning five generations) producing Brunello di Montalcino.  Il Poggione was founded in the late 19th century and was one of the first three wineries to produce and market Brunello di Montalcino in the early 1900s; later they were one of the founding members of the Brunello di Montalcino Consortium, which was founded in 1967, and it remains a member to this day.

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The vineyards from which Il Poggione sources its grapes are located in Sant’Angelo in Colle, approximately 10 km south of the town of Montalcino.  I am always thankful to wineries that make available details of their winemaking process.  The grapes for the 2012 Il Poggione Brunello di Montalcino were harvested, by hand, from vines that are more than 20 years old and then vinified over 15 to 20 days in stainless steel tanks using the “submerged cap” method.  Red wines acquire much of their colour and complexity from contact with the grape skins and stems.  During the fermentation process, a cap of these skins forms and naturally rises to the surface of the fermenting liquid.  By using a process that keeps this cap submerged during the fermentation process, the resulting wine is able to keep in better contact with the skins and benefit more fully from the characteristics that they impart.  After fermentation, the wine was then aged in large French oak casks stored five meters underground followed by bottle aging (unfortunately, the winery does not specify these periods on its website for the 2012 vintage, though I have seen other sources state that the barrel aging was three years).  

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The age on the bottle is already apparent, as the edges show pronounced brick colouring.  As I put the glass to my nose and lips, I lament the fact that I’m not sitting in front of a plate of Italian food.  The nose is beautiful: cherry, red currant, pepper, tobacco, grilled steak, dried flower petals, nutmeg, Worcestershire sauce and wet dirt coming together in what may be one of my top 3 favourite noses of the calendar.  The palate is highly structured, perhaps a bit too structured on first opening, with flavours of sour cherry, raspberry, cedar, fresh leather, blood, black olive and balsamic vinegar.  The acidity is what one would expect from Brunello di Montalcino, but the flavours seem tightly wound.  I suspect that this will change over time and that the wine will improve with a few more years of age.

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Cork Rating: 7.5 out of 10.  Great use of space with the logo and borders.  Very short though (yes, I know this was a half-bottle).

This is my final post for this year’s calendar and I have thoroughly enjoyed sharing my thoughts on each bottle and look forward to Peter’s and Ray’s writing on the final bottles to come.  Wine is always better when shared, and it has been a pleasure sharing with you.  Whatever your plans over the next days and weeks, I hope they are filled with happiness, family, friends and, of course, good wine!

89- points


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Bricks Wine Advent Calendar 2019: Day 20

20 12 2019

By Tyler Derksen

After a long year, I am now officially on vacation until 2020.  As I look ahead with anticipation to days spent with family and friends, I also look back on Christmases past.  I was never bold enough to try to unwrap, and then re-wrap, presents under the tree to ascertain their contents in advance; however, I did pick them up and analyse the packages with an almost scientific determination.  This childhood habit has persisted into adulthood and I find myself doing the same with this Wine Advent Calendar.  Some are easier than others to determine with some level of certainty (for example, the bottle of Dr. L Riesling on Day 15 was taller than most full-sized bottles and unmistakably a bottle of German Riesling).  As I picked up today’s wine, still wrapped, from the ever-emptier crate in which the Advent Calendar wines were bundled, the packaging was unmistakable.  While canned wine is becoming a more common site in YYC wine stores (see also Day 3 of this year’s calendar), the producers and varietals are still limited and I found myself almost disappointed that I thought I knew what the wine was going to be.  That disappointment quickly vanished as the wrapping came off – Gruner Veltliner!

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It’s a puppy, isn’t it Mom?

I will always have a soft spot in my heart for Gruner as it was the white wine I served at my wedding.  Gruner Veltliner, Austria’s national grape, is a dry white varietal grown primarily in Austria, Germany and surrounding countries, although in recent years it has certainly spread beyond its homeland (as evidenced by today’s bottle…I mean can).

This evening’s wine is the 2018 Companion Wine Co. Gruner from California.  Companion Wine Co. brings together experienced wine makers with the stated, and laudable, idea “that delicious, terroir-driven, natural wine from California could be sold at cost and in packaging that is accessible to all.”  This Gruner is made by winemaker Graham Tatomer of Tatomer Wines, well-known for its Rieslings and Gruner Veltliners.  Trained in Austria and making his home in Santa Barbara, California, Tatomer uses Old World winemaking traditions to produce a New World wine with the aim of showcasing its varietal characteristics and terroir.

The grapes used to make the 2018 Gruner come from Kick-On Ranch, a windy, cool-climate vineyard located to the northwest of the Santa Rita Hills in California.  The soil is primarily Eolian, which means soil comprised of particles that have been carried to their current location by wind (as opposed to alluvium soil, which is soil deposited by flowing water) and is typically made up of sand or silt.  More particularly, the soil of Kick-On Ranch is called Loess, which is predominantly silty soil containing very little clay or other binding agent. This site is considered by Graham Tatomer and others as being ideal for growing Gruner and Riesling (for example, Stirm Wine Company, which also makes wine for distribution through Companion Wine Co., sources grapes from this vineyard).

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I wasn’t able to locate much information on the production methods for the 2018 Gruner other than that malolactic fermentation (a process in which tart-tasting malic acid is converted into softer lactic acid, imparting, for example, the buttery popcorn taste found in some Chardonnay) was blocked and the fermented wine was then filtered before canning.  With this information in hand, the nose and palate are certainly not surprising.  The nose is citrusy, with notes of lemon, lime, apricot, mandarin orange peel, Himalayan pink salt, green bean (Gruner Veltliner translates to “Green Wine of Veltlin”) and a slight floral note.  The palate is tart with punchy acidity, matching the nose well, if a bit shy on complexity, with tastes of lemon, Granny Smith apple, tangerine, river rock, a hint of honey and a nutty, toasted almond finish.

Apparently the fruit making up this wine was quite expensive, and although a particularly great growing season for the Kick-On Ranch Vineyard prompted Graham Tatomer to make this wine, it may not happen again as a result.  This is too bad, as although it’s perhaps a bit lean for my tastes, I fully support any effort to bring Gruner Veltliner to a wider wine-drinking audience.

88- points


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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 8

8 12 2019

By Raymond Lamontagne

We begin week 2 of this Advent blogging saga with a bang, at least if you love Port. I will admit to being rather intimidated by this fortified wine style when I first started learning about wine. I had a vague recollection of trying Port for dessert years ago, long before any explicit attempts to develop an educated palate, and thought it tasted like NyQuil. I’m guessing this was a relatively inexpensive ruby example, one blended to match a particular house style and designed for early drinking. Since those dark times, and with the benefit of a few technical tastings under my belt (a few of those are detailed on this very blog), I’ve become an aficionado of good quality vintage Ports and tawnies. They remain a rare treat, but one much appreciated. I unwrap this bottle, see the phrase “10 Year Old Tawny Port”, and my mind is immediately jubilant with associations of toffee, nuts, and other sundry warm and festive sugarplum tastiness.

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All Ports are made by fermenting grapes (usually red) for a relatively brief period, typically to the point of around 5-6% ABV, at which point a neutral grape spirit known as aguardente is used to arrest the fermentation, boosting the alcohol content but also leaving residual sugar in the wine. At this juncture the “what type of Port am I making” decision tree becomes more complicated, and here our focus must be on tawny Port. These wines are aged in old wooden barrels called pipes, during which time exposure to oxygen and evaporation occur. This oxidation mellows the wine into a golden brown hue over time, and also imparts nutty flavours that distinguish tawnies from ruby and vintage ports. Although vintage tawny Ports do exist (they are called colheitas and are sublime), entry level tawnies are blends of different vintages, with most of the component wines being aged at least 3 years and then combined to yield a desired house style. Above this quality tier are bottles like the present one that carry an indication of age. Note that the age indication is in fact a “target age” based on desired characteristics in the wine: these aged tawnies still represent a blend of several vintages, and the Port house is looking to provide a wine that tastes characteristically like it has been aging for 10 years in barrel, for instance. Sure, some of the wine in the blend is legitimately quite old, but not necessarily all. It might help to think about the designated age as an “average” age, although technically even that is not correct. The basic notion is that a 10 year old tawny should be fruitier and less complex than a 40 year old tawny.

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You might now understand why I found this topic daunting when first learning about it. Despair not, for if these technical details threatened to put you to sleep, a half bottle of 19.5% ABV fortified wine should be just the thing to perk you up. Perhaps more compelling is the story of Porto Quevedo, a relatively small family winery based in the Douro. Historically families such as the Quevedos grew grapes and made wine that was sold  to merchants based in Vila Nova de Gaia, with such wines likely used as blending components by the larger houses. However, in 1986 legislation changed to allow growers and individual wineries to export their wines directly to the retailer. Oscar, a lawyer and notary by trade, first bought vineyards in 1977. After several years of helping his father João to make Port, in 1990 he built his own winery and was finally able to nurture his true passion, with son Oscar Jr. handling the business side of things and soccer-hating daughter Claudia (I hear ya) formerly handling the winemaking (she still helps with blending). The winery has a wonderful website and even a blog that is imbued with a real down-to-earth, non-pretentious human touch, right down to inviting critical commentary on the wines. Challenge accepted.

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Stopper Rating: 1/10 (oh, COME ON!!!)

The Porto Quevedo 10 Year Old Tawny Port is comprised of Touriga Franca (25%), Tinta Roriz (aka Tempranillo; 25%), Touriga Nacional (5%), Tinto Cão (5%), Tinta Barroca (20%), and other grapes (20%; over 100 grapes are sanctioned for Port production, including many rarities). Interestingly, the fermentation is described as “slow”, perhaps relative to other Ports. This is notably brickish in colour for a 10 year old tawny. The nose initially flashes some bright and fruity character, recalling maraschino cherries, raspberry jam, dried apricot, burnt orange peel, and pumpkin pie filling, with some nuttiness (pecans, chestnuts, sesame snap) and caramel that meld into a nice facsimile of Turtles candy. The palate largely echoes this array of aromas but is not purely sweet, with a gritty underlay of graphite, red rubber utility ball, and the ashy white ghosts of charcoal briquettes. With further air over the course of about an hour (hey, it’s a Sunday night, I’m sipping over here!), the palate softens to a more silky fine texture, and further oxidized characters emerge: sultanas/raisin or molasses pie, figs, ginger snaps, and a general deepening of the smooth toffee vibe. I like how this stitches together over time, with the wine showing better if you are patient.

88+ 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 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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Bricks Wine Advent Calendar 2018: Day 20

20 12 2018

By Peter Vetsch

From the very first day I bought this year’s Bricks Half-Bottle Advent Calendar, it was eminently clear that one of these neatly wrapped things was not like the others.  This is that thing:

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Why settle for a half-bottle when you can have a full can?  Although alternative wine packaging has developed quite the stigma over the years (whether cans, or bag-in-box, or tetra-packs, or anything other than tall glass bottles), and although it has often been relegated to the purview of forgettable plonk, a few forward-thinking and quality-minded producers are slowly starting to try to take it back.  As a huge proponent of wines in novel containers, I think wines in cans are utterly brilliant.  Cans offer a number of advantages over bottles:

  1. Aluminum is much, much lighter than glass, which saves on shipping costs (often charged by weight), takes less energy to transport and at least theoretically should reduce the shelf price of the product accordingly.
  2. Cans are fully opaque and do not let any damaging UV light through to the wine (which can cause chemical reactions and form sulphurous compounds within the wine that are notably unpleasant).  Glass, on the other hand, especially CLEAR glass…
  3. A sealed can allows no oxygen penetration into the wine and thus acts as a foolproof preservative.  There’s a reason why all your bomb shelter food is canned.
  4. No corks mean no risk of cork taint and closure-based wine spoilage.  Away, TCA!
  5. Cans are easily portable and allow for casual (and, as needed, discreet) enjoyment wherever you happen to be.

The increase of halfway-decent wines in cans is one of the best vinous developments of the decade, and the inclusion of this one in the calendar is at least partially indicative of the growing popular acceptance of the can as a wine-holding medium.  Not a moment too soon. Read the rest of this entry »


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Bricks Wine Advent Calendar 2018: Day 18

18 12 2018

By Peter Vetsch

Well, any wine was going to have its hands full tonight, following on the heels of the toughest act to follow so far in the 2018 calendar, last night’s masterpiece single-vineyard Pinot Noir from Ken Wright.  Like a schedule loss on the second night of a back-to-back home-and-home set in the NHL, Bricks may have strategically selected what I would guess is the least expensive bottle in the whole calendar ($15ish for a full bottle) to take one for the team right after we all revelled in the most expensive bottle in the calendar.  The Advent backup goalie in this case is the 2016 Ram’s Leap Semillon Sauvignon Blanc from New South Wales, Australia, a bottle that continues what is now a Bricks Advent tradition of vinous animals leaping, after the highly tasty Frog’s Leap Zin from 2017.  Stag’s Leap next year?  Most definitely.

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Ram’s Leap is part of the Canonbah Bridge range of wines, a producer with which I was not previously familiar, possibly because the place where their estate vineyard is planted is not even a recognized wine region!  It forms part of the broader appellation of New South Wales, but so does 30% of the Australian wine industry.  The 80-acre vineyard was strategically planted on an old riverbed in the middle of a 30,000-acre sheep farm near Warren, slightly west of the Hunter Valley, a couple hours northwest of Sydney.  Half of the plantings are Shiraz, and the other half are, well, everything else:  Merlot, Grenache, Mourvedre, Semillon, Verdelho, Chardonnay and Tempranillo.  It remains the only commercial vineyard in this highly arid area, with scorching hot days and cool nights that facilitate the practice of organic viticulture (there are no plant-attacking fungi, mildews or moulds in the desert, so less need for herbicides).  Canonbah Bridge takes their organic principles one step further by aiming to avoid any intervention with the vineyard soils whatsoever:  no tilling, all weeding (and much fertilizing) performed via wandering sheep service, cover crops preventing the spread of unwanted plant life, etc. Read the rest of this entry »


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Bricks Wine Advent Calendar 2018: Day 17

17 12 2018

By Peter Vetsch

I can often tell how much I like a wine by how many notes I take.  Even when it doesn’t hit me at first how much I am taken by a bottle, I’ll suddenly look down and a whole notebook page is filled up of musings and guesswork and random sensory impressions, the various threads through which I eventually try to sort out the essence of the wine and how it speaks to me.  On blog days where the bottle doesn’t have much to say, or doesn’t quite spur the imagination, the pen moves very slowly.  Tonight I have three pages of notes in about 30 minutes, and I had to stop myself from writing more so that I could post this early enough for people to actually read it.  This was the first bottle in Advent history that had me autonomically exclaim “WOW.”, reflex-like, as soon as I opened the bottle.  I had never had a Ken Wright Pinot Noir before, but I was very well aware the level of quality it represented.  For my first bottle to be his 2015 Shea Vineyard, from the now-famous plot that he almost single-handedly put on the map, can’t be more perfect.  Welcome to the last week of the calendar, which almost surely can’t get better than this.

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Ken Wright was first exposed to wine as a waiter and student in Kentucky, and the regular staff tastings at his part-time job soon led to a complete change of vocation and an enrolment in the prestigious UC Davis viticulture program in California.  He spent close to a decade in the state honing his craft, but a single visit to Oregon in 1976 convinced him that his destiny lay there, where he felt North America’s pinnacle expressions of Pinot Noir could be made.  He loaded up his family and all his earthly belongings and founded his first Oregon winery in 1986 (Panther Creek Cellars, which still exists today, though Wright has since sold it), then his eponymous winery in 1994, which focuses entirely on single-vineyard expressions, mostly of Pinot Noir, from 13 different vineyard sites.  Shea Vineyard, the home of tonight’s bottle, is in the Yamhill-Carlton AVA in the northern part of the Willamette Valley, a sub-AVA that Ken helped define and create (along with five others) back in 2004.  Ken also established his winery’s tasting room in the heart of the small town of Carlton, echoing his belief in the power of site for his grapes by connecting his business directly to their land of origin.  His was the first winery to take root in Carlton, and it has now been joined by a large tasting room in the town’s old train station. Read the rest of this entry »


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Bricks Wine Advent Calendar 2018: Day 13

13 12 2018

By Peter Vetsch

Rioja!  I stand to be corrected, but I believe this is the first bottle of Rioja in which we have ever partaken in an Advent calendar…thus my Groundhog Day Advent 2018 curse comes to an end and I get to dive into something sui generis to close out my blogging week.  In.  After last night’s more eclectic offering, tonight seems as safe and comforting as a St. Bernard with a collar barrel of brandy, and it barely misses continuing the 2013 vintage trend we’ve seen a lot of over the past week, although the 2014 vintage designation on this bottle suggests it’s a year beyond the likely current vintage of this wine.  “This wine”, in this case, is the 2014 Bodegas Franco-Espanolas Bordon Rioja Crianza, which is a mouthful to say, let alone type.  But as with so many things wine-related, the name tells a story.

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If you were reaching for your Spanish phrasebook or your Google Translate bookmark, I will save you the trouble:  yes, the producer’s name actually DOES mean “The French-Spanish Winery”.  The winery was founded back in 1890, when a great deal many Frenchmen in the viticulture and viniculture industries were fleeing a country where their livelihoods were literally being eaten away by the phylloxera louse, a scourge that absolutely decimated the vineyards of entire regions in France before the antidote of grafting native vitis vinifera vines onto American bug-resistant vine rootstocks was discovered.  One such Frenchman was Bordelais (and remarkably French-sounding) Frederick Saurat Anglade, who was one of many winemakers from Bordeaux to find refuge in Rioja and then like it so much that he decided to stay.  Along with Spanish partners, he founded his multinational bodegas, perched in prime territory on the banks of the Ebro River, which has since grown into one of Rioja’s biggest.

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This might be the first old-school wine from Rioja that I’ve seen use varietal labelling, but there’s the word “Tempranillo” plain as day on the front label.  This dose of consumer informational assistance is not quite as helpful as it seems, because the 2014 Bordon Crianza is actually only 80% Tempranillo and 20% Garnacha.  Close enough?  The wine spends 15 months in the traditional Riojan staple, American oak barrels (which the winery website is kind enough to advise come from the oak haven of Ohio), followed by additional time (minimum one year) in bottle before release in satisfaction of its legal “Crianza” designation aging requirements.

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Cork Rating:  5.5/10 (Amazing coverage and graphics, but major deduction for being, by FAR, the shortest cork of December to date – see corkscrew evidence above.)

The result of this regimented aging process is a gorgeous rich ruby hue and a slate of classic Spanish aromas, from tobacco and new leather jackets to wet beach, smoked meat/chorizo and cedar with quietly fresh purple fruit overlaid with the dried red berry rendition most commonly associated with 100+ year-old Riojan wineries.  Bright and juicy, the Crianza hums with vibrant acid, its luxuriant round fruitiness a nod to modern influence but its wood-aided papery tannin and its cigar smoke, dust and char flavours a throwback to the good old days.  The two eras of this legendary region dance together marvellously here, and to this day I still haven’t met a Rioja I didn’t like.

90 points


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Bricks Wine Advent Calendar 2018: Day 12

12 12 2018

By Peter Vetsch

Halfway!!  As in past years of blogging Advent, I arrive at the midway point of the calendar wondering what the hell I’ve gotten myself into and why on Earth I keep doing this every December.  The pre-Christmas pressure is getting to all of us, but we persevere — these wines aren’t going to analyze themselves.  The random division of blogging days is starting to coalesce into possibly pre-ordained wine patterns:  while Ray’s calendar selections tend to focus on things from 2013 and things from Austria, mine all seem trapped in calendar nostalgia, directly harkening back to bottles we pulled one year ago.  And here we go again:  tonight’s wine is a trip down memory lane squared.  When I first opened the wrapping paper I actually thought it WAS the very same bottle that kicked off the inaugural Half-Bottle Advent:  the 2016 Bella Wines Rose Brut Natural “Westbank”.  From the front it looks identical, but closer examination of the back label reveals that, while this is also a Bella traditional-method sparkling Gamay, it’s from a different vintage (2017 vs. 2016) and a different vineyard.  And what a difference both of those things can make.

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Bella Wines is uncompromising in its vision and is probably unlike anything the Okanagan Valley has otherwise seen:  a 100% bubbles-only natural wine producer that makes only single-varietal, single-vineyard offerings, most of which are from a single vintage.  They source grapes from organic vineyards, avoid any additives in the winemaking process, ferment only with indigenous yeasts and use cooler fall and winter outdoor temperatures to help with cold stabilization.  The goal is to create the purest and most transparent picture of the place and time that gave the grapes life; the flip side of that coin is that, when the land and the season do not want to cooperate, the picture painted may not be an appealing one.  But Bella is like a war-zone photographer:  the idea is not to appeal, it’s to reveal. Read the rest of this entry »


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Bricks Wine Advent Calendar 2018: Day 9

9 12 2018

By Peter Vetsch

Before getting into tonight’s wine, allow me a brief moment of self-reflection.  I realized partway through the current Advent blogging blitz that one of these recent half-bottle calendar posts marked the 500th piece of posted content in Pop & Pour’s history.  I have been writing this blog since March 2011, and never in my wildest dreams did I think it would reach half a thousand articles.  So much has changed in my life, my work and my family since then, but PnP has remained a constant, and it has been immensely gratifying to see it grow and expand with new writers, each with their own new approaches and perspectives.  It has been even more gratifying to have people engage with the site and remind me that I’m not just writing into a vacuum, screaming into the void.  See you all in a few years at post #1000, I hope.

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Back to tonight.  After Ray enjoyed consecutive new takes from Moldova (of all places) and cool-climate Cali, I jump back into the fray and seem to continue the Advent 2017 nostalgia tour, with yet another bottle that takes me right back to last year around this time.  Day 8 of 2017 was the 2012 Chante Cigale Chateauneuf-du-Pape, a bottle that I felt was already markedly past its prime, a surprising disappointment from a top-end region.  Tonight brings another five year-old half-bottle from CNDP, this time the 2013 Domaine de Cristia Chateauneuf-du-Pape, from which I hope for better things.

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This family estate started 70 years ago with 2 hectares’ worth of Grenache plantings owned by founder Etienne Grangean.  Etienne’s son expanded the property and added Syrah and Mourvedre to the varietal mix a few decades later (although Grenache remains 85% of the total acreage), and a decade ago Etienne’s two grandchildren came on board.  Now the Domaine has 58 hectares under vine, 20 of which are in Chateauneuf-du-Pape proper, in the eastern sandier part of the appellation. The parcels there face northeast, away from the afternoon sun, promising slower ripening and longer hang-time.  Domaine de Cristia was certified organic in 2008 and use no chemical fertilizers, pesticides or herbicides in its vineyards; it also focuses on indigenous yeast fermentation in the cellar, at lower temperatures in an effort to preserve freshness.  “Of prime importance are finesse and elegance”, says their website.  Sounds good to me, but the proof, as always, is in the bottle. Read the rest of this entry »


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Bricks Wine Advent Calendar 2018: Day 5

5 12 2018

By Peter Vetsch

Once more into the breach, my friends, and on Day 5 of Advent 2018, once more into the bag of Advent 2017 synonyms:  a Moscato d’Asti from a strong producer, much like last year’s Day 10.  That wine (I maintain to this day) struggled with some bottle condition issues, and I am happy to say that this one is clean as a whistle and full of youthful spirit. It is the 2017 G.D Vajra Moscato d’Asti, and spawns stories of history, of production method, of flavour.  Which to tell first?

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Let’s start from the start, I suppose…which it turns out is much more recent than I expected.  Despite its highly traditional-seeming name and labelling, G.D Vajra is barely 45 years old, a complete baby by the standards of Barolo, founded in 1972 (albeit from family vineyards from a couple decades earlier) with its first commercial vintage not released until 1978.  It is named after founder Aldo Vajra’s father and was started because, in Fresh Prince of Bel-Air style, Aldo participated in a student protest revolt in the city where he lived at age 15 and was thereafter immediately sent out to the Barolo countryside to live with his grandfather on a farm for the summer, away from the sway of proletariat rebellion.  That summer in Barolo (as it likely would for all of us) triggered a deep and abiding passion for wine, which ultimately resulted in the bottle here before us.  One little fight and his mom got scared…

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My favourite thing about Moscato d’Asti, apart from its dangerous low-alcohol crushability, is the trivia behind how it’s made.  It is one of the few types of sparkling (or frizzante, in this case – lightly sparkling) wines that do not go through two fermentations:  one to vinify a dry base wine, the other to re-ferment that wine with additional yeast and sugar to create the bubbles.  Instead, it combines both processes into one through a highly ingenious process called the Asti method.  Fermentation begins as per usual, but in a pressurized steel tank that is sealed off from air partway through the process, with the result that the carbon dioxide that is a fermentation byproduct cannot escape the tank and is trapped in the wine.  Then, when the half-bubbly wine is still quite sweet and considerable amounts of yeast and sugar remain that would normally continue to make sweet magic and craft a higher-alcohol dry wine, the tank and the wine inside are chilled to near-freezing to halt fermentation (yeast don’t like cold much).  The yeast is then filtered out of the tank while it is still under pressure (so that fermentation with the remaining sugar does not continue when the wine warms back up) and the wine is bottled under pressure — only lightly bubbly, at 5-6% alcohol and with a bunch of residual sugar.  Brilliant.

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Stelvin Rating:  8/10 (That green is just beautiful, especially in person, and the powdery sheen works.)

This particular Moscato hails from a single vineyard in the perfectly named commune of Mango, located on a steep slope at elevation in the Moscato d’Asti region.  It is a gleeful tropical fruit salad on the nose:  mango (of course), kiwi, canned oranges and pears, banana leaf, star fruit, and onward down the orchard Rolodex, spiked with gobs of potpourri and spring flowers and chemically Alka Seltzer and city pool chlorine.  Lush and quite notably sweet, even for Moscato standards, it is lent a sense of airiness due to its sloshy frizzy bubbles, which are not quite as penetrating or scouring as you might anticipate, a product of the not-quite-sparkling frizzante fermentation process (which is also why this can be bottled in a normal bottle and closure as opposed to a thicker Champagne-style bottle — it’s under a lot less pressure).  All I can taste is pineapple Life Savers, cream soda and every single flavour of Gummy Worm on overdrive.  The finish is slightly cloying, thanks to acid that doesn’t quite stretch all the way to the end of the line and can’t quite balance out the Moscato’s immense sweetness.

As a beverage, this is freaking delicious.  It took no time at all for the entire half-bottle to disappear.  As a wine, I wouldn’t rank it among the top Moscatos I’ve had because the rest of the wine can’t quite keep up with the sugar levels, leading to things getting a little bit flouncy.  But it’s hard to be too unhappy after a couple glasses of Moscato.

87 points


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