Long time no PnP! One consequence of drinking almost 50 wines over 16 hours in 2 days is that it doesn’t necessarily make you want to come home and WRITE about wine. Two thirds of my Intermediate WSET class is now in the books, with the last day and the exam next Saturday, and after a day off yesterday my palate’s rested up and I’m ready to get back in the saddle.
I will admit that Barbera doesn't often shine in the label category. Marketing minds have to be able to do better than this.
I went with another Barbera d’Alba tonight so soon after the Cogno Barbera I wrote up a couple reviews ago because I spent the first half of that review raving about how awesome Barbera was and then the second half of the review backpedalling because the wine wasn’t all that great, or at least not all that typical of the grape. In order to make sure not to duplicate my mistake, this time I picked a wine that I’ve had in previous vintages, and one that might be one of the all-time great bottle bargains in the $20-or-less category. I’ve tracked down the Gomba for the past two years, but this was my first crack at the 2009. Read the rest of this entry »
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One and a half vino-free weeks later, I’m over my illness and once again ready to wine it up. On the eve of my foray into WSET wine camp, my symptoms have subsided enough that popping and pouring is again on the agenda, and tonight’s wine is of particular interest because it was decided by you, the people…well, 14 of you, anyway. The first ever PnP wine poll was at least a marginal success, and by a landslide, you voted that my first post-sickness wine should be one that I’ve had before, with horrific results: the 2008 Enzo Boglietti Dolcetto d’Alba. To be fair, Enzo wasn’t at all to blame for my initial nightmare experience, which was due to a faulty bottle; tonight he gets his rightful chance to salvage his name and reputation. Read the rest of this entry »
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So I’m still sick, making this currently the most wine-free wine blog on the Internet. Since I can’t DRINK wine right now, I’m doing the next best thing, which is THINKING about drinking wine, and to pump up the anticipation for my triumphant return to vino I thought I’d get your input about what bottle I should crack on that illustrious occasion. I have picked four wines that have been tangentially featured or mentioned in previous PnP posts, and now it’s up to you to decide which one will get top billing in my next review…whichever one gets the most votes by the time my illness goes away (hopefully sometime this weekend if there’s any justice in this world) will be the lucky winner. Without further ado, the very first Pop & Pour Wine Poll:
Here’s a little additional info about each of the four contenders and their PnP history:
2008 Mercer Estates Dead Canyon Ranch Cabernet Sauvignon: I reviewed Mercer’s $30ish Columbia Valley Cabernet Sauvignon from Washington State at the end of March (see the review here) and liked it (88 points), but to me it actually didn’t live up to Mercer’s own significantly cheaper $20ish Dead Canyon Ranch Cabernet Sauvignon. I’ve had the DCR multiple times before (I tend to pounce on wine that good for that price), but I’ve never written it up on the blog…yet.
2007 Amavi Cellars Syrah: I had the 2005 vintage of this wine in mid-March and absolutely adored it (see the review here) — I gave it 92 points at the time, and in retrospect I might even want to bump that up another point. It was everything higher-end Syrah should be: fruity, meaty, savoury, long, lingering and endlessly complex. I’ve now obtained the 2007 version of Amavi’s Syrah and am dying to see if it lives up to its predecessor.
2008 Enzo Boglietti Dolcetto d’Alba: I TRIED to review this wine once before, back in mid-April, but it only took a sniff and a sip to force me to change plans and write about how to detect corked wine instead — yecch. I saved my ruined bottle, and the Ferocious Grape was good enough to take it back and give me a replacement, no questions asked. I now sort of feel like I owe Enzo a mulligan and have been waiting for the right time for a take two on his Dolcetto.
2009 Loosen Dr. L Riesling: When I reviewed Charles Smith’s Kung Fu Girl Riesling in early April, I suggested that the only entry-level (sub-$20) Riesling that I’ve had that could go toe to toe with KFG was Loosen’s Dr. L, which is available at Superstores everywhere for around $15. At some point I will do a Dr. L vs. KFG head to head taste-off, but I figure I owe Dr. Loosen a starring role in a review first.
There you have it — I await your votes! I will readily admit that I have hesitated putting up any kind of poll on PnP before in fear that the ultimate results would end up being 2 votes to 1 or something equally embarrassing, so I am counting on you to keep this blog from looking third-rate…make it seem second-rate at least. Please vote, and please pass this on to anyone else who might want to weigh in! If you want any more info on the contending wines, leave a comment and I will answer ASAP. Cheers!
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So the label's beige, coral pink and orange? It HAS to be good!
I haven’t had a Barbera in awhile, but it’s one of my all-time favourite red grapes, so it’s high time to change that trend. Barbera is mainly grown in the Piedmont region in northwest Italy, which is much (much much) more famous for the Nebbiolo-based wines from Barolo and Barbaresco, which are some of Italy’s most prestigious and expensive. While Nebbiolo is the show-dog grape of the region, Barbera is the lovable mutt who sleeps beside your bed at night; Nebbiolo is deep, complex, layered and pedigreed, while Barbera is rustic, juicy, fun and earthy. Although Nebbiolo is what generates the most cash for winemakers in Piedmont, Barbera is what they drink at night. Barbera is a great intro grape for those people who want to start learning what European wines are all about but have been used to the overt fruitiness of California and Australia: it features ripe red fruit flavours that are eminently drinkable but also has the underlying flavours of the land and the ground common in the Old World, all thrown together with a bit of wildness, some colouring outside the lines. All this, usually, for $15-$25 a bottle. Read the rest of this entry »
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Anyone who has ordered a bottle of wine in a restaurant knows that there’s a specific series of steps that are inevitably followed by the wait staff before you’re left alone with your vino of choice. Depending on your point of view, this process is either a charming ritual that enhances the dining experience or one of the ways to justify a 150%+ markup on a $30 bottle of wine. If you’ve never heard the rationale behind each part of the restaurant wine service regime, this procedure might cause you unnecessary stress during what should be a relaxing night out, so here are the main things that happen after you place your wine order and how you should react to them: Read the rest of this entry »
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When I was somewhat skeptical (read: incredulous) about the idea of paying over $20 for a Chardonnay from the vinuous hotbed of Uruguay as he was suggesting, we made a bet: if I tried the wine and gave it less than 85 points on PnP, he’d buy it back from me. Always one to step up to a challenge and jump at the chance of drinking guaranteed wine from random South American countries, I grabbed the bottle and made plans to crack it ASAP. After a weekend of extravagant wine drinking, I thought there was no better way to get my palate down to Earth than with a solid bottle of Uruguaian Chardonnay… Read the rest of this entry »
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There was no PnP post last night, because instead of pounding something out on my keyboard for the blog, I was out doing “field research”. It started at Brava Bistro on 17th Avenue (try the potato and honey flatbread!), ultimately ended up at a friend’s place downtown, and was the kind of research where no notes are taken, many glasses are emptied, and the recollection of wines past is not quite as sharp as expected the next day. That said, we had enough interesting and incredible wines that I would be remiss not to pass along at least something about what we enjoyed. The night’s wines were cracked in this order (Editor’s Note: I am not counting the half bottle of Hello Kitty sparkling Italian rosé [don’t ask] that worked its way into the lineup at the end of the night and was, to put it kindly, an utter abomination): Read the rest of this entry »
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OK, time to get serious and prepare yourself for the most expensive wine in PnP’s young history! It was my birthday yesterday, which automatically meant a bottle out of the “good” wine fridge. That turned out to be the 2006 Cakebread Cab, which I got for Christmas a couple years ago from my wonderful in-laws (did your in-laws ever give you high-end wine for Christmas? I didn’t think so). Cakebread is a renowned producer from Napa Valley, the vinicultural heart of California, and I’ve been a big fan of theirs for a long time. One of my first ever epiphany wine experiences that opened my eyes to the world of fine wine involved a Cakebread, and since then I’ve tried a number of their offerings and have even been to visit the winery and taken part in a tasting there (highly recommended if you’re ever in the area). Like many Napa producers, Cakebread makes a lot of different wines but hangs its hat on its Cabernet Sauvignon; this Cab was made from grapes sourced from a variety of locations within Napa Valley and retails for close to $100 CDN, so I was very interested to see how it fared. Read the rest of this entry »
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I don’t usually buy wines and then drink them immediately, but I couldn’t bring myself to wait on this one. I was in Aspen Wine & Spirits yesterday to see what was on special when I noticed these half-bottles of back-vintage Alsatian Grand Cru Gewurztraminer selling for $28. Like many other older wines available at AW&S, these used to be inventory of another wine store that went under a little while ago; as these library wines near their peak drinking window and the urgency to sell them increases, their prices drop accordingly. I was told that the $28 selling price for the Weinbach was close to the store’s cost and that these half-bottles usually run around the $50 mark at normal retail prices. I bought one about 0.02 seconds later. Read the rest of this entry »
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Welcome to a special all-request edition of PnP! For a few weeks now, loyal subscriber S has been asking me to find and review a South African wine, particularly one made by producers KWV or Robertson. I am nothing if not (eventually) responsive, and I cling to blog subscribers like grim death, so last weekend when I was at Highlander North Hill I sauntered over to the South Africa section and jumped on the only KWV I could see, the 2007 Cathedral Cellar Cabernet Sauvignon. The wine was bargain priced at $15 (including tax!), and since I don’t drink much SA wine, I was curious to see what it would deliver compared to Californian, Australian, Spanish or Italian wines in the same price range. Read the rest of this entry »
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What better way to inaugurate popandpour.ca than with my favourite kind of wine? This German Riesling was previously featured in this post from the PnP archives about how to decipher German wine labels; if you’ve read it, you now know that this Riesling from producer Weingut (“wine estate”) Wegeler is from the Hasensprung (“hare’s leap”) vineyard near the town of Winkel in the Rheingau wine region of south-central Germany. It’s been classified with the Spätlese (“late harvest”) ripeness designation, meaning the grapes were picked at a slightly riper level than the baseline Kabinett level for top-quality German wines, but it’s also a Trocken (dry) wine, which means that there will be very little if any residual sugar left in it. The word “Trocken” is a key hint on this bottle, because most Spätlese wines are at least somewhat sweet, but those stated to be Trocken definitely won’t be. So before you deride all German Rieslings for being too sweet for your palate, take a closer look at the label! Read the rest of this entry »
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Zinfandel! When made right, still one of my favourite reds.
Happy Easter everybody!! Special occasions call for special wine, and on this Easter weekend I turned to Ridge, a classic California producer who is giving serious attention to a grape that’s often treated too frivolously: Zinfandel. If any of you reading this just said “Hang on, I thought Zinfandel was white?”, banish that thought from your head forever. While an ocean of blush jug wine has been created bearing the name “White Zinfandel”, Zin is actually a red grape. What makes White Zinfandel white (or, more accurately, slightly pink) is that when it is made, the fermenting juice is only left in contact with the grapes’ skins for a very short time, after which it is quickly separated so that the skins can’t pass on much of their dark colour to the finished wine (thus preventing it from being red). White Zinfandel is a cheap, uninteresting, bastardized version of a varietal that, when shown the proper care, can create some of the truest versions of American red wine out there. The US (especially California) is the predominant producer of Zin in the world; Zinfandel really only shows up elsewhere around the globe in southern Italy, where it is known as Primitivo. Read the rest of this entry »
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Sometimes low expectations will get you everywhere. This was one of those wines that I bought, stuck in my wine fridge and then intentionally avoided drinking for many many months because I didn’t think it would be very good. Even on nights when I just wanted something cheap and cheerful to wash down dinner, I always managed to make this the 2nd or 3rd option, so it sat there, lonely and neglected, until I finally decided to put it out of its misery tonight. I don’t know exactly why my outlook was so dim; maybe it’s because there’s something jarring about seeing a wine from Rioja, the most renowned and traditional wine region in Spain, with a screwtop (not that there’s anything wrong with screwtop wines — the screwtop, a.k.a. Stelvin closure, actually does a better job preserving wine than a cork does). Maybe it’s because the label is so blasé. Whatever the reason, I was all geared up to have a bad wine experience tonight, but instead the little screwtop that could totally came through for me. Read the rest of this entry »
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After last night’s CNDP debacle, I wanted to make sure I bounced back strong tonight. So I turned to my go-to varietal (Riesling) in my go-to wine country (Germany) to bring you the first ever non-dessert white wine featured in PnP, the 2009 Mussbach Kabinett Riesling from Muller-Catoir. I bought this wine a few months ago from Bin 905 on 4th St and 23rd Ave SW, on which visit I discovered that they have the most ludicrously large German Riesling selection in Calgary, probably in Canada…it’s like Anglo-Saxon Mecca in there. I don’t go to Bin a lot, but I foresee a few periodic Riesling pilgrimages in my future. Read the rest of this entry »
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cabernetdialectic (Raymond Lamontagne)
Dan Steeves
Peter Vetsch
tylerderksen
pop & pour 