Mini Wine Tasting - Four wines under $30 from around the world

Wine and Plein Air DO mix!

Ah, my WSET course is a faint wisp of smoke that has gone. It's been over a month since I've written my exam.

But I still don't know if I passed!

One thing that I did during my WSET course was weekly wine tastings with my friend, Keith, usually after a plein air painting session. We have continued to do so and have tasted some pretty interesting wines, as well as paint3ed some fairly good little studies. We taste two different wines each week and the last two weeks have had us taste some of the best.

So I thought I'd share them....

Last week was my week - and I picked two wines from two very different places.

The first was a 2013 Unanimé Gran Vino Tinto ($30) from the Uco Valley in Argentina. This was a Bordeaux-ish style blend of 60% Cab Sauv, 15% Cab Franc and 25% Malbec and was a delicious wine. It definitely had some strong tannins but also had enough fruit to back it up. Medium plus acidity, black fruits, and a nice long finish. Incidentally, this wine was a present from the parents of a student I taught for two years - and I think this wine was from the first year. Vivino rates it as one of the top 1% of wines in the world and I'm not surprised with its aromas and tastes of blackberry, plum, cassis, tobacco, and leather.  This wine would age well for a few more years but I liked the boldness of it right now! A complex, intense wine, I would rate this as Outstanding.

Unfortunately, for some reason, I didn't take a photo of the next wine. That's too bad because this wine is a bit hard to track down.

For taking care of their dog, my daughter and son-in-law gave us a bottle of Jabulani (not 100% sure of the year) MCM blend ($25?) from Ottawa in Ontario. This wine was very interesting because it is a blend of Merlot, Cab Sauv and Marquette grapes. Marquette is a hybrid grape which means that it is a hybrid of Vitas Vinifera (the wine grape species) and another, North American grape. This is like crossing  a wine grape like Merlot with Welch's Concorde grapes.

The result is a fruit forward, easy drinking, interesting wine. Unlike some other non-wine-grape grapes, Marquette is not 'foxy' or musky in it's taste - it is just fruity! This wine is low in acidity with medium tannins and is great to slurp away, despite its shorter finish. I'm not sure you can buy this outside of Ontario but if you find it, grab a bunch! It's a lovely red patio sipper.  A Very Good wine.

This week was my friend's turn. He picked a couple of excellent wines. Interestingly, they both tasted quite fruity and I mistook the first one for a new world wine.

The first one was an 2016 Zabu Il Passo Nerello Mascalese from Sicily in Italy.($23). The il passo might refer to the passito method. In this wine, the grapes are left on the vine to wither and raisinate, which concentrates the flavours and sugars. As a result, this wine is a little sweet (although I had a hard time telling if it was fruity or sweet), and quite rich in flavour. The Nerello Mascalese grape is one of the two main grapes in the Mount Etna appellation but it appears that this wine is made in the Sambuca di Sicilia area which is on the west side of Sicily while Mt. Etna is on the east side.

There were aromas and tastes of blackberry, plum, and black cherry as well as vanilla and some tobacco. This had medium tannins and medium minus acidity. The finish was medium and it was a fairly intense wine. This would go well with a number of dishes from steak to duck to pasta with meat sauce. I commented to my friend that I would prefer this with a pasta dish over many of the Chianti wines I have tasted! I would rate this wine as Very Good.

The other wine that we tasted this week was a 2014 Gerard Bertrand Saint Chinian from Languedoc, France ($24). The Languedoc region has a bit of a bad name for wine as it is part of the 'wine lake' of France where an ocean of cheap wine (like Fat Bastard and Arrogant Frog) is made. There are, however, some areas of really good wine and the region is making progress towards reinventing itself as a quality region. Saint Chinian is the name of the village and also the appellation so this is better quality wine. The grapes used to make this wine are Syrah and Mourvédre which are destemmed, pressed, and then a third of the grapes are aged in oak for nine months.

This was another wonderfully fruity wine although a bit more austere than the Sicilian wine. You could definitely taste the Syrah but the Mourvédre added some complexity to the mix. There were aromas and flavours of blackberry, plum, and black currant and, perhaps, some cherry. There was also tobacco, oak, a spiciness - including pepper - and some earthy, leathery characteristics with this wine. It had medium tannins (a bit surprising as Mourvédre can be a tannin bomb), medium plus acidity, and a medium plus finish. I really enjoyed this wine and felt it performed above its price point. I would rate it as Outstanding.

Continuing to swirl, sniff, sip, and slurp after my WSET is done is an important way to keep up the tasting skills I have (hopefully) developed. And, no matters how the painting goes, I always have something to look forward to!

Amazing holiday wines - for anytime!

Holidays are the time to bring out the big guns in terms of wine.

Now that things have settled down, it's time to reflect on the past couple of weeks and think about the wonderful wines that I drank. There were many, many excellent wines but three definitely stood out.

California Dreaming

I had my retirement bash at the end of June and, what a number of my friends and colleagues did was, give me a bottle of wine that was special to them.

Fast forward to just before Christmas - our anniversary. After (mumble mumble) years of wedded bliss, we thought we'd stay in downtown Vancouver (the Four Seasons, no less, but we got a killer deal). We decided to go to the Absinthe Bistro on Commercial Drive for, what turned out to be, a spectacular - and I mean spectacular - French meal.

When I was booking our reservation, I had asked if it was OK to bring our own bottle of wine and what the corkage fee was (corkage means the price charged by the restaurant to serve your wine - to basically to take the cork out and pour it). The cost was $24 so I figured it would have to be a pretty darn good bottle of wine. Then I thought of the special wine my friends Dale and Jodi gave to us.

The wine was a 2014 Emmolo Merlot from Oak Knoll in the Napa Valley ($64). We had the server decant it and could only wait about 20 minutes before we had to have some. It was a superb wine - much better than any other Merlot I've ever had. On the nose there were plenty of black fruits, a fig or raisin scent as well as definite leather and smoke. These were also apparent on the palate with chocolate, liquorice and toast adding to the experience. This medium tannin, medium minus acidity wine was Outstanding - it was balanced, had a long finish, was super intense with its fruit flavours and was definitely a complex wine. 

What did we accompany it with? We had a couple different appetizers and it went fine with those but the real winner was the main course. We ordered cassoulet - which is a wonderful French stew with sausages,. duck, white beans and a bunch of other stuff. Every restaurant has a slightly different version and Absinthe did not disappoint. The fruitiness of the wine combined with the elegant structure was a great complement to the salt and fat of the meats. 

A postscript on this wine - I am not usually such a big fan of Merlot but I liked this one so much that, just before Christmas, I bought another bottle. It currently resides in my cellar.

Happy New Year

My son-in-law, Dan, is a big wine lover - and actually completed his WSET level 3 a couple of years ago. For Christmas, his parents gave him a nice bankroll of money to buy wine. I was lucky enough to come along to the BC Signature Liquor Store and see what he was picking.

That night was New Year's Eve and we spent it with my daughter and Dan. We drank champagne, watched some of the festivities on TV, played Settlers of Catan, drank some more wine, and played a movie version of Cards Against Humanity. At one point, Dan opened up one of the wines he had bought - and it was excellent!

The wine was a 2000 Chateau Clarke Baron Edmond de Rothschild Listrac-Medoc Bordeaux ($70). First of all, after it was opened, I thought to myself - wow - 19 years old! Incredible! And it was another Outstanding wine! This medium plus tannin, medium plus acid wine had mellowed over time and would probably be good to drink for a few more years. This wine had aromas and tastes of black currant, black berry, leather, liquorice, toast, and a host of spices. Although the tannins were still in evidence, I still thought it was a wonderful wine and not too strong. It was balanced, had incredibly intense flavours, was complex and had a nice long finish. 

We probably should have had it with beef bourguignon but ended up having it with a charcuterie board which was still a good match. I sipped and smelled and savoured this wine and it happily took me a lot longer to drink than it would usually. This wine was decanted but we probably should have left it for an hour or so. I may have to pick me up a bottle of this one! The grapes in this wine were Cab Sauv, Merlot, and Cab Franc. 

Local hero

The three kings of the holiday were crowned with a wine made from a grape that my wife and I have always enjoyed - even before I started studying wine in earnest. Syrah is a grape that I love as it makes wines that are so drinkable and have character, in my humble opinion. 

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The one we discovered was a 2016 Le Vieux Pin Syrah Cuvée Violette ($40) made from mostly Syrah with a little bit of Viognier. This wine, from our own Okanagan, had aromas and tastes of blueberry, blackberry, pepper, raspberry, leather, and, yes, violets. This is a fairly fruity wine with medium tannins and medium acid. I think it has the capacity to age for several years - my problem is that it tastes so wonderful now, I don't want to lay it down! This is another Outstanding wine from Le Vieux Pin as it has everything you would want in a great wine - balance, complexity, length and intensity.

I became aware of this wine when listening to a blog or reading a wine column in the newspaper. It sounded like a good fit so I searched on the BC Liqour Store app - nothing,. Then I went to Everything Wine - nothing. I checked the winery - sold out. Then I thought - well, Save On sells wine - what are the chances? Rather good, it seems, as the Lakeshore Save On in Kelowna had some. As part of our stay over New Years, I picked up a few bottles of this wine. Now, to cellar or not to cellar?

All three of these wines were fantastic. They are certainly priced higher than most wines I drink but their exceptional quality makes them well worth the money.

Have a happy and wine filled new year!