This ain't gonna be a walk in the park - WSET 3 - first class

After doing really well on my WSET level 2 last year, I thought that it would be a good idea for me to  complete my WSET 3. After all, I got an amazing 96% on my exam so I thought that It would be a fairly easy jump to get my next level.

Wrong.

Our instructor from Fine Vintage, Lynn, was clear. I am going to have to WORK to pass this course. Really hard. Don't get behind or that's it!

One good thing is that the part I was most worried about, the blind tasting, apparently isn't as hard as I thought. So, one silver lining....

Other than scaring the  crap out of us in the first five minutes, Lynn also went over a few things but did not get too in-depth as we just received our materials. Luckily, I borrowed my son-in-law's WSET 3 materials at the beginning of summer and I have at least a good background on what we are doing.

Topics covered included the art of tasting (appearance, nose, and palate). She also discussed the different wine faults that you can come across. The whole concept of food and wine pairing was also discussed, although this is pretty much the same as in level 2. Finally, she went over the new tasting grid for level 3.

Basically, it builds on the level 2 grid. There are the same categories with a few extra (e.g. mousse- for champagne, ageability,  three kinds of flavour characteristics) as well as a slew of new aroma and flavour descriptors.

I sat with another just-retired gentleman, Owen, and a bright, young woman, Verity. We got along really well and think alike - especially when we unanimously got the first two wines wrong!

I also knew two people, well, sort of. Kelly works at Blackwood Lane (I think my favourite Fraser Valley winery) and is taking the course. I see her almost every time I take a tour there. Beside her was April, a young woman who works at the same place my youngest does, Brewery Creek. Somehow she put two and two together and figured I was the dad!

Onto the wines:

All of the tastings are blind tastings. This evening all of the tastings were in pairs.

The first pair were two bubbly wines - a tank style and a traditional Champagne.

When you hear 'tank style' it means that all the wine is put into a giant tank and yeast is added to the tank after wine has been made to provide the fizz. Prosecco is a tank method wine and sometimes gets a bad rap - although I really like Prosecco. This wine wasn't really close to Prosecco - in fact, our group thought it was the Champagne!

The wine was a non-vintage Von Buhl sparkling Riesling from Pfalz, Germany ($36). It had some nice fruit aromas which were pronounced and very pleasing. It was a high acidity, off dry wine with medium flavour intensity and medium finish. Interestingly, the bubbles didn't persist on the palate - they escaped rather quickly - and so, this is called 'aggressive' in terms of the mousse! Ready to drink. Vivino gives it 3.8 stars.

The next wine was a non-vintage Pierre Peters Blanc de Blanc Grand Cru Champagne (made from Chardonnay - $104).  I felt it was rather light on the nose but this may have been my nose confusing lightness for complexity. It was fresh and a bit off dry with medium acidity and medium plus length. There were stone fruits and biscuit on the palate as well as delicate mousse. I still can't believe we got it so wrong - and i don't think I'd pay the $104 -  but this one was ready to drink now, I felt. Vivino gives it 4.1 stars which surprised me.

The next two wines were made from Chardonnay grape. I'm getting better at guessing the grape and I did that with these ones. 

The first was a 2015 Louis Jadot Macron-Villages Chardonnay from Burgundy ($34). It had a pleasant nose with apple, peach and pear with a medium plus intensity. On the palate, it seemed a bit off dry and was fruity with peach, apricot, and honey as well as some vanilla denoting oak. It was a good wine - balance was just OK and had a bit of a short finish and is ready to drink now. Vivino gives it 3.6 stars. 

The second was a classic Burgundy Chardonnay - s 2015 Jacques Prieur Clos de Mazeray Mersault ($135). The nose was less intense - a medium - but had some complex aromas including orange peel, apple, and peach. It was less fruity on the palate - there was lemon zest - but there were other rich tastes including mushroom and toasted nuts. At first, I thought this was not that flavourful and then I realized that the flavours were complex and subtle - an outstanding wine that could age for another 10 years! Vivino gave it 4.1 stars. 

Our next two wines were both whites which we had to compare. I guessed the Riesling and Owen guessed the Pinot Grigio, for what it's worth. 

The Pinot Grigio was a 2017 Tolloy Piniot Grigio from Italy ($26). It had quite the nose with aromas of honeysuckle (I think), peach and pear. On the palate, it had high acidity, included flavours of citrus like lemon and lemon peel, and had a medium finish. We rated it as good and ready to drink. I'll be honest, I'm not a big fan of the Pinot Grigio style (I prefer Pinot Gris style with this grape) and this did not change my mind. This got 3.9 stars on Vivino.

The Riesling was a 2015 Fritz Haag Spatels Riesling from Mosel, Germany ($52).  The nose was pronounced - oh my! There was a strong petrol smell as well as nectarine. On the palate, it was actually medium sweet with peach, apricot, honey, and high acidity. This wine was balanced, intense, complex and had a long finish - outstanding! It has definite ageing potential. Vivion gives this one 4.1 stars.

The last two wines were a rosé and a red. We did some cool stuff including sucking a lemon, eating a chili cracker, or having goat cheese to see the effect on the taste of the wine. Very cool!

The first was one of my favourite Rosés, Joie Farms - a 2017 made form Pinot Noir and Gamay - from the Okanagan ($26). It was not as pronounced on the nose (I only got cherries), but there were lots of flavours on the palate including grapefruit, cherries, and strawberries. This was definitely a dry wine with low tannins (like most Rosa´s). I rated it very good - could have been a bit more balanced - and Vivino gave it 3.7 stars. 

The final wine of the evening was a 2014 Stack House Cabernet Sauvignon from Napa ($92). This dark wine - purple, in fact - had lots of aromas including primary (from fermentation - plum, black cherry), secondary (from the winemaker - cedar), and tertiary (from ageing - mushroom and earth). This was repeated with the palate with the addition of bell pepper, cocoa, and wood. There were high tannins and high acidity and full body. This was considered very good by the group and earned a rating of 4 on Vivino. Disappointingly, the price in BC (must be at a private store) is $92 but the average price on Vivino is $44. Sigh.

Well, onto my homework. What homework, you may ask? Read chapters 1 to 7, do a tasting note using the grid, and then do the homework assignment we received in our email yesterday. Here's the intro to one of the questions...

For each of the below scenarios, discuss which vineyard management techniques should be considered to achieve quality grapes for wine production and two examples of wine regions that fall into the climate category.

Sigh.

This definitely ain't gonna be a walk in the park!

I Would Walk 500 Miles - Naramata Wine Walk Part 1

Naramata Walk Pt. 1

We love to walk. My wife and I enjoy a nice stroll or hike. We also enjoy a nice wine tasting. So we decided to combine them in one, sun-drenched, route-marching, wine-slurping day.

Naramata Bench is an area of the Okanagan stretching north from Penticton along the Okanagan Lake. There are around 45 wineries along the bench which is about 15 kilometres by road from the village of Naramata to the city of Penticton. We decided to walk and visit some of them.

We drove from Kelowna and arrived at the Naramata  Courtyard Suites which is a little motel that has been revamped and was a cozy place to stay (I think we paid about $150). We parked our car, checked in with the motel, and headed off.

The first place we were going to visit was Bella Sparkling because, at 11 in the morning, nothing is better than some bubbles! About half way there, which was in the opposite direction than the rest of the wineries were, I noticed that there weren't a lot of signs to the winery and I was heavily dependent on my Map app. Checking their web site, I realized that the winery was only open on Saturday and Sunday - and this was a Monday! We turned around and headed back towards the motel.

Getting out of Naramata was arguably the hardest part of the walk. It was a pretty steep, sustained hill but thankfully it was still a bit cool. There were a couple wineries right in Naramata but we wanted to get a couple kilometres along before we stopped.

Posing by the ironwork at Serendipity Winery.

Our first winery for actual tasting was Serendipity. They were 'just off the road' - or at least, that's what I told my wife. "See, it's right there!' A good kilometre or so down a steep hill, we came to the gates of the winery, followed by another steep hill into the tasting room.

Being a little off the road, it was not terribly busy. The person behind the counter was quite friendly and we enjoyed tasting the wines they had on offer. One of my favourite was the 2016 Rosé ($22) which was crisp and fruity. It also had a rich red colour, unlike some other rosés on the market. It is made of all red grapes.

We also purchased the 2016 Viognier (also $22) which is a fuller bodied white and one that has a wonderful taste. We also considered getting the Pinot Noir but preferred to wait until a later date. 

I'm sure this happens all the time, especially considering the number of cyclists visiting the different wineries, but we thought we were quite clever n asking the winery to hold the purchased wine for us until we returned the next day with the car. 

After hiking up the hill to the gate and the next hill that led to the road, we continued on our journey. The main road at this point was quite pleasant to walk.

Outside Joie Farm Winery in their little jardin. 

We skipped a couple more wineries and then went down from the road to visit Joie Farm Winery. I love their Rosé - but it is easily available at the liquor store. I was excited to try some of their other wines and I was not disappointed! Their Rosé was, of course, wonderful but we enjoyed their other wines as well. Our service was excellent - the guy behind the counter was a teacher from Ontario whose brother lives in the Okanagan so he decided to work and holiday over the summer!

The 2016 "En Famille" Reserve Riesling ($24) was a fruity, delicious wine that is just a touch off dry (in the German 'spätlese' style). It was a juicy, delicious wine and we ended up with two bottles. Although great with a variety of food, this is also a wine to enjoy on its. own.

The 2017 Noble Blend ($22) is a blend of Gerwurz, Riesling, Pinot Auxerrois, Pinot Blanc and Muscat. This is another fruity white that would be good with certain foods but would also be wonderful sipping on the deck.

I made arrangements to pick up the wine the next day. However, the winery is closed on Tuesday and I had to make arrangements to meet one of the workers to pick up our wine. She was very nice about it, though, so everything worked out!

Next up was Lake Breeze. We didn't actually do a tasting here but stopped for lunch. On their gorgeous outdoor patio,  I drank an ocean of fizzy water and used their bottle to fill up my water bottle as it was almost empty. The service was excellent as well as our lunch.

I had the Bench Burger which included one of my favourite Italian cheeses, Pecorino, as well as mushrooms and truffle aioli. Yum! Accompanying it I had a glass of their Meritage which paired well with the rather lean meat. My wife had the Grilled Chicken Sandwich which included another one of my favourite Spanish cheeses, manchego, as well as avocado cream accompanied by a food friendly Pinot Blanc.

We thought about doing a tasting there as well but, considering that we had a fair ways to go, we decided, instead, to press on.  As I walked up the hill back to the road, I felt a strange chill on the back of one of my legs. I had just applied some more sunscreen so I thought that it must be an extra thick application. However, the cold spot kept occurring, seemingly randomly. Was this some sort of strange skin condition brought on by the intense sun? Or had this hill climbing caused some sort of ligament/vein/artery issue? Did strokes start this way? I asked my wife if she could see any hideous discolouration but she couldn't see any.

Finally, I decided to take drink out of my water bottle. My full water bottle. That was now half empty because the gas from the fizzy water was forcing some of the liquid through the top - and onto my strangely chilled leg!

After the water episode, we hit a fairly long stretch of road that was bereft of wineries. Up and down we went, with no wine and just fizzy water that kept escaping from my water bottle. We probably spent an hour or so going from Lake Breeze (about the 2600 block) to Bench 1775 (1700 block. In the city, those nine blocks would be fairly close but out on the bench, it seemed to take forever!

Finally, we arrived at Bench 1775. It was by far the busiest winery we tried. The guy doing the tasting was polite but not overly friendly. Maybe because we were all sweaty? The wines were nice, though, but we couldn't do the same deal that we did at every other winery on the bench. However, the guy did waive the tasting fee and we did go back the next day and purchased up our wine.

We purchased two wines at Bench 1775. The first was their Brut Rosé ($22). This Chardonnay and Pinot Noir blend was crisp and just a bit fruity but would be wonderful on it's own or with something that wasn't too heavy. This is a killer value as it is done in the traditional method (like real Chanpagne).

The other wine was a 2016 Semillon ($19). This is made of wine from two different vineyard, one in Naramata (cooler) and one in Oliver (hotter) so the wine ends up being tasty ad complex. A really good food wine (chicken, fish, pork, etc.).

Happily, after we had visited Bench 1775, the vineyards seemed to be closer together. Mind you, at this point, if the winery was up a steep hill or down by the water, we tended to skip it as we wanted to make it to Poplar Grove in time for dinner. Some of the ones that we missed out that I really wanted to see up to this point included Nichol, Kettle Valley, Foxtrot (although you need an appointment), and Terra Vista (Spanish varietals). If only they splashed out for an outdoor escalator.....