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!

Hands up! A wine class disaster ends up being sweet - WSET 3.3

My third  WSET 3 class was a bit of a disaster - at least at the beginning.

One of the things I look forward to is having a poké rice bowl before class at Pokerito. I left at 4:30, thinking I would get to BCIT in 45 minutes and, because there would be no line up that early, would have a good 30 to 40 minutes to enjoy my tasty dinner.

Unfortunately, it didn't work that way.

By the time I got to BCIT, it was after 5:30. I rushed to Pokerito and there was a line up of about six people. I finally got my bowl and then rushed back to BCIT and started gobbling down my meal. Then, Sarah, from last week, sat down across from me in the outer area and I couldn't be rude so I picked at my dinner while we chatted.

When I went into the room for the study session, things went pretty well until it was time to answer the study question. Unfortunately, I have already lost my name card so the instructor looked my way and called on 'Doug' to answer. I corrected her and then answered - problem is, the guy sitting across from me is actually named Doug and that's who she meant to call on!

Ugh!

This week's focus was on making wine - red, white, rosé and sweet. Although this is an area that I am familiar with, especially since I made wine in my basement for a few years, there are still many things such as winemaking options and the ways that specific varietals are treated that I really have to study. One thing that irked me - I took copious notes on the specific varietals and our instructor didn't go over it that much, although she alluded to the information during the tastings.

My notes that I made from the readings were pretty thorough and I used them to follow along during class. There's a lot of content, especially this past week, but I am hoping that the countries and regions, which are the focus for the next ten weeks or so, will be a bit easier to remember and give some context for what we have learned so far.

Onto this week's tastings....

The idea behind the tastings this week was to  try and figure out the choices made in the vineyard and by the winemaker. It was really difficult! Luckily, this isn't a focus on the tasting exam but it was good to try and be aware of the choices.

The first two wines were white wines.

Courtesy Cuvée Corner Blog

The 2015 Veramonte Sauvignon Blanc from Casablanca, Chile ($18) was a grassy almost clear wine. It had some citrus aromas and tastes such as grapefruit and lemon, was light bodied, and had high acidity. It was made without any oxygen (anaerobically) to preserve the fruitiness of the wine, has no oak, and was fermented at around 16 or 17°C. Ready to drink now, this wine was not terribly balanced, had a fairly short finish, had acceptable intensity, and was not a complex wine. This we rated as acceptable.

In contrast, the 2016 Mer Soleil Chardonnay from the Santa Lucia Highlands ($39) was much better. There were some interesting flavours and aromas including peach, nectarine, apricot, and vanilla. It was a wine that was fermented aerobically (with some oxygen). was oaked, had a bit of age on it, and was fermented at a higher temperature. It was a balanced wine with a long finish and great intensity but was not overly complex. This was rated as very good.

The next two wines were red wines.

The first was a Georges DuBoeuf Beaujolais made from Gamay ($16). I was a bit stumped on what this even was - some of my group thought pinot noir but I thought it was something else - but not merlot, cab sauv, or cab franc.  I remember drinking this for a while back before I really knew all that much about wine but near the end of my own wine making experience. It was a wine with black and red fruits as well as a candy or bubble gum taste. The main winemaking option was carbonic fermentation where the bunches of grape ferment in CO2 in a closed vat. This gives fruitiness, more colour and less tannins. Ready to drink, this wine was acceptable.

The second of this set was a 2011 Brovia Villero Barolo Nebbiolo ($124). I tasted a lot of red fruit on it which made me think it was a Pinot Noir but our instructor noted high tannins, mushrooms, violets, liquorice, and roses. This wine had gone through pre and probably post fermentation maceration (where the grape skins stay in the juice), cap management (where the grape must is punched down on a regular basis), oak, and light extraction of flavours. After Elena, our pourer, mentioned that it was an unexpected grape and gave the hint, "it's a wine that's old when it's young," I knew it was Nebbiolo! This wine was good to drink now but could spend lots more time in the cellar. This was an outstanding wine!

The next two wines were the same grape but treated (wildly) different. The grape was Zinfandel.

The first was a 2017 Gallo Family White Zinfandel ($9). This medium sweet Rosé was invented by Bob Trinchero in California and was the result of a mistake! I listened to this podcast recently on Grape Nation and actually enjoyed finding out the story behind this super sweet wine. That said, it is not my favourite wine. This acceptable wine is medium sweet with low alcohol, light body, candy red fruit and vanilla. In the winery. it was directly pressed with a short maceration and had the fermentation stopped so that not all of the sugar turned to alcohol, creating a sweet wine.

The second Zinfandel was a 2014 Ridge East Bench Zinfandel from Dry Creek, Sonoma ($63). This definitely had some oak on it as there were tastes of raspberry, cloves, liquorice, blackberry and spice. This high alcohol wine was dry, had good acid, and medium tannins - it was intense, complex and had a long length. We rated this wine as very good.  

Our final two wines were sweet wines. People often think that sweet wines (like the above White Zin) are for beginning drinkers and, if you can't feel the enamel coming off your teeth, it isn't a dry enough wine. I have since discovered, however, that there are sweet wines that are complex and wonderful and are wines for connoisseurs!

The first one, which I guessed correctly, was an ice wine. It was a 2015 Arrowleaf Vidal Ice Wine ($56 for a half bottle). This had some complex flavours including peach, nectarine, honey, fig, raisin and vanilla. Its sweetness was kept in check by its high acidity.The winemaking process included no oak, pure flavour and some pear drop flavours which would indicate lower temperature fermentation. I'm not a huge fan of ice wine but this one was pretty darn good.

The final wine was a lusciously sweet recioto - a 2014 Ben Ryé Donnafugata Passito di Pantelleria from Italy ($54 for half a bottle). With Recioto wines, the grapes are picked, then laid out in the sun and they become raisins, concentrating their sugars. This is called Passito style. When it is fermented, the fermentation is stopped early (unlike Amarone, another Passito style) so it is very sweet - but also highly acidic. This wine, made from Muscat, is definitely oxidized in the winemaking process (the colour was actually amber) and had considerable oak. The flavours including orange peel zest, raisin, fig, and marmalade. It was very tasty! This is my first Recioto but will definitely not be my last! Bonus - it supposedly pairs really well with chocolate!