Tapas and Tastings - Another Great Wine Tasting Evening

Last night, we were invited to our friends' house for an evening of wine tasting and tapas - and it was a great time!

Each couple was responsible for bringing a bottle of wine. We were given the tapas dish in advance and were asked to bring something that would go with the food.

When we arrived, we secretly put our bottle in a paper bag and labelled the bag with the number that corresponded to the tapas course.

For each wine, there was a score sheet ( à la WSET 2) and a page that gave descriptors for the different characteristics of wine. Our host, Keith, popped open the wine, shared it around, and then we spied, sniffed, swirled, sipped and slurped the wine. After a few minutes, our other host, Lynn, brought on the tapas that went with the wine which we proceeded to nibble on while sipping the wine yet again.

Finally, after all of this drinking and eating, we would make our guesses and then Keith would reveal the bottle.

I absolutely loved it!

There were five wines and five tapas. Here's what we had.

The first wine received an interesting reaction from the table. One of the guests said, right off, that she didn't like it. Another said that he couldn't smell anything. I was able to smell citrus fruits like grapefruit as well as some green apple. This continued on the palate where I also tasted what I thought was a little yeast and high acidity. It was also quite mineral-y - and had almost a stone taste to it.

It was paired with Deviled Eggs with Shrimp. The pairing was great - it really meshed very well with the wine. Both the egg and shrimp came alive with the minerality of the wine.

I decided that because it was a great food pairing that this was an Old World wine. The minerality and lack of real fruitiness on the nose led me to Chardonnay. I guessed that is was either a Chablis or a Burgundy Chardonnay.

 

It was, in fact, a French Premier Cru Chardonnay from Burgundy - a 2014 Mont-Palais Rully Premier Cru ($50 - not sure where to buy in BC). I haven't drunk a lot of Premier Cru wines so far so it is a special honour to be able to drink one. On its own, it was a good wine, but with the food, it was amazing!

Next was a red wine. I recused myself from this one because my friend had phoned me a few days before and asked for a recommendation - so I knew what it was! Even so, I think that I would have been able to get this one. It had a lighter ruby colour with just a hint of garnet around the edge. The taste was definitely black fruits and there was medium structure and acidity. This was unmistakable as a Pinot Noir.

The tapa for this wine was a mushroom crostini with roasted red pepper and gruyere cheese. The wine paired very nicely with the food.

I had given my friend two possibilities - an Old World Pinot from France and a New World from the Okanagan. Since the wine tasted so darned good on its own, I, naturally, assumed it was the New World Pinot.

Wrong! It was a French Jean-Claude Boisset Les Ursulines 2016 Burgundy (Bourgogne) Pinot Noir ($26). I found it to be a very nice Pinot and would pair with a very nice range of dishes - the perfect wine when everyone orders something different!

The third wine was tricky. It was a fairly pale lemon white wine with a somewhat fruity nose and smelled of apple, honey, and stone fruit. The tapa that we had with it was an amazing Mu She chicken wrapped in lettuce. The fruitiness of the  wine paired well with the spices in the chicken.

My wife and I have had a couple of bottles of Gewürztraminer lately and I didn't think the nose was floral enough. That still left others like Pinot Gris or Viognier - so that's what I guessed - Pinot Gris.

Nope! It was a 2016 Gray Monk Gewürztraminer ($16) from the Okanagan. I was fooled by the less floral nose! Fooled or not, it was a good wine to have with the food.

Fourth was the wine that we had brought. It was well received as it was a bit bold, had some nice red and black fruit, had soft tannins and medium acid, and paired well with the tapa which was potato skins with chorizo and queso (cheese). The food was unbelievably delicious (well, it all was, actually) and I was tempted to find a yogurt container so I could steal all the left overs. The wine really stood up well to the chorizo but didn't overpower the subtler flavours in the skins or the cheese. A great pairing!

One of my friends got it (or came close enough, in my mind). He guessed Tempranillo - and it was, in fact,  a  2013 Beronia Rioja Reserva (aged at least 3 years) from Spain. For $26 I think this was an excellent wine and will definitely buy it again. Kudos to 'my guy' at the Pitt Meadows Specialty BC Liquor Store who helped me with this selection. This wine actually has Tempranillo and two Spanish grapes that I don't know a lot about, Mazuelo and Graciano.

Finally, we had a fortified wine to finish off. It was definitely a Port but it's pretty hard for me to tell the difference between Ports - other than they taste wonderful! This Port was quite sweet, had notes of nuts, caramel and honey, and was paired with an incredible chocolate mousse. The Port was sweet enough to stand up nicely to the dessert. I decided that it wasn't a vintage Port (as it was poured straight from the bottle - vintage Ports need to be decanted), tasted sweeter than I thought a Tawny Port would taste and tasted smoother than a ruby Port so I thought it was a Late Bottle Vintage (LBV) Port.

Close, but no cigar - it was a Taylor Fladgate 10 Year Old Tawny Port from Portugal ($40). Still, not a bad guess....

A great end to a fantastic tasting evening. Viva tapas!

Picky Pinot - the Heartbreak Grape - WSET Class number 3 - Part 2

I started off talking about my Pinot Noir experiences during my last blog as a way to introduce the Pinot Noir tasting at my WSET course this week - but I got a bit carried away....

Pinot Noir is a difficult grape to grow. If you've had some less than stellar Pinot Noir - and I have had my share - it can turn you off wines made with the grape. That exact thing had happened to me for a few years but, a couple of years ago, I tried some Pinot Noir from the Okanagan that was so good that it restored my faith in, what winegrowers call, the heartbreak grape.

Pinot Noir originates from Burgundy. It is an elegant and delicate grape, full of red fruit flavours, which can age well and become more complex. It usually has light body and light to medium tannins, and you have got to be really careful taking with new oak because it can overpower this delicate wine.

The Cote d'Or in Burgundy is divided into two parts, the Cote de Nuits and the Cote de Beaune. Basically, the Cote de Beaune produces the highest amount of Pinot Noir while the Cote de Nuits produces the best wine with more intensity, complexity and length.

This is where you find such world famous (and expensive) wines like Le Chambertin Grand Cru and Domaine Romanée Conti. Let's all go to the Cote de Nuits!

What is all this stuff with crus and grand crus? Well, in France, there is a system that tells you how good the wine is and it is similar, but not identical, in each region.

In Burgundy, the basic wines are the Bourgogne wines. These are produced on flat fields and make up most of the production.

Next are the Villages wines, on still fairly flat land, named after a commune or village - say, like Gevery-Chambertin - and go for $50 - $70.

Next are the Premiere Cru wines which are on steeper land with different soil and produce higher quality wines - maybe around $100. They say Premiere Cru on the label.

Finally are the Grand Cru wines which are on the steepest parts of the valley and are so exceptional that they have their own AOC - basically their vineyard is the name. For example, Chambertin Clos de Bezé.

There are good Pinot Noir wines in California (Sonoma - Russian River, Carneros, Santa Barbera - near LA!) and in Oregon, which is said to have Pinot Noir like Burgundy. Chile has the grape in Casablanca and San Antonio and supposedly has a strawberry jam flavour.

There are good Pinot Noir wines in both South African (Walker Bay) and Australia (Yarra Valley, Worthington Peninsula). And there are some pretty awesome New Zealand Pinot Noir from Marlborough and, especially, Otago, where it is fuller body, lower acidity and intense.

Our first two Pinot Noir wines were from Burgundy.

The first was clear, pale and ruby with medium intensity on the nose and red fruit like red currant, cranberry, plum, and especially raspberry. On the palate it had high acidity - really high it seemed - medium body, light tannins, the same red fruit and a bit of oak. Due to its light body and almost short finish, our group gave it an Acceptable rating! It was a 2014 Bourgogne Les Ursulines made by Jean-Claude Boisset ($25).

The second one - ahh - the second was a different Pinot Noir!

It was clear, ruby with medium intensity. On the nose was medium intensity but many aromas including red fruit, plum, jam, fig, red cherry, rhubarb and red liquorice! There were also spices including cinnamon and nutmeg.

On the palate, there were low tannins, medium body and an almost earthy taste. The aromas I smelled were all reflected in the taste as well as some oak, black pepper, and smoke. It had a medium plus finish and our group rated it Very Good. It was a Louis Jadot, Premiere Cru, Beaune Greves from 2012 and well worth the $90 the WSET people had to pay!

Our last two Pinot Noir wines were from the New World.

First up was a California 2011 from the Russian River Valley in Sonoma made by Pedroncelli ($31). It was clear, pale,  and garnet in colour. On the nose there were some red fruit, plum and spice, all at medium intensity. More red fruit was apparent on the palate with medium plus acidity, medium minus tannins, medium body and a medium finish. It was OK but just didn't seem all that complex.

 

The last wine was a New Zealand wine from Otago from Felton Road and was a 2015 priced at $70. It was clear, pale and ruby in colour. It had a medium plus intensity on the nose and there were red fruits like strawberry and raspberry as well as cedar and oak. On the palate it had medium length and medium body with tastes of red fruit like red cherry and red currant, plum, oak, toast, vanilla, cinnamon and white pepper.

Our group really liked this and rated it very good but Dave, our instructor, said it was more of a Good Plus.

Both the New Zealand Pinot Noir and the Premiere Cru from Burgundy would make a very nice wine to drink on a special occasion. I'm not sure if I would even want to purchase the other two as they were less money but suffered from not being a flavourful enough Pinot Noir.

I leave for the Okanagan this weekend and will be undoubtedly be tasting a variety of wines. Not sure if I will be blogging on all of them but I will try to sip and slurp a couple at least.