But That's Not All! More Okanagan Wineries

With wife & daughter about to taste at House of Rose.

Like a late night infomercial, my recent trip to the Okanagan wineries seemed to go on and on - but in a good way! After spending a day walking Naramata wineries, and then a day recuperating, we hit the wine road again, but this time in a car.

First, we had one winery left to visit in Penticton because we hadn't had time to see them all. We visited Three Sisters based on the fact that my wife is one of three sisters in her own family!

Another winery, another excellent tasting!

We tried yet another tasty Rosé. The 2017 Rosé ($20) was a lovely fruit forward Rosé with tastes of strawberry and even a hint of rhubarb. 

Next was the 2016 Cab Franc ($25 - out of stock, according to their website but might be some left in the winery). This wine had rich dark fruit flavours that would go well with grilled pork or maybe a skewer of beef. 

Finally was one I don't see that often in the Okangan - Tempranillo. This Spanish grape is one that I do like to have on occasion and the Three Sisters take on the grape, a 2016 Tempranillo ($29), was well done. This one had tastes of dark plums and black currants and was a rather bold wine. 

Getting in the car, we zipped down past Oliver and went to an old favourite, Tinhorn Creek. We have been wine club members for many years at Tinhorn Creek. We are Original Red members so we only have to commit to one case of reds each year - I think new members have to commit to two now. Being members of the 'Crush Club' has other benefits including wine discounts, first access to special events and parties, and special offers. 

The offer that excited us (same as last year) was their Canada Day offer. We were able to get three bottles of their highly drinkable 2016 2Bench White and three bottles of  their amazing 2013 2Bench Red (note the older label)  for $133 - a savings of close to $45! Well worth the detour! Tinhorn Creek was bought out by Peller last year but their wines and service seem unaffected by the change in ownership - it is still a great place to do a tasting and their wines are, for the most part, excellent. 

Heading north, we blasted through Penticton and went all the way to Okangan Falls and Synchromesh. We love Synchromesh Riesling - and I mean LOVE their Riesling - and had bought the Okanagan Wine Club 6 pack just so we could get our hands on some. Their riesling was sold out to the general public at the beginning of June! 

Not only did we get four bottles of four distinct Rieslings from four different vineyards, we also got two bottles of their excellent red blend, Tertre Rouge. While I haven't popped any of the 2017 Riesling yet (all $28 each except for the Stormhaven which is $40), I have to tell you that my wife and I opened a bottle of 2014 Tertre Rouge ($40) and it was absolutely wonderful - good, rich tannins as well as dark fruits and a glorious, long finish. This is a blend of Merlot and Cab Franc.

I spoke to one of the guys loading up the boxes when we arrived at the winery and he said that they might not do the Okanagan Wine Club next year (uh-oh) and just make these wines available on their own wine club. Might be worth looking into - a mixed case of 2 X 4 Rieslings, 2 Tertre Rouges, and 2 Cab Francs is $334.

Back in Kelowna, we decided to check out a couple more local wineries.

First up, after a long drive, and I mean a long drive, was House of Rose. This was an interesting winery - way in the back of beyond and just a little tasting room. 

We tried several of their wines, all with crazy names like 'Grapes with Benefits' and 'Hot Flash'. The names kind of put off my wife - not sure why 'Hot Flash' had that effect...  I wasn't a huge fan of most of their wines but I did like their 2017 Cool Splash ($19) which is a fresh, fruity blend of Pinot Gris and Riesling.  It was a little off dry and so will make a great patio sipper. 

Inside The Vibrant Vine tasting room

Our final stop for tasting was The Vibrant Vine - apparently they had just won some big award so was quite the popular place. At the front of the winery is a hostess with an iPad. You give your name and she gives you a pager, sort of like a restaurant. Then you go inside and can look at their merchandise while you wait to be called. Then, you are called in and the wine guy works his magic. I think that they are only supposed to be responsible for one group at a time because our wine guy seemed a bit choked when he was given another group. 

The tasting was excellent - the associate was funny and well informed and also poured generously! We came away with two wines, the first being their 2016 Woops (so called because on the first run, they didn't catch that the labels were upside down - $26). I loved the fruitiness and the fact that it was made from a blend of seven different white varietals. I also loved the label, especially when viewed through 3D glasses!

The other wine we bought was the 2015 Dragon (around $35?) . It is a blend of Merlot, Cab Franc, and Syrah and is a lovely blend that I am considering putting in the cellar. 

After all that tasting, and driving, we ended up at Meadow Vista for an outstanding charcuterie board and a proscuitto and peach flatbread accompanied with little glasses of their Bliss sparkling honey wine which has been added to cherries - very tasty for $19 for 500ml and $27 for a litre. I would whole heartedly recommend their little bistro as a great place to grab lunch when you are wine touring in Kelowna!

Vertically Challenged - When Wine Tasting Turns Ugly

And the winner is....
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the winner....
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Recently I participated - no, not just participated - I hosted my first vertical tasting. A vertical tasting is when you taste different years or vintages of the same wine.

I have done two before, one at Hester Creek where I tasted different vintages of their flagship wine, the Judge, and one at my daughter and son-in-law's to try three different vintages of Quail's Gate Syrah. Both of these events were very informative and wonderful ways to spend the evening. It is also a really good way to understand how aging can add so much to the quality of the wine.

I thought I would return the favour to said members of my family and I brought over a vertical of a wine that I felt should be drunk now. These were all Pinot Noir wines from Tinhorn Creek.

Back when I didn't know that much about wine (about a year ago) I  figured that any wine I got from my annual Tinhorn Creek case that had the words "Oldfield" on it was going to be, not only a really good wine, but one that would age well (Oldfield is their higher tier wine - named after the original winemaker, Sandra Oldfield). Not the best way to do things, I know.

Once I actually took the time to catalogue my wine cellar, I found that I had a few Pinot Noir wines that had been sitting around for a few years. Now, if the Pinot Noir was from Burgundy, that would be a good thing as some of their Pinot Noirs can age for years. However, Okanagan Pinot Noirs (as well as most other New World Pinots) just don't typically do that well.

In my cellar I had Tinhorn Creek wines from 2011, 2012 and 2013. All of them had been aged one year in oak and three in the bottle before I got them so the oldest had been in my cellar for three years.

The watch dog of the wines, my daughter's dog, Nebbiolo.

Tinhorn Creek uses screw tops for all of their wines so there were fewer chances for some of the wine faults that can happen - although with just three years of aging, I don't think it would have been a big problem. All of the wines were kept in my cellar (the storage locker of my condo) which is underground and closed off - and uninsulated as well. Not perfect but the best I can do.

We each had three glasses in from of us, one for each vintage. We cracked all three and started sniffing. Interestingly, the 2011 had the lowest amount of alcohol meaning it was a cooler year, the 2012 had a medium level of alcohol meaning it was a warm year, and the 2013 had the highest alcohol, meaning it was the hottest year of the three.

The 2011 had a fairly complex nose. As my son-in-law said, it had a bouquet, rather than just an aroma. It seemed quite interesting with cherries dominating but also other red fruit and some earthiness as well. The 2012 also had more of a bouquet rather than an aroma - similar to the 2011 but a bit stronger in the fruitiness. The 2013, on the other had, had an aroma of cherries and that was really it - it did not have the complexity of the other two.

Ah, but then we started to taste.

I was quite excited to try the 2011. However, when I tasted it, it was lacking the fruitiness that it had when first bottled. In fact, it tasted rather flat and watery. It was not good on the palate. We had waited far too long to drink this wine!

I was a bit devasted that I had brought this wine to share. I had looked so forward to drinking this with the group and found that it was not what I was expecting at all.

Then we tried the 2012.

It, too, had lost a lot of the wonderful fruitiness that Pinot Noirs are known for. It was also quite bland and somewhat tasteless, although not as watery as the 2011. This was not going well!

Lastly, the 2013.

It was, well, OK. Even after just a year in the cellar, it had lost some of those wonderful fruity flavours that it had had when I had tried a bottle last year. It was certainly better than the other two, but not great.

Then my son-in-law said, "Try the nose on the 2011 and 2012!"

Going back to these, the wonderfully complex bouquet that I had smelled before was gone! I could barely smell anything from these two vintages! It was like the delicate bouquet had blown right off of the wines!

We did manage to drink most of the 2012 and the 2013, but left the bulk of the 2011.

Was I disappointed? Absolutely.

Did I learn anything? Of course!

It is said that most wines should be drunk when you buy them. A lot of us think we know better and go counter to that notion. This was a great lesson on why aging is often not the best thing to do!

As I take my WSET 3 in September, I am eager to learn more about how to tell if a wine is good for aging.

Hmm - maybe I should go through my cellar again and take out some more 'aging candidates'!

Bottle of white, bottle of red - wine to accompany a nice steak

Fresh off the heady results of my WSET 2 Exam, I thought it was time to start blogging about wine again. I've got to keep those tasting skills up, after all.

I had selected a nice rib eye steak to barbecue for last night's dinner. I turned on the barbecue, and took a look at what we had to drink. Luckily there were a couple of happy choices waiting for us, both from the Okanagan.

In the fridge was the last bit of a great white wine we had opened the previous night so I poured a couple of small glasses of Tinhorn Creek's 2015 2Bench White.

I bought this wine as part of their Canada 150 special - 3 bottles of 2Bench Red and 3 Bottles o 2Bench White for around $150 which was a great deal.

The 2Bench White was still delicious even after being opened the night before. There were aromas and tastes of peach, pear and an amazing apple taste with this wine. The flavours were all quite strong and were balanced with a hint of sweetness that was like honey. The wine was very crisp and refreshing. At $30 a bottle, it's not a cheap wine but definitely a pleasing wine.

We slowly nursed our small drink until the steak was ready. While it sat on the counter, resting, I opened a bottle of The Hatch's Hobo Series 2015 Cabernet Franc.

This was another amazing choice - there were strong flavours of black currant, dark plums, cranberries and medium minus tannins as well as definite tastes of tobacco, leather and a bit of smoke. But the real magic happened when I had the steak with the wine. These two were made for each other! This Cab Franc was definitely up to the challenge of the a big, bold steak.

I am so impressed with Cabernet Franc - something that the Okanagan does extremely well - as it can be a great wine to drink on its own and a wonderful wine to pair with BBQ meats like steak, lamb and game.

If only I had a glass of port to finish off!

Easter Dinner

What could be better than a wonderful Easter dinner of roast beef, potatoes, and plenty of other tasty foods? An Easter dinner with friends!

That's what we had last night. Good friends, good food, good wine, good times!

One person I was talking to last night was the girlfriend of our friends' oldest son. Her name is Caitlin (spelled the same as my daughter) and she has done both the WSET 2 and WSET 3. I was really pleased to hear how much she enjoyed WSET 2 - she said that she would have been happy to keep on going each week to class indefinitely! That sounds great! She also wants to take her WSET 4 but the price tag for that (~$10,000) is a bit out there.... The WSET 2, by the way, is still no bargain at $1000.

The first wine was one that we brought. It is one of my favourite Okanagan grapes, the Cabernet Franc - ($31.99). This is another of Tinhorn Creek's wines and is a very drinkable wine. There were some tannins (which made it go along fairly well with the roost beef) and some tastes of plum and currant (although I couldn't place if it was red currant or black currant - still working on that palate). It was nicely balanced and, even though it is just a 2013, I think it really was good to drink now.

After a small glass (I was the family designated driver, after all), I tried a wine that another friend had brought. The Alamos Malbec ($13.99) is an Argentinian Malbec that the friend loved because it tasted good and was inexpensive. I found it to be a smooth wine but not overly complex. It certainly is drinkable and I can imagine having this with a grilled steak with a bunch of guys hanging around the barbecue. It's not as strong a taste as most malbecs that I have had which was interesting.  Interestingly, their website only has wines as recent as 2013. It seemed to me that this might be a good weeknight wine - especially with some sort of beef or pork dish.

After our great dinner, we headed home.

The last tasting of the day was a Meadow Vista Cloud Horse ($22). Full disclosure - my daughter, Caitlin, works in the wine industry and is the manager of Meadow Vista. Meadow Vista makes honey wine - or mead - and I wouldn't usually go out and buy honey wine. However, she often will bring us a bottle to try and sometimes I am surprised.

Cloud Horse was one of those surprises. It was a pleasant wine for drinking - light and clear. It had a honey taste (so surprising) as well as a butter hint as well. It would make a good drinking wine or perhaps with some cheese as it's a bit sweet and would offer a good contrast. Maybe I'll actually have to go out and buy some.....

That's it for my Easter weekend - I will continue to post whenever I learn something interesting or drink an interesting wine. Feel free to drop me a comment!

Rock 'n' Wine - 5440 Concert with some nice wine pairings....

Last night I went to the 5440 concert in a local venue. It was a different kind of concert as it was billed as an 'unplugged' event.

I was more than a little wary of how I would enjoy the show. I first saw 5440 in 1999, I believe, at the Arts County Fair at Thunderbird Stadium at UBC. A group of fantastic student teachers at my school (including the famous Shoeless Tam) invited their grizzled veteran sponsor teachers to the concert which featured a number of bands. By far, the best group was 5440 and, at the tender age of 39, I entered my first mosh pit. It was a very memorable concert!

Since then I have seen 5440 in a number of different venues but usually the same kind of loud, rocking' show with screaming guitars, pounding drums and lead singer Neil Osborne's awesome voice melding with the sound. Last night's concert would be a definite change.

But first, some friends came over and we did the appy and wine thing. As my friend, Dale, commented, we don't just do Ripple Chips and French Onion Dip any more. There was salad, tartine with sautéed mushrooms, crab balls with a heavenly green coloured dip, baked chicken thighs, a bread, cheese and nut appy that was to die for, and a spinach salad with homemade raspberry dressing.

The wine that we cracked to have with this was a Tinhorn Creek 2 Bench White ($19.95). My wife needed a splash of white wine to cook the tartine so I thought, why not serve the rest of the white! Tinhorn Creek is one of the wineries that we are a member of and get a shipment of 12 every year.

It was a perfect appy wine - very light in colour, leaning towards gold. It was a very crisp. clean wine which was just a bit sweet (off dry?) and I could taste fruit such as pear and peach. We all enjoyed it!

After finishing our appy meal, we walked down to the theatre and took our seats for the concert. We were all very impressed with the stripped down arrangements of 5440's songs. They were not simply unplugged but completely re-arranged with a variety of instruments including piano, banjo and some sort of mouth instrument that had piano keys on it. Dominating the evening, though, was Neil Osborne's, dare I say, sweet voice. His voice hasn't changed over the past twenty years - it is still clear and unstrained - even by the end of the concert.

At the end of the two and a half hours of playing time, I bought a slick 5440 t-shirt and a CD (what's a CD?) of some of their unplugged songs (La Difference). We bid goodnight to our friends and headed home where my daughter joined us, having driven down from the Okanagan for Easter.

To celebrate her arrival, we decided to open up another bottle of wine. We had a bottle of Narrative 2015 Syrah ($29.90) that we had bought at Okanagan Crush Pad the previous month.

The wine had a ruby colour so it was probably a bit too young - when we visited the winery, they may even have told us that it would benefit from a bit of aging. This would probably explain the slightly astringent taste. After several sips and swirls, my daughter and I came up with cranberry, cherry, tannins, stewed fruit and barnyard as the things we could taste. A good long finish, as well.

I am glad I had purchased another bottle of this and will put it away in the cellar.; it probably has some good aging potential.

After killing the bottle, I retired for the evening, with the sounds of 5440 still reverberating in my head.