I took advantage of a snowy evening at home tonight to inventory my home cellar. It was like Christmas, only better; I unearthed a number of bottles of wine that I just can’t wait to drink.  All of these newly discovered treasures have unleashed a torrent of culinary inspiration within me.  I’m also powerfully curious: what will time have done to these wines?

On that note; I decided that I couldn’t wait.  I just had to open a 2008 Qwam Qwmt Pinot Noir from Nk’Mip winery.  I have been a fan of Randy Picton’s wines for a long time; they are always well made.  This particular vintage was no exception to the rule.  The nose was amazing; the intensity of the cherry, vanilla and toasted coconut aromas made my head swim.  On the palate, the fine tannin structure and the juicy flavours of ripe cherries were balanced perfectly by notes of vanilla and spice.  It finished well, lingering on the palate making memories.

As delightful as this wine was, it also made me sad.  When you take a bottle home to your cellar, vowing to lay it down to see just how much better it will get, you take a gamble.  Obviously, you liked it the first time you tried it, or you would never have parted with your money.  The trick is to find that magic combination of time and circumstance that will work it’s voodoo on that particular bottle.  Like Goldilocks and the Three Bears, you have to keep trying until you get one that is just right.  When it happens, it is absolutely sublime; especially with a wine from a winemaker like Randy Picton.  I found this wine to be excellent, but I will always wonder how much better it would have been had I left it alone for just a little while longer.

What’s in a name? In this case, a lot. because there are lot of them on the There is something to be said for clarity on labels but perhaps hoping to capitalize on the exposure they earned (deservedly I think) for their Howling Bluff Pinot Noir last year, they have managed to augment their portfolio with a number of other Pinot Noirs from different sources.

This particular Pinot comes from Three Mile Wines. I think. Or is it Suma Quies? No, that’s the new version of Howling Bluff Pinot Noir. It also says Stone Hill Vineyards. Does that have anything to do with the former Stonehill Winery on Upper Bench Road? Or is it another vineyard altogether? It looks exactly like the Howling Bluff Pinot Noir from 2008, but it doesn’t mention Howling Bluff on the front label at all. And who is this Three Sisters thing I’ve been seeing lately?

I’m so confused.

Once the wine gets into the glass, the confusion subsides a little. The wine is a light brick red with a reasonably wide rim. The nose is an appealing but light blend of cherry fruit, tobacco leaf, and cocoa. It’s quite appealing at this point.

This is where it gets confusing again. The palate is dry with only a little acidity. Flavours of dark chocolate and tea are swimming in a sea of tannins. There are tannins everywhere. I look at the label again and see tannins on it. I look out the window and tannins are floating around outside.

It had been a long day at that point. Even still, the tannins on this wine make the texture quite awkward and it overwhelms the fruit. Perhaps it needs a little time to soften out. Perhaps it is going through its ‘awkward’ phase and many wines go through after they’ve been bottled. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps…

I was lucky enough to have tasted their award-winning (and far less confusingly named) Howling Bluff Pinot Noir from 2008 on several occasions and found it to be every bit as deserving of those accolades. It was wonderful, top quality, Pinot Noir. I never got my hands on a bottle of the vintage after that but I heard only excellent things about it. Their Sauv Blanc/Semillon and Sin Cera wines have been a treat every time I taste them. This run of awkward pinot confuses me above and beyond the vagaries of the label. Please tell me what is going on!

Whatever it is, I hope that it is temporary and that they get all of their branding sorted out. I’m sure it will be a fascinating wine at some point in the future, but for now, it needs a little more direction.

Cheers from wine country!

~Luke

If there’s one thing that Blasted Church doesn’t have, it’s an image problem. They are a pioneering winery in that their labels and wine shop are all about telling a story based on local history. That isn’t that unique anymore but a decade ago when the name Blasted Church was launched, it was almost revolutionary.

That’s fine. There are now lots of wineries with cute stories. What’s the big deal with Blasted Church?

Their story hasn’t changed. They haven’t embellished it to a point where the proverbial fish is now THIS BIG. They’ve kept it in line even with the addition of new products such as the Amen port-style wine and the OMG sparkler. Most importantly though is that they’ve kept the wine quality high on the priority list. There are plenty of other more, shall we say, image-oriented wineries that should take note of this. I’ve always said that it’s easy to sell someone a bottle of wine once but if the wine doesn’t live up to (or match) the label, you can bet they won’t buy that same bottle again. Or worse, they’ll stay away from that producer altogether.

Blasted Church doesn’t seem to have that problem. Yes, their wines have great labels. Yes, they tell you about it in the wine shop. Yes, their wine marketing has been written about just as much as their wines. And here’s their secret: They make some great wines. This Pinot Gris 2010 that I tasted recently is no exception.

I have to admit that I never really jumped on the Pinot Gris bandwagon. For my taste, Pinot Gris in BC has just been too unpredictable. Leaving aside the whole “is it gris or grigio?” stylistic debate, I’ve just found that very few wineries have a good handle on their gris. From vintage to vintage, it can get wildly spicy one year and insipidly dull the next. There’s so much of it grown in BC that it often gets blended from a dozen different vineyards which all but eliminates any sense of terroir, which is something that interests me a great deal.

This Pinot Gris is a tasty wine and a great example of what I think is good about this grape variety in BC. Raise a glass of this at your next dinner, or better yet, bring it to a blind tasting.

Slainte mhaith from wine country. 

~Luke

For the record, I have been a fan of the wines of Quinta Ferreira since they hit the scene in the South Okanagan. It saddens me deeply when I miss out on the very limited release of Malbec. It is a fantastic, sexy, rich and concentrated wine. Their Rose is a dream. The Unoaked Chardonnay is so delicious; crisp and fresh. If you’re making a trip to the Black Sage Bench, Quinta Ferreira should definitely be on your itinerary, and not just because of the wines. Their tasting room is just loaded with the most stunning artwork by Emily Carr alumnus Carmen Tome.  Her work is magically alive with light.

I discovered the best thing about spending quality time with the wines of Quinta Ferreira is the Obra Prima.  I was lucky enough to sample the 2007 vintage the other night.

Light wouldn’t penetrate this rich, dark purple wine.  It was like a glass full of night.  The nose was so intense that I felt like it was trying to drag me headfirst into the bottle.  Intense aromas of ripe berries, black pepper, cedar and vanilla grab hold and just won’t let go!  Once this wine crosses the palate, you will never go back.  It was big, bold and spicy without losing sight of it’s manners for one second.  The gentility of this red was amazing; still spicy and intense but balanced by silky vanilla notes and those lush, round berry flavours.

It was good.  But don’t take my word for it.  Try it yourself

Happy New Year! For this post, I’d like to go back in time a little.

I always like re-tasting and old favourite. I haven’t tasted a white-label Sandhill product for a few years. I kind of by-passed them in favour of the Small Lots series. The Small Lots had this allure of exclusivity and because they were produced in small quantities, they wouldn’t be available for very long. The white labels were everywhere, in all the liquor stores, and they didn’t seem to have that same desirability.

I now think of how much wine I might have missed out on. The Cabernet Merlot from Sandhill was my wine of the week this week and it was a kick in the palate. Howard Soon makes great wine.

I am always interested in how a wine is balanced. Is there something (alcohol, acidity, sugar, oak, etc) that throws it out of whack? Can a wine that has a little too much of something still be good if it’s matched with the right food? I used to think Italian wines were too acidic until I released that wines with higher acidity are best drunk with food, especially foods that have a high acidity as well, hence Italian wines pair well with high acid, tomato-based sauces. (It shouldn’t really be shocking that foods and wines that come from the same place make the best pairings.)

I have heard Howard Soon comment about the balance of all the things in wine. He has an especially interesting analogue for how much oak should be treated within a blend, (which I mentioned in a previous post about the Battle of the Wine Experts event.) He is extremely aware of how much of something should be a part of the wine.

This Sandhill Cabernet Merlot, lowly white label that it is, is no exception. It has everything going for it and very little against it. And the really big thing that I like about Sandhill (and the Peller line too) is that they taste more like wines from a boutique winery than those from a huge industrial or commercial winery. They are tasty wines in their own right. Not that wines from large commercial wineries aren’t tasty, but they do taste different in that they are glossy and round, without any rough edges, and can be somewhat predictable in the way they taste. For the Sandhill wines (and Peller to a point) to be made at a huge commercial winery and not taste like it is quite amazing and deserves respect.

So, to those Sandhill white labels, if you’ll forgive me for ignoring you for the past few years while I payed more attention to your small lots cousins, I can promise that we will see more of each other in the next few years.

Cheers from wine country!

~Luke

I love a good winemaker’s dinner. I really do. I know that they’re not everyone’s cup of tea, what with the bar being closed for the duration and all.   But I am a cork dork so that is my scene. I pay close attention to the speaker so that I can glean every last kernel of knowledge from them. I keep a copy of the menu for my scrapbook. I won’t let the server take away my unconsumed wine. I save it to witness firsthand how it changes throughout the night. (I know that bothers the server, as a vast collection of half full wineglasses in front of a guest makes meal service into a dangerous game, but that’s why I wear dark colours.)

When the Chef comes out to talk about the meal, that is a big fat thrill for me. One of the most rewarding things about hobnobbing with Chefs are the improvements that come about in your own kitchen.  I am an avid home cook and I have learned so much from simply listening to chefs talk.  I also find it very helpful to hear why they chose the food and wine pairings that they chose for the evening.  Food and wine pairing can be such a fickle mistress!  There are no hard and fast rules and everything is so subjective that it can be quite challenging.  When a winemaker and a chef get together to decide what they would like to showcase, I like to know why, so I can use that information myself.

The moment that you first sample a dish and a wine together can be positively sublime!  I love it when a chef steps outside of the box when planning the menu.  I was at a wine dinner in October at Watermark Beach Resort featuring the wines of Orofino out of Cawston in the Similkameen.  Everything was sublime, but the dessert course truly blew my mind!  Chef Natasha had paired a deconstructed chocolate cheesecake with the 2008 Beleza.  There was a further twist; the chocolate was combined with blue cheese, not terribly sweet and piped into a waffle cone.  It was heaven!  During that same meal, we actually got squab!  I had never had squab before!  She did a pan seared breast and a confit leg on a bed of Porcini & Chanterelle mushroom risotto.  It was served the the 2009 Orofino Syrah and it was marvellous.  When a wine and food pairing is perfect, it actually becomes greater than the sum of it’s parts.

If I have learned one thing from attending (and working) events like winemaker’s dinners, it would have to be that you should never be afraid to try something different.  It is very much worth it to break the mold.  It is always memorable, even when it’s a train wreck.  When the results are positive, they tend to be downright fantastic.

Therapy’s Superego 2008 is a big, fruity wine in the same way that the Eiffel Tower is a big Mechano set. There is so much fruit in a glass of this that I’m tempted to add yoghurt and make a parfait. I feel the sudden urge to peel the bottle.

I like big wines but to be honest, I find it hard to know what to do with them. 95% of the time, I drink wine with food and wines like Super Ego only pair well with a certain style of food. If I could have lamb sirloin everyday, I still probably wouldn’t so drinking this wine everyday is out. Meals are just more enjoyable with wine and wines are more enjoyable with food. It’s how I started to learn about wine, and it’s my wife’s fault.

When we met, I had no interest in wine at all. I like good food, but as a university student at the time, it wasn’t particularly high on the priority list. However, I distinctly remember having this thought for years leading up to my time in university: Why is it that food tastes different when I first eat it? When I’m at a great restaurant or with friends who could cook better than I could (which was just about anyone), why did those first few bites taste way better than the last few bites? I remember thinking about that quite a bit although I don’t recall trying to do anything about it.

That all changed when my wife (then girlfriend) brought over a bottle of wine to have with dinner. (She lived in residence and I had my own apartment. She liked to cook, I liked to eat. Win-win.) My parents only had wine on special occasions and I do remember trying some when I was young and hating it although I’ve always loved grapes as my favourite fruit. Her parents however, had generally always had wine at meals since, her dad having developed a love of wine in university. When I asked her why people had wine with dinner, her response was a sentence that involved the phrase “palate cleansing.”

Jackpot. This was what I’d been looking for the whole time. It was the secret code to discovering the way to maintain that first-bite experience with a great tasting meal. Eat the food, taste a little wine. Repeat. Every bite was a first bite. Unbelievable!

I wish I could remember the first bottle that we shared but I can’t. It is unlikely that it was a terrible bottle because she knew even then how to buy wine. I had some awful bottles after that but in general, it opened up a whole world of taste that I’d never known before. To me, wine and food have a unique symbiotic quality for which I am eternally grateful. 

Which brings me to this particular bottle of Therapy’s Super Ego. My wife cooked a fabulous roast beef and I thought a nice big wine would work well. It overpowered it, although not by much, but enough to make it not entirely palatable. Which leads to me wonder what this wine would suit most that would make me want to drink it often and buy it on a regular basis. If I had lamb sirloin every few days, that would probably suffice. Not too good for health or the wallet, but might give the Super Ego a good battle.

The most likely purpose for this wine is that is intended to be drunk on its own, which is something that I really don’t often do. If that is you’re thing and you need a heavy hitter, this wine is for you.

Cheers from wine country!

~Luke

I wasn’t really sure what to think when I first saw the labels of what used to be Twisted Tree. I had followed Twisted Tree from afar when I lived in Vancouver because I’d heard that they were growing all kinds of weird and wonderful grape varieties and were taking risks at a time when it seemed like everyone was kind of playing it safe. There were Merlots and Chardonnays and Pinot Gris’ everywhere then and there still are today. But at Twisted Tree, they were trying out Tannat (in which I was particularly interested), Marsanne and Rousanne, and other grapes that really made you turn your head.

Apparently the name wasn’t right for them for some reason. I can only speculate, but I’d rather not. There must have been a reason and whatever it was, the result is Moon Curser. And of course, every good rebranding in the Okanagan these days always comes with a cute little story and there’s one here too. Its full of intrigue, smuggling and crossing borders at nightby the light of the moon. You’ll have to visit the winery to get the full story

In visits to this winery since 2007, I have enjoyed their wines more and more with each vintage. I was particular fan of their Viognier Rousanne blend a couple of years back. I enjoyed the Trio and I loved the challenge of the Tannat, which is still laying down in my cellar. The Viognier on its own stands out and no wonder they allow it to stand alone. The aromas that come off of this wine are wonderfully intriguing.

Viognier is only slightly less rare than it was when Twisted Tree originally opened. World-wide, it has filled the void left by Chardonnay in the big, rich white department for all of those ABCer’s out there and is still treated as a bit of a novelty here in BC. Although we continue to be infatuated with Pinot Gris as our go-to white wine, Viognier shows itself well when something richer is needed.

What really matters though, is what’s inside the bottle and like the Twisted Tree of the old days, this one delivers. On the nose I got a big scent of ambrosia apples and bouquet of flowers with a card on it that says, “I’m sorry I forgot our anniversary.” The palate is smooth and velvety with more of the same ripe-apple flavours. The only “Yikes!” for me on this wine is the alcohol which at 14.1% tips things a little out of balance but is now almost to be expected of some of the wineries in the extreme south Okanagan.

So there it is. Another fine example of Okanagan Viognier from a winery that has never been afraid of taking risks. Although I haven’t really been a big fan of the branding change, it’s good to see that they haven’t stopped taking risks and played it safe. It’s just more exciting that way for everyone.

Cheers from wine country!

~Luke