Discover your wine style, one glass at a time
Friends,
Let us take a moment of silence to mark the end of a glorious two weeks of vacation. It was a brief staycation, cut short by my employer’s requirement that I actually return to work. Total buzzkill. This time off will be sorely missed. But it’s time to get back to saving the world, one translation at a time [translator’s note: this may be a gross exaggeration].
Though you maybe can’t tell from the title, this is Part 2 of a two-part series on Wining in Nova Scotia. Be sure to read Part 1!
Our first wine-tasting stop in the Annapolis Valley was at a winery that accepts visitors by appointment only and is not even visible from the road. Detailed instructions are necessary since it is totally unmarked. Armed with Google Maps and the directions I received from the winery by email, we still managed to get a bit lost. Continue reading
A few weeks ago, we went on a loooooooooong road trip to the Maritimes (like 1600 km long…one way). We were going to a friend’s wedding in Nova Scotia, and I decided to take the whole week off since I had never really spent much time on the East Coast, save a choir trip in Grade 7 (yes, yes, I am a choir nerd) and a couple of trips to Halifax to visit friends in my university days. I was due for some quality mari-time on the East Coast (see what I did there?). When organizing the trip, besides planning to eat a lot of lobster (success!), I obviously planned for a day of wine tasting.
It was another rough day of wine tasting. But don’t worry, friends, I soldiered through. And I can now confirm something I already knew: Washington State is making GREAT wine.
Washington cabernet sauvignons have been among my favourites ever since I tasted them in my New World Wine course a few years ago. Since then, I have seen them rise through the LCBO ranks. At first, I was happy when these wines occasionally showed up in Vintages, then ecstatic when a couple of bottles became regular selections in the general listing, and finally over-the-moon to see my local LCBO had created its own Pacific Northwest section.
Picture this: It’s Friday—the weekend has started. It was supposed to rain all afternoon, but the sky is clear and the sun is shining. It has turned out to be a beautiful spring day, and you are practically skipping as you leave work. The party is in a gorgeous backyard, where a cool breeze rustles through the foliage. A tent has been set up to protect the day’s wares, an unnecessary measure considering the afternoon’s change in meteorological course. Along the perimeter of the tent, tables have been set up, and the wines have been laid out for the enjoyment of the garden party’s guests. It is the first Canadian stop on the Savour Australia Roadshow, and you have been lucky enough to receive an invitation. And yes, while you are there, you forget to take a picture, so you have to use words to describe it. In this case, a picture is worth 148 words.
Without further ado, here are my top picks from the Savour Australia garden party!
Well it’s been quite a week for Wining with Mel. It was bad enough that a terrible stomach bug had me out of commission for five days, but even worse that during that time the thought of wine…no…I can’t even…it’s too awful to say. The thought of wine for the last four days…repulsed me. Me! The lover of wine! I couldn’t even stomach the thought of it. Friends and family always know it’s bad when I turn down wine. It’s never a good sign.
I am hoping that I’ve now turned a corner. It has been much too long since the last post, and I have sooooo many wines to tell you about! As I mentioned, it was quite a big wining week before this gnarly illness took hold. And I am taking the fact that I can now imagine drinking these wines without my stomach turning as a sign that it is time to get back on the wine horse. That said, rather than enjoying a glass while I type, I am sticking with a cup of herbal tea this time around. Baby steps…
Some of you may recall that I went to the California Wine Fair last Friday which, as it turns out, was a somewhat disappointing experience.
For one thing, my wine count went down from the 42 wines tasted at the Taste Ontario event to somewhere between 30-35. And since I always seem to be in some sort of internally-driven competition, this felt like a loss of some sort, even though the competition was against myself and myself alone (which would make me a winner as well, no?).
This was partly due to the fact that at 5 p.m., 2 hours after my arrival, the lights flickered on and off, indicating the end of the trade tasting. At this point the pourers began promptly removing bottles from the table, and the panic among tasters was palpable. What? That’s it? It’s over already? But we were just getting started!
Last week I went to Taste Ontario, my very first trade tasting! In Part 1 I talked about the atmosphere and a few of my discoveries in the typical-Ontario-grapes category. Let’s continue, shall we? I know you’re all excited to hear about more of my Ontario favourites.
I can always recognize a cab franc because for some reason, it makes me think of green apple Mentos. They don’t sell those here in Canada sadly, but every time I am in Europe or in the States, I pick up a few packs, because they remind me of my childhood summers in France.
In reality, these mentos taste very little like green apple. There is no acidity or sourness to them, they just have a mildly sweet flavour that is perhaps closer to pear than apple. In any case, every time I smell or taste cab franc, that is the flavour that comes to mind. It drove me crazy in wine classes because no one knew what the heck I was going on about with my green apple mentos flavours. Eventually I learned that in the wine tasting world, my green apple is everyone else’s “vegetal” or “green pepper”. Just goes to show how subjective wine tasting is!
Now back to the wine! Vineland offers a typical cab franc: cherry, dark fruit/berries, red apple, with a hint of that nice green apple mentos vegetal component. One of the flavours typically associated with cab franc is pencil shavings (I know, weird right?). But I didn’t get much of that on this wine.
Same bottle, different vintage
This is a lovely oaked chardonnay from Prince Edward County. Lots of tropical fruit, banana, pineapple, butterscotch and a hint of minerality. I’m really hoping this will be available at the LCBO this year. Otherwise we’ll have to stop in PEC on our way to Niagara!
So those are the wines based on grapes that tend to do really well in our cold Ontario climate. But there were a few “outsiders”—i.e. grapes other than riesling, chardonnay, pinot noir and cab franc—that caught my attention. In fact, it was the viogniers that won me over.
I wrote about my conversation with Nyarai winemaker Steve Byfield in Part 1. There is nothing to be humble about with this wine. I looooved it. Had I not had 41 more wines to taste, I would have treated myself to at least 3 sips. But it looks like I am going to have to order this wine directly from this virtual winery (once it’s updated with the most recent vintage, that is). That’s right, while Nyarai sources its grapes from a couple of conscientious vineyards in the Niagara area, there is no physical winery to speak of and the bottles are only available online (and at the LCBO if we’re lucky). Definitely grab this one if you ever see it on the shelves.
Only 150 cases were made of this beautiful, smooth viognier that was aged in French oak. I got notes of stone fruit with a bit of pear and light citrus. This is not your typical Ontario wine, and it blew my mind a bit that Ontario could make such startlingly different wine styles. Very few bottles left at the LCBO.
Honourable mention: Closson Chase Pinot Gris 2015: This is a light, refreshing summer sipper with nice peach, melon and honey notes. Not available online but can by purchased individually at the PEC winery or by the case online using the link above.
nt. At this point, the hotel was kicking people out, but the Westcotts were kind enough to let me linger at their table a while so we could chat about their wines (and so I could taste them, of course). I love that each of their wines is named after iconic women of the 1920s (though I couldn’t tell you which ones). I particularly enjoyed the Delphine rosé 2013, a Burgundian-influenced pinot noir/chardonnay-based rosé that will be available at the LCBO this fall (yay!). I also really liked their Estate Chardonnay 2013. This full-bodied white was aged on its lees for a year in French oak, which comes across in toasted notes and tropical fruit. It had really nice body and balanced structure.To close, a lesson learned: never leave your glass by the spitoon at a wine tasting.
I’m heading to the California Wine Fair on Friday, so get your glasses ready—I’m going to have lots of recommendations for you this weekend!
In the meantime, happy wining!
Today was a great wine day. I went to my first trade tasting! After getting back from Taste Ontario 2016, my initial thoughts were:
a) How sweet is it that I am now considered part of the trade!?
b) I really need business cards.
While I was there, I took lots of notes about the wines I tasted, but I also took lots of notes about my first impressions of a trade tasting, from the outsider/newbie’s perspective. I felt a bit like an undercover spy, or an imposter. Luckily, after a few sips of wine I overcame that feeling. Continue reading
Do you have “a thing”? You know, that quirky activity that no one else in your social circle seems to do, so they always associate it with you? Maybe it’s yoga, or knitting, or perhaps something a little more trendy like axe-throwing or adult colouring books. They’re the sort of things that are incredibly helpful to your friends and family when they need to buy you gifts. For example, I have a friend who went through a gin phase. She became the ‘gin girl’ among her circles, and as a result received so many different bottles as gifts for various holidays and birthdays that she now has more gin than she will ever drink.
Obviously, my “thing” is wine tasting. But instead of receiving more wine than I could ever drink (a. is that possible? and b. I am open to this idea), I now have more wine journals than I know what to do with. Continue reading
© 2024 Wining with Mel
Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑
Recent Comments