REVIEW - Lake Breeze Meritage, Okanagan, BC 2008

REVIEW - Lake Breeze Meritage, Okanagan, BC 2008 

SKU: 129270  

Origin: Canada  |  British Columbia
Agent: Harvest Vintage Imports Ltd.

In the glass  - deep ruby/garnet right to the rim

On the Nose -  This wine has a medium intensity with a blatant purple Welch's grape juice on the front. Accented with strawberry, jam and a cooking sherry smell. And if left to sit it develops into a leathery tobacco.

On the Palate – This dry wine has less then medium acidity and about medium tannin, giving it over all good body and length. I noticed that i could feel the alcohol on this wine, it was hot on my gums, and dried out my mouth. And with persistent tannins to compound that I found it a bit distracting. There is some good jammy fruit in the background of this wine but i need to get past that initial heat blast. Specific flavors I found were sour cherry moving into a black cherry, blackberry, spice. wonderfully structured oak in this wine that is the last thing left on the palate after its medium finish.

I actually visited the Lake Breeze winey last summer in my flying trip through the bench last year. I visited over12 wineries in under 9 hours. All by my lonesome. it was a great experience but I can hardly wait to go back again and give each winery the time and attention it deserves.

Over all this Bordeaux blend of Merlot, Cabernet Franc, and Cabernet Sauvignon is one I would call a good wine, and for less than $30 it really makes a wonderful Canadian addition to the cellar. I believe this wine will continue to improve over the next 2 years as well.

Cheers!

REVIEW – 2009 BARON PHILIPPE de ROTHSCHILD “MOUTON CADET”

REVIEW – 2009 BARON PHILIPPE de ROTHSCHILD “MOUTON CADET”

SKU: 407551  

Agent: Vincor Canada

In the Glass – clear medium/deep, some sediment, purple tinge but mostly ruby

On the Nose – clean, med to pronounced, red fruit, cherry/berry, and a tinge of pungent, vanilla spicy and herbaceous.

On the Palate – This wine is dry, medium acidity, full of under ripe tannin, greenstone quality, seedy fruit, acidic red fruit and pomegranate. It has a short to medium finish. Not overly balanced tannins as in it goes strait down the pallet with nothing to complex. It’s acceptable, but tastes mass-produced.

Baron Philippe created Mouton Cadet in 1930, taking the name “cadet” from his place as the youngest in his family.  In the 80+ years since its creation it has become the entry Bordeaux wine for most of us. Also note worthy - it gained a Bordeaux AOC classification in 1947 after WW2, and it had actually shut down production completely during war times. Philippe de Rothschild passed away in 1988, leaving his business to his Daughter

This little Bordeaux is a blend of 65% Merlot, 20% Cabernet Sauvignon and 15% Cabernet Franc. And spends between 6-10 months in stainless steel vats and sees no real oak in its life. I think thats because that would make it to expensive for what the business owner, Philippine de Rothschild, is intending this wine to be. It is a good beginners Bordeaux blend and has its place in our wine markets. I think you would be hard pressed to find a retailer that didn’t have at least one of Rothschild wines on its shelf. And at under 15$ it wouldn't break the bank like most other Bordeaux wines

I would drink with this wine any red meat dishes, but watch for sauces. Something like a peppercorn gravy may over power this one and leave you feeling that it’s a bit watered down.

Cheers!

Daily dose of yesterday - Day 4 of the WSET foundation course

So in the last night of the WSET wine training we, again, covered a pretty mass amount of material. From locally produced wine to wines out of Italy, Portugal and Spain. We covered tips on purchasing and working in the business. We then reviewed and had our exam.

Out of all the topics I think the Canadian wine was the most interesting.

We stared with a very brief history of wine in Canada, specifically in BC. Over all its safe to say that it wasn’t that bloody eventful. People go drunk, it was deemed bad, and they kept getting drunk anyways. But here are a few points that I thought were neat.

1860  -           The first Canadian vineyard was planted by Father Pandosy for his church and personal use at the Oblate missionary near what is now Kelowna

1916 - 1922 -Prohibition came to Canada. Pfft! See how long that lasted… and how well too…

1974  -            There were 3000 resisted acres are dedicated to grapes and vineyards

1984  -            There are 13 registered wineries registered in British Columbia

1988  -            We get free trade and we drop to only 1,000 vineyard acres’. This is because the government paid the growers over $8,000 and acre to focus on quality as apposed to quantity.

1990  -            We see a huge boom in vine planting in BC because the VQA is adopted as wine law. It forced BC growers to ensure that their wines were 100% produced inside of BC.

1994  - Mission Hills Winery wins IWSC and the real BC wine boom begins

2011  -            We have over 160 wineries and over 10,000 acres dedicated to grape and wine production

In addition to the history we also talked a bit about the different growing regions and what the VQA means for wines coming out of Canada.

The biggest region that I think everyone will know is the Okanagan. This includes sub regions like Kelowna, Naramata, Osoyoos Westbank, and Summerland. The climates here are fairly continental, with a hot dry south and cooler north. Its soils having a very wide range, from sandy in some regions and volcanic in others.

Some of the lesser-known regions are the Frasier valley and the Similkameen valley. The Frasier valley has a more humid climate that produces small local but hearty red wines, like Merlot, Syrah and Cabernet Sauvignon. I’m not overly familiar with the Similkameen valley but its relative lack of lakes would make for cheaper and more arid climate.

In the end our wine history is really just a little blip on the entire history of wine and grape growing. But its still relatively neat to see where we started from and all the little steps we have taken to get to where we are now.

Cheers!

Review - 2006 Trefethen Family Vineyards Merlot, Oak Knoll District, USA

2006 Trefethen Family Vineyards Merlot, 

Oak Knoll District, USA 

SKU: 716300  

Origin: United States  |  California

Agent: Lanigan & Edwards Wine Merchants Ltd.

Trefethen is the largest family run estate in Napa. How ever, they produce only 25% of what they grow, selling the rest to other wine makers in the region. Because of this we can expect to see a high level of quality and precision coming from their wines.

This wine is 95% Merlot, 2% Cabernet Sauvignon, 2% Malbec, and 1% Petit Verdot. With that 95% of the grapes are harvested from the main ranch and  5% are harvested from the Hillspring vineyards. It spends about 17 months in French oak before being bottled

Oak knoll is a cooler region of Napa. Merlot typically flourish in cool growing regions with humid soil the Oak Knoll district is actually perfect for it, a “sweet spot” between its warmer north and cooler south regions. This season in particular seeing a large amount of fog leaving the afternoons cooler drew out the harvest for one of the longest growing season in 40 years.

On the Nose - pepper, herbs and pie spices, chocolate and fur

On the Pallet – beautiful mouth feel medium to long finish, full blackberry, boysenberry and white pepper and hearty chili spices. 

Now the website listed “olallieberry fruit” and I had to wiki what that was but oddly enough I ate these things all the time while I was growing up, and I remember liking them more then any other berry. I just never knew what they were called! Neat!

This wine can more then hold up on its own with or with out food, but I would love to pair it with a duck chili, or true Italian sausage spaghetti.

Awards 

93 points/Editor’s Choice - Steve Heimoff, Wine Enthusiast - March 1, 2011   

Cheers!