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!

Lady in Red - day 3 of wine training

So on the third day of wine training with WSET we covered a fair bit of information. We talked about wine and health, services and storage and the main red grape varieties. The most interesting of all these being the last one. Obviously.

Okay so how do we get the "red" into a wine and why does it vary between wines? Great question! Basically when the grapes are crushed, they are left to sit on “the must”. The must is the pulp, the skin and sometimes even the stems of the grapes.

The wine then goes into a process called maturation; this is where the juice and the must are kind of stirred together to help extract the tannins and flavors out of the must. Some other methods are racking and pressing, but maturation is the most effect and time efficient.

Now, our biggest red wine varietals are Pinot Noir (my personal obsession), Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Syrah/Shiraz. Now each varietal is going to be different because of their terrior, any blending, aging, what they are barreled in, and countless other things that wine makers do to make a wine their own. However each grape is going to have its own set of boundaries that it exists in so lets take a look at some of those.

Pinot Noir – aka The Heart Break Grape

This wine is typically very light in it colour, this is because the grape skins them selves are very thin. This wine is also considered This wine is light to medium body, medium acidity and dry, with soft tannins, often described as elegant, complex, with finesse and this sort of elusive power. I don’t know about you but the last one might be a bit much but it is a very sexy kind of wine when done well. Coming from a variety of places it is known best from Burgundy (mid region of Burgundy is known for an earthy barn quality in their wine), Oregon (because this is considered a newer region they are prone to a lot of vintage variation, but we are seeing some really great stuff starting to come out), New Zealand (pinot noir is the second most grape produced there and for good reason. They produce some of the world’s finest light and fruity pinot noirs) and Champagne (pinot noir is one of the 3 grapes they use in the bubbly).  As for flavors in most pinot noirs you get a range from cherries, strawberries, vegetal, spice, red fruits and even to that French barnyard I was talking about earlier.

Merlot – “if any body orders merlot, I’m leaving!”

Merlot, despite its Hollywood bad rap is actually quite the little grape. Remarkably resilient, incredibly versatile and has the ability to stand up to almost anything. Even bad PR. Often deep in colour, dry and medium to full body but softer and more approachable then a Cabernet Sauvignon, ages incredibly well in top tier wines. We see a lot of well-done Merlots coming from places like Bordeaux (St.Emilion and Pomerol), California (Sonoma and Napa) and Chile. With right bank French Merlots we have vines that are grown in clay and moist soils, where they absolutely thrive!

In my honest opinion I believe that merlots, or any wines for that matter, are always going to be better when done in small 10 to 30 thousand lots rather then being mass-produced.

Cabernet Sauvignon – Rawr

This wine is usually deep in colour, dry, medium to full body, firm and grippy tannins, often blended, it matures well and has huge aging potential. Some of its key regions are Bordeaux (left bank specifically because its gravel and these vines don’t like to get their feet wet), California (single varietal wines that often have a benchmark flavor of dill), Australian, specifically Barossa Valley and Chile – Colchagua Province (where we see a lot of mint and cassis, and over all is excellent value on cabernets).  Some of the main flavors we find are black currant, cedar, bell pepper in cooler site, but this is often seen as a fault. Over all we get complex earthy notes and tobacco. It’s typically ages in some sort of oak barrels where we can get another huge range of flavors.

Syrah/Shiraz – What’s in a name?

Theses two wines are actually the same grape, deep colour, full bodied and rich. Medium to high tannins, and yet another very versatile grape. Some of its most common regions are Northern Rhones, France, where it can age 10- 20 years, Hermitage, where it can age 30 – 40 years, and Côte-Rôtie. Out of Barossa Australia we see wines that are developing towards hedonistic flavors with. With this grape we taste a lot of spice! White pepper to baking spice, black and blue berries, raisins, leather, black current, and smoked meat. This wine is often oaked to soften tannins.

There are thousand of types of grapes that are produced through out the world, these just happen to be the most main stream ones that I know of. If you want a complete list you can click here, but as this blog goes on I’ll go into discussing them as we meet them.

Cheers!

Food + Wine = Perfect The 2nd day of wine training, 3 of 3

This is the third and final entry of a 3-part post on my second day of wine training. This day we touched on three rather basic, but immensely imperative, ideas in the wine world; the evaluation of wine quality, food and wine matching and the classic white grape. Today I’m going to talk about some food pairing ideas.


Matching the weight of the wine to the food is probably the core of doing food and wine pairing properly. You have such a sliding scale with intensity, flavors and other properties but as long as the weight of the wine on the whole scale is factored in you should do just fine.

Light wine for light food like champagne and smoked fish.
Full body wine for rich heavy food like cabernet sauvignon, merlot and shiraz with red meat and gravy

Just a word of warning, the sides with what the wine is paired with should be taken into consideration as well, as things like gravies and cream sauces can change the dynamic of the meal.


Now, on to the big flavors in food and wine

Acidic food requires rich acidic wines, or else the wine can seem flabby. Watch out for lemon, lime and vinegar flavors in food, as they are hard to top, but not impossible. Italian reds can pair well with tomatoes dishes due to their high acid levels, where the acid from the tomato and the acid from the wine complement each other. It’s always good to pair oily foods with high acid wines, a great example of this is sauvignon blanc and calamari

Spicy foods pair well with wines that are chilled and that are intensely aromatic, a touch sweet or very fruity. Hot spices reduce sweetness in a wine. Chilling can take the initial bite out of a spicy dish, and the slightly sweet or fruity follow through will take the lingering sting out as well. Riesling, sauvignon blanc, gewürztraminer all go well with spicy food but be warned high tannic reds can make spicy dishes even spicier. I would never recommend big full reds with Mexican food.

Sweet foods should be paired with sweeter wines because it will make the food taste drier. It can also pair well with savory foods, where reds would be too tart in structure.

Salty Foods pair well with light body, crisp white wines. Some good traditional matches are olives with sherry, oyster with muscatel, and shellfish with Chablis. Sweet wines have the ability to balance off overly salty foods
When tannins clash with salty food the outcome is typically very bitter

With tannins and food the big thing to remember is that proteins softens tannins, and tannins in a wine help it stand up to a richer meat. Just be careful that you don’t pair a tannic wine with oily fish, as it has a tendency you give and unpleasant metallic flavor.

Basic pairing notes

·         Match weight

·         Complement flavours

·         Contrast intensity and texture

·         Sweetness, the wine should always be sweeter then the dish

How is it prepared guide
Cold food = cold wine
Steamed/poached/boil = light wine
Oil fried = high acid, light wine
BBQ, grilled, roasted = fuller body, oaked
Braised, stewed = big body

Stronger seasoning = fuller wine

This about sums up how I think people should go about pairing wines with meals. I think it’s a rather complicated process when you break down each individual item but if you look at the meal as a whole, and the entire dining experience and use your best judgement, you shouldn’t go wrong. And if you’re out for a meal at a restaurant ask your server or the sommelier, it’s what they are paid to know, do and help you with. And if you having some dinner with friends and/or family and you get that perfect match between meal and drink its fantastic but in the end it’s not really about what you’re eating and drinking now is it? It’s about the people and the experience so go with what feels right. 

Cheers!

Review - Peachy Canyon 2009 Petite Sirah

Peachy Canyon 2009 Petite Sirah

SKU: 724453

Origin: United States  |  California

Agent: Lanigan & Edwards Wine Merchants Ltd.

Grown at the Mustard Creek Vineyard of Heaton, Alta Colina, which is the Paso Robles appellation. This deep purple blend of 83.5% Petite Sirah, 16.5% Syrah is quite the concoction!

From what I found in my research the markers here wanted maximum extraction from harvesting at the coldest times (which just seems like torture to me), to extended cold soak prior to fermentation (again with the cold)! After it is aged in French and Hungarian oak.

 

On the Nose – you are instantly hit in the face with candied blueberries, like the really sugary kids blueberry-flavored candies.

Pallet – an over load of blue fruit, ripe, very rich and extremely sweet. With a medium finish on it I would highly recommend food with this one. 

This is not a winos wine, I would say its place is for someone who likes really sweet simple wines, or wants to get fancy and move away from their Barefoot or Jackson-Triggs.

Cheers!