Thursday, July 1, 2010

Christian Moueix 2000 Merlot (France)

It’s amazing what you find when you clean up a little.  I am moving from one house to another, which means I have to take apart my existing wine cellar and move it to another location – this is probably the hardest part of the move, and yet the most exciting.  That’s because it has to be done bottle-by-bottle and I get to touch and look at wines I have lost track of over the years and re-acquaint myself with them; like this Christian Moueix 2000 Merlot.  I was surprised to see it as part of my inventory, and today I moved three racks worth of stuff to the new house (that’s about 135 bottles) so I decided to celebrate with this decade old Merlot.  Smells were of forest floor, dried red berries, a touch of green veggie and some spiced vanilla oak.  The palate was much better, I can’t say it was lively and fruity, but I can say that the dried fruit mixed well with the foresty floor and spiced oak – thankfully the green veggie was only on the nose.  Now I know you are going to tell me it’s Canada Day and I should have opened a bottle of my Home Country’s wine; but I feel I did my part, I visited no less than 5 wineries today and here’s what I discovered: I was thoroughly impressed with Wes Lowrey and his Five Rows Vineyard offerings, Pondview has a wonderful array of well priced wines (and some stellar stuff in barrel).  The Sauvignon Blanc from Strewn was as tasty as I remember it.  Chateau des Charmes 2007 Barrel Fermented Chardonnay remains a favourite and Lailey, well their barrel burning BBQ isn’t till Saturday, so I’ll tell you about it then.

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