Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Twisted Tree 2005 Merlot (British Columbia)

This is a bottle I brought back from the Okanagan Valley, which seems like forever since I've been there, but in actual fact it's been only 4 years (which is quite a while in the wine world).  I remember this being one of my favourite visits, it was deep in the Osoyoos which is the southern most part of BC.  Everybody always talks about N'kmip, but this Twisted Tree winery was a little hole in the wall and they made some pretty outstanding wines.  But this is more a case of wanting to hold on to memories longer than one should - and this bottle of wine is a perfect example of what can happen when your memories over-shadow you common sense.  I kept waiting for that perfect time to open the bottle and it seemed a visit to mom and dad's house might provide that opportunity tonight, (after all I did the Okanagan trip with my mom for her 70th birthday).  The wine was a shade of brownish-red and the nose hinted at earthy-wooden notes while also giving off dried fruit like blackberry, sour cherry and cassis.  It drank pretty nicely for its first hour but then it turned and turned quickly, it's as if a switch had been pulled, the fading of the wine started to take place and continued to do so exponentially.  It was here that the wine turned woody and slightly vegetative ... sigh ... the waiting might be the hardest part but when you wait to savour and it and it turns on you quickly, that might be even harder.

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