Finca Los Trenzones 1998 Condesa de Laganza Reserva (Spain)

I keep my wine inventory on-line through a program called CellarTracker I know many who do - it really is a great way to keep track of your wine collection, no matter what the size.  But I'm not here to plug CellarTracker - what I do want to say is I looked up the community wine notes of this wine before I pulled it out of the cellar and no one had anything nice to say about this wine: poor marks and words like "thin" ('08), "spoiled" ('09) and "fading" ('07) peppered the reviews ... it was cringe inducing, especially because the worst of the notes were written in 2009 ... I was four years later.

I ended up taking this wine into a wine class I teach for those with a more sophisticated palate ... I told them it was a single grape varietal - some thought it old, but no one thought it 15 years old (2006 was the closest guess) ... though someone did nail the country and grape variety: 100% Tempranillo from Spain (Rioja) - though the wine is from La Mancha.  The rest of the vinification goes something like this: 12 months in oak barrels and 24 months of bottle age before release.  Aromas started out earthy and musty (typical for a wine in bottle this long) with a pruny vegetal note that sooner rather than later began to reveal dried strawberry compote.  And while the palate was earthy there were other aspects to it that were interesting, if you were willing to give it a chance: dried sour cherry with a hint of fig; the acidity was also up to par along with a core that showed lots of woodsy notes.  My final note on the wine read:  "This wine will not set the world on fire, but it is quite drinkable the longer it sits in glass the better it gets" (I only had it in glass about an hour before I drank the rest) ... I would definitely not want to hold this wine any longer cause it ain't getting any better. but it sure was a great experiment that paid off handsomely.

Check out the OntarioWineReview.com website ...catch up with the latest news and reviews from Ontario sign-up for the free biweekly newsletter and much more.

Boscaini 1998 Santo Stefano de la Cane - Ripasso (Italy)

There are some promises you make as an aside to people you rarely see: "let's get together for dinner sometime" or "we must get together soon".  Then there are those you make to those close to you, and no matter how minor it seems at the time or in hindsight, you stick to it.  Such was the case with this bottle of Boscaini wine. About 4 years ago I opened a bottle of this for my mother's birthday ... we enjoyed it but felt it still could use some time to mature.  So down it went into a box of wines to age for a long upside down nap; at the time I promised mom we'd try it again when it awoke from its nap - and that time has finally come.  Actually the time came a few months ago, but because mom and I live in separate cities and both her and I were traveling at different times we just couldn't get to the bottle, so it sat some more.  Tonight I found myself in Toronto overnight and so I packed the bottle in a special temperature controlled carrier and took it with me.  There are plenty of more details about how this wine finally made its way into our glass - including a very tight and temperamental cork ... but let's get to the wine already.  The wine barely showed its age in colour, with very little browning or oranging around the rim, while a fine sheen of sediment coated the glass after the initial swirl.  It started out with a pruney smell then moved to dried figs and marochino cherries before finally settling on sundried tomatoes.  The palate was full of sweet dried fruit character and as the wine opened up in the glass the acidity and spice began to shine through and continued till the end.  My mother, who likes her wines a little fresher of fruit was not as impressed as I, who thought the wine retained its elegance and finesse even at 14 years of age; sure it's crested the hill, but it had no intention of going out quietly - still a wonderful wine.

Check out the OntarioWineReview.com website ...catch up with the latest news and reviews from Ontario sign-up for the free biweekly newsletter and much more.

Four Bottles of Wine (Ontario, Spain, France)

Now, before you wonder what the heck I was up to this evening drinking four bottles of wine, let me tell you that most of this stuff was tasted and dumped - there are some rummies out there cursing my very name.  A buddy came over last night sporting a few bottles of his own wine, which we tasted (I can't divulge the wines because he is still working on them).  Then it was time for me to show what I had of interest in the cellar:  I came up with 2 bottles of white and 2 bottles of red.

Kicking off the tasting was a bottle of Jackson-Triggs 2006 Sauvignon Blanc ... now I was under no illusions that this wine was still going to be the wonderful, fruity job it once was, the colour was golden yellow, which usually means age or oxidation in a white.  The acidity was more or less still there but for the most part it was flat and flavourless - it was also sealed with a plastic cork, which is also not a good sign of ageability.

Next up, a bottle of Creekside 2008 Undercurrent Gewurztraminer, this one started off slowly, probably because it was way too cold, but as it warmed up the fruit and the floral began to emerge, there was some nice zip and zing to this wine once it warmed up and aerated a little.  A pleasant little sipper to say the least.

As we waited for the Gewurzt to come to a temperature we could enjoy I brought out two reds, a Henry Bourgeois 1998 "Les Baronnes", a Pinot Noir from the Loire Valley in France.  The smell was mushroomy and earthy while the flavours were thin on the palate, there was some fruit in there but it was not of the fresh variety and disappeared quickly replaced by barnyard (more like 'merde' as the French would say) aromas and flavours - this was a very short lived wine, if it was alive at all.

Finally, there was a bottle of Marques de Riscal Baron de Chirel 1988 Reserva from the Rioja in Spain.  This wine started off very slowly and seemed like it was going to be in the same vein as the Bourgeois, meaning dead on arrival.  It started out with lots of tannins and the flavours were old, dried and wet leaves; there was dried black fruit in there and it was fighting to come to the surface, but it was a long hard struggle, surprisingly it did make it near the end.  At first it was not horrible, but not exactly wonderful.  We let it sit as we looked back at the Gewurzt for a few minutes, we gave it (the Gewurzt) a few sips and agreed it was coming along nicely.  Back to the Rioja and it too had opened considerably, there was now spice in the wine and barrel notes of vanilla mixed with some spice that was holding the wine together nicely.  The longer this wine stayed open the better it became.  We then thought of pairing it with a little food and found a Sundried Tomato Harvati that paired very well, the wine actually accentuated the tomatoes in the cheese, very impressive ... I do believe we did finish this bottle as there was nothing left in the bottle when we headed out for dinner.

Check out the OntarioWineReview.com website ... catch up with the latest news and reviews from Ontario sign-up for the free biweekly newsletter and much more.