Tonight a buddy came over to wish me well the night before I head off to Italy for an Amarone tasting and winery tour in Verona. Fives bottles were opened, none of them finished. Dinner was a mini-bucket (8 pieces) of Kentucky Fried Chicken ... not the best food to be pairing with wine, but what the heck we had to eat something, especially something that reminds us of our misspent youth, and, as my buddy said, "what would be a better than this for your last meal on North American soil" (I still have lunch tomorrow but still he makes a good point). The wines we tried reached as far back as 2001 to as current as a 2009 ... here's how they all fared:
Bottle 1 - Cantina Tollo 2004 Colle Secco Montepulciano D'Abruzzo ... this turned out to be a quaffing wine, dark fruit oriented with a raisiny-pruny quality that intensified the longer it was opened.
Bottle 2 - Tawse 2006 Echos Bistro Red ... a little more on this on my Taste it Again blog, but this one has turned very much into a spiced wood concoction.
Bottle 3 - Charles and Charles 2009 Cabernet Sauvignon / Syrah ... I have reviewed this one in the past few weeks and my review still stands.
Bottle 4 - Southbrook 2001 Triomphe Cabernet Sauvignon ... another wine to appear on another blog (should be on the Lost & Found but ...) - no doubt about it, no matter how you slice it, this one was buggy, as in lady bugged.
Bottle 5 - Southbrook 2002 Cabernet / Merlot ... might be the best wine of the night, especially considering its age. Check the Taste it Again blog for my notes, but I this one reminds me of shish-kabob on the BBQ.
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Sunday, January 22, 2012
Young Concha Cabernet + Old Wakefield Shiraz (Chile / Australia)
Tonight it was a late dinner (for us), with friends we have been trying together with since before the holidays. I screwed up the pulled pork earlier in the day so we fell back on an old standby, meatloaf, with all the trimmings that should have surrounded the pork: baked beans and cole slaw (we scrapped the buns). As it turns out everything was a hit, including the wine. Started with a robust Concha y Toro 2009 Gran Reserva Serie Riberas Cabernet Sauvignon ... a full on raspberry assault of the senses, all that lovely juicy fresh fruit, tasty and ultimately sippable. I then took my buddy down to see the cellar, and while there put my hands on a 2003 Wakefield Clare Valley Shiraz. I have just recently become a fan of the award winning Wakefield Cabernet (the wine that put them on the map of Aussie wines ... little did I know I had bought a bottle of their wine many moons ago. Wine cellars can be a funny thing as in you luckily lose things and then find them not knowing you even had them ... love it. This older bottle of Shiraz had old smells and tastes but it was holding very nicely with earthy blackberry along with white pepper, herbs and graphite notes. Lots of muddy sediment at the bottom of the last glass and the inside of the bottle looks like it had been painted maroon. Glad to have opened this wine tonight as our friends found this wine more intriguing than the first - older wines just have more character (but they have their place, just like the young ones do) ... maybe I have sparked them to start their own cellar ... or just come over here more often - time will tell.
Friday, January 20, 2012
Loredona 2009 Monterey Pinot Noir (California)
Tonight on the menu: pork chops - on the wine list, a Loredona Pinot Noir recently acquired from the LCBO and set for release on Saturday ... having recently visited the Monterey area just this past September I was thrilled ot see one of their wines on the shelves here in Ontario and even more thrilled to see this bargain priced pinot wasn't just some crap they threw into a bottle and labeled as Pinot Noir. In fact, for a wine well under $20 this was a beauty of a Pinot Noir. A nose of sweet cranberry, black cherry and strawberry; and the palate was even better. Lovely sour cherry, good acidity, a lovely juiciness and nice spice. A well-balanced wine with good fruit, nice acidity and all that California juiciness of fruit you'd expect ... almost finished the whole bottle myself.
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Santa Carolina 2008 Dry Farmed Carignan (Chile)
Found myself at home having dinner with mom and dad this evening, raided mom little wine cellar and came up with this interesting little gem - that it truth I probably should have left down there for another couple of years. The tannins were pretty robust but once you made your way through that there was plenty of minty dark fruit to keep the palate happy - though the finish was quite dusty because of those tannins. If you happen to have a bottle of two of this hanging around your place might I suggest waiting to pop the cork.
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
LA Cetto 2001 Private Reserve Nebbiolo (Mexico)
So tonight we decided to make taco salad for dinner and in my infinite wisdom I thought a Mexican wine would be nice ... but what is the national grape of Mexico? I've had Petite Sirah and Zinfandel from this same producer (LA Cetto) but what do the Mexicans consider as "their grape" - cerveza? What wine goes with tacos? All very difficult questions to answer. So when I saw I had a bottle of Nebbiolo, an Italian grape variety that`s used to make Barolo, I thought I just have to give this a whirl. Having been to the region of Piedmont (where Nebbiolo is most prevalent) I can tell you that the Italians believe there is no place else on earth that does Nebbiolo like they do ... and no where else on earth does this grape grow as well as it does right there in its "native" home. I have seen bottles of Nebbiolo from some odd places, nowhere odder than Ontario, but Nebbiolo from Mexico struck me as odd too - probably why I bought it in the first place. As for the wine in bottle, I would have to say it was pretty good. The nose had layers of dried blackberry, currants, cinnamon spice, spiced dried cherries and a hint of cedaryness ... these aromas didn't come out all at once, they seemed to pop up throughout the evening as the wine opened. The first thing noticed on the palate was the spiciness and acidity, that soon turned into black currants, spice, sour cherry and later hints of raspberry-balsamic and spice. All very interesting and quite a lot of fun on the tongue. Coating the glass was also a fine dusting of sediment and within an hour of opening tannins and woodsiness started to take over, making the wine seem drier than it previously had. I would have to say I was impressed with the wine ... it might not be their national grape, but it sure is one I wouldn't stop making wine from; though I have never seen a bottle of it since my original purchase many moons ago.
Sunday, January 15, 2012
Mildara Wines 2000 Coonawarra Cabernet Sauvignon (Australia)
When most people talk about Australian wine they think of the juicy, jammy, fruity numbers that many of us have tried over the years ... only the die-hards know that some of these Aussie wines are also great for the cellar ... not all of them mind you, you always have to be selective about what you lie down, but if you pick the right one your rewards can be great. Switching gears a little, I was watching Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade on the weekend (I think my favourite of the series) it strikes me that what I said above can best be put into words by the knight who says to Indiana "You have chosen wisely" - meaning this wine was a good one to lie down. The nose was dried plum (but not pruney), chocolate liqueur, dried cherry and dried cranberry ... not at all the fresh fruit bomb one thinks about when they think Australian Cab. The palate also showed signs of those dried fruits, namely blackberry and black cherry along with touches of graphite, chocolate with a hint of balsamic on the finish. The nice part was this wine showed little sign of woodsiness, which means the wood it had seen had integrated with the wine nicely ... the bad part was the wine was ageing quickly in the glass - by the time I had reached an hour-and-a-half the wine was really showing it's age ... though it never got to a point where it was undrinkable.
Saturday, January 14, 2012
Vigneronnement Votre 2009 Fleurie (France)
I have to be honest, I haven't been keeping up with this blog of late because I have been on the road and most of what I have been drinking has appeared in one form or another in the On the Road blog, so I am just playing a little catch-up with some of the wines I have had over the past month. This is a Beaujolais from the Fleurie region made with Gamay Noir and it truly was a beauty with lots of black cherry fruit and great acidity - it wasn't a very complicated wine but it hit all the right notes, and with a little chill it was perfect for what it was - an easy drinking, put your feet up kinda wine.
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