A lovely Canadian Merlot for Christmas Dinner

Morning Bay Reserve Merlot 2005

This past Christmas day we were treated to a wonderful Christmas dinner by friends.  Instead of the usual turkey (an overrated bird, if ever there was one), we enjoyed a roasted leg of lamb, brussell sprout with chorizo sausage and delicious creamed yams. We started the evening with a delightful Okanagan red – the Morning Bay Reserve Merlot 2005.  There’s not too many of these around, and so no point looking in your local prairie liquor store.  Morning Bay winery is actually located on the B.C. coast, on Pender Island, but they source their grapes for this wine from arguably one of Canada’s best red grape growing patches – the Nk’Mip (pronounced “inkameep”) Vineyard, planted more than 25 years ago by the Osoyoos First Nation.  Okanagan reds, unlike other hotter climate reds, offer less jam and more subtle fruit flavours, which can be overwhelmed by oaking without care and attention.  This wine making shows both, with the fruit sitting in the middle of the mix, brought to expression via the clean tannic structure and lovely french oaking. Plums, mochoa linger in the finish.  Drink now or cellar for another two or three years.  Photo by Blake Sittler.

2007 Bodegas Castaño Monastrell Yecla

Here’s something a little different. Castaño is a winery from the Yecla region of Spain in its southeast, inland from Valencia and Alicante.  In the Yecla its hot and dry, and the most commonly grown grape is Monastrell (in French, Mourvèdre), which produces tannic, high alcohol wines with earthy, red fruit flavours.  Traditionally, grapes from the Yecla have been used to beef up the strength of other more famed export oriented wines from Spain.  These days wineries such as Castaño are working with some success to promote the virtues of wines from the Monastrell grape for themselves.  For so called “new world” tastes, however, it takes some willingness to try something a little different from the standard sweet fruit flavours of, for instance, California Cabernet or Australian shiraz.  I decided to open the bottle over a slow cooked beef stew meal.  The wine was a deep garnet colour, and on the nose smelled almost disconcertingly of black pepper and spice with an unexpected hint of tomato.  In the mouth it was light to medium bodied but grippy, with an unfortunate sour cherry flavour vying with the considerable tannins for an abrupt finish.  And Robert Parker, the doyen of wine critics, gave this wine 90 points?  I decided to decanter it and leave it a day.  I came back to it over lunch the following day with a toasted beef and aged cheese sandwich with dijon mustard (had to use the left over meat!).  The day really helped.  The pepper was still there on the nose, but the wine seemed less dusty, and a sweeter oak scent was detectible.  In the mouth the sourness faded to reveal a gentle raspberry flavour.  The tannins still held sway, and suggest this wine needs another few years to balance out.  But the extra day helped.  If you are to drink this wine now, you will need some food, and probably something fatty and salty.  Maybe a marbled steak with Montreal spice.  Available in the SGLA for around $13, this is a good wine to have on a Friday night, as long as you can get someone to decant it for you at lunch time!

Lake Breeze 1999 “Bernoota” Cabernet-Shiraz

On my recent to Edmonton I noticed a “reduced” sign by this wine a downtown store.  It had retailed at $32, and now was $20.  Hmmm… an Australian red from 1999 for $20?  I asked the owner the cause of the discount, and he said it was a paper work mis-communication between his supplier and him, and that he made enough margin on it anyway.  So I asked, “Has it passed its used-by date?”  “No,” he said,  “the odd cork issue but its fine; all the lawyers in the building are buying it up as gifts for their clients.”  For $20 I decided it was worth a shot.

Lake Breeze is a boutique family owned winery with a pedigree going back 120 years within the Langhorne Creek area in South Australia.   Originally an unfiltered wine, I decided to get the strainer out to pick up the expected heavy residual tannins. There was some accumulation in the bottle and in my wire mesh above the decanter, but not nearly as much as I thought.  On the nose the wine was a heady but satisfying aroma of stewed plums, and dark berry flanked by a minty or eucalyptus note.  But it felt flat to me in the mouth.  The berries were there again, but it just seemed a little faded, past it’s prime.  There was a nice finish, but it felt lethargic.  I decided I needed to leave it over night.  I poured it again into the bottle (after cleaning out the tannins staining the side of the bottle) and sealed it.  Opening up again with some cave aged grueyere cheese the following evening I noticed the increased aromas straight away.  The dark fruits rolled on, but secondary notes of caramel and milk chocolate arose.  In the mouth the wine felt more alive – soft, fine tannins, working together with blackberry and accented by oak and mint flavours.  The finish lengthened the second day with an additional earthy complexity.

So was 1999 too late to wait?  The winemaker says on the bottle that the 1999 will develop for another 6-8 years, which means its certainly on the edge of its lifespan.  Its a personal preference.  By waiting the extra couple of years one one loses the juicy, vibrant flavours that have come to define the Barossa.  Yet the wine today would drink with a wider variety of foods now without overpowering them. If its power you want, drink these wines young.  After finesse?  Wait a while.  Overall, reckon this wine would have been best drunk as the wine maker suggested – around 2006/7. I’d trust a winemaker over a lawyer any day!

The pleasure of older Australian reds

It’s not often one gets the chance to taste aged wine.  Cellaring takes a combination of thoughtfulness, planning, patience and self-control, qualities that escape most of us, most of the time.  So it was a real priviledge to be invited to dinner last night and to drink the 1998 Penfolds Bin 389, and St. Hallet Old Block Shiraz, 1999.  These are serious Australian wines, retailing in current vintages between at $37.99 (389) and $44.20 (Old Block) in Saskatchewan.

The Penfolds Bin 389 is a Caberbet/Shiraz blend, and built to last for years.  The 1998 vintage is renowned as a powerful but polished wine.  It didn’t disappoint!  What I noticed straight away was its colour (still dark and brooding in the centre, just fading to a lighter red in the edges of the glass), and the density of its fruits (blackberry, plums, even a hint of liquorice) and  still seemingly youthful tannins.   This beauty could still cellar for another 10 years at least.  The most memorable thing is how the wine’s firm structure and dusty tannins (which filled the bottom of the bottle) carried the fruits, oak and spice through a lingering finish.  My only regret is that we didn’t decant these wines for a few hours before opening them.  But hey, beggars can’t be choosers!  I have a sense that a more complete integration and harmony of the fruits and tannins would have come with an airing prior to drinking.

If the Bin 389 still has some productive cellaring time left, the St Hallett Old Block Shiraz 1999 is drinking perfectly now.  Wow.  I honestly can’t remember drinking such a beautifully balanced Shiraz before.  It has the typically over-generous, full bodied fruit of the Barossa Valley, but it just seems so balanced, so seamless. On the nose there’s deep raspberry, smokey and milk chocolate aromas.  At this pointy I just curled up into the couch with my glass.  A wonderfully rich, full bodied, velevety feel in the mouth, with waves of spicy vanilla and liquorice languidly flowing into a gently firm and lengthy finish.  The fruit, chocolate and spice fade gently away, echoing their seductive aromas one final time.  A  terrifically satisfying Shiraz. 

These wines are inspiring me to practice the virtues of patience and forethought.  Wine cellared, aged and celebrated many years later with friends really reveals the best of a wine, and, I would have thought, those of us lucky enough to share it.

Dinner at the Olivers

Madeline and Peter treated us last weekend to a wonderful rice stuffed green pepper, minced pork dish.  We began with the 2008 Casillero Del Diablo Sauvignon Blanc:
In the glass:  pale straw
On the nose:  lemon/lime. a hint of apricot
In the mouth:  medium bodied with gentle acidity, along with softer citrus flavours.  No complex grassy/herby flavours here, but a delightfully fresh wine.  Works terrifically with pork.

Madeline was also kind enough to share some of her “The Show” Cabernet Sauvignon 2006, a Californian whose label is designed after the old movie posters.  Another lovely sipper.
In the glass:  deep ruby
On the nose:  delicious raspberry/blackberry, and a slight vanillin oaky flavour;
In the mouth: velvety, medium bodied; dark berries; hint of caramel (Bonnie).  My small quibble is that the generous flavours come to a finish too quickly.  Like drawing a line with a 4B pencil and having the lead break.  An easy going red for the winter.

Welcome to my little wine blog

This wine was one of my favourites this past year.  Torreon De Parades Private Reserve Merlot.  Doug Reichel of Fine Wines Sask brought this in, as well as its maker from Chile, Javier Parades.  I met Javier at one of Doug’s tasting events at the TCU in September, 2008. Chile’s known for its Carménère, but this wine’s smoky earthiness, spicy French oak and dark cherry taste was wonderful.  Retails for around $20 in SK, and would be a terrific gift or dinner companion for lamb shanks.