Vinifico

Well now… I think I under-rated this a bit when I tried it at the winery back in April, though I was spot-on when I said it would be a good wine with fish. I cracked one open tonight with some grilled halibut and a quinoa/mint/tomato salad and it was a perfect match. That’s dinner and the wine in the photo. I know… I had the label turned to the side. Bite me.

Anyhoo, back to the wine. It really is meant for food like the fish I had tonight. It’s crisp, with lemon and grapefruit on the nose and in its flavours and finishes with a nice mineral edge to go along with its food-friendly acidity. Tasty, tasty stuff.

If you’ve never had an Arneis, I’d really suggest that you go grab one, fire up the grill and grab some of that tasty halibut that is fresh in the stores right now.  You won’t regret it.

$19.99 at LDB stores here in BC.

On the recommendation of a friend of Rachel’s, I picked this up at the main LDB store out at 41st and Cambie here in Vancouver tonight. I brought it home and paired it with a BBQ’d butterfly pork chop with a cherry, balsamic and wine reduction sauce. Mmmmm…. Yep, it was tasty.

OK, so back to the wine. This is a bit of an Old World Pinot. It’s got that great pale red Pinot colour along with a nose that has ripe red cherry, earth and a green tea-cherry syrup edge. A taste gives up all that the nose hinted at along with a nice long finish with some firm, but not harsh tannins that are a touch stemmy.

It’s a good wine, folks. Again, I’ll point out that it’s a bit of an Old World Pinot with some New World fruit tossed in. If you love the Belle Glos, this might be a nice introduction to the French style of Pinot.

Now, down to the skinny… Would I buy this wine again? Yep. It’s a bloody nice sip.

$32.61 at LDB stores here in BC.

Wow. Look at that name up in the title. Say that 10 times fast for me and I’ll buy you a bottle of it. You have to hand it to the Germans and the Austrians. They make things as simple as a grape sound so difficult that people tend to be bullied into avoiding them. It’s a shame though. The wines kinda’ rock.

You know how I would describe this wine? I would use a fashion or design-like term - clean. It’s crisp, balanced and very European. It’s actually a style of white I really enjoy. The nose lets on a sly bit of honeyed lemon and stone. A sip opens up a citrus-y bit of grapefruit in a tux draped on a rock along with a dribble of honey. If you let it warm up a bit, it takes on a sexy peach and apricot edge. The finish is crisp and clean with no caffeine - sorry, that was an 80’s flashback to a 7-Up commercial. Remember that one? The guy with the Jamaican accent?..

OK, back to the wine. It’s a warm weather wine or a wine for some food. I really like it. If you like a crisp Riesling, you’ll like this and it pairs with so many foods (goat cheese, spicy food, a summer salad, etc.) that you almost can’t miss.

Dive into Grüner folks.

$28 at Kitsilano Wine Cellars.

I was going to write up a beautiful Greek wine I recently popped open, but I had a sip of this tonight and was inspired to write up another tasty bubbly instead. C’mon, it’s summer… you NEED to drink more bubbly anyway.

When it’s poured into a Champagne glass this wine shows a slight pink edge to its pale golden colour - like you’ve poured some Chardonnay into a glass that had a little bit of red left in it. A big ‘ol sniff gives up lemon, green apple, honey and some flinty stone. A sip shows off elegantly fine bubbles that lead into really tasty apple and lemon with an edge of red cherry. It all finishes off with a bit of that flinty stone and some really crisp bubbly acidity.

I really liked this wine. Would I buy it again? Yep. Should you? Probably. Especially if you like the bubbly and want to try something different from Prosecco or Cava. Go to town, folks.

~$26 at Kitsilano Wine Cellars.

One of the grand frustrations I find of late in BC is that many of the local wines are reaching to astronomical levels in pricing. I realize that “charge what the traffic will bear” is an old business adage, however the quality-value ratio must be upheld in the competitive world of wine.

Fortunately a winery like Wild Goose, making some of the best white wines in the province, let alone Canada, has not followed the over-pricing trend. I have always enjoyed their tasty wines along with their personable, family approach to their customers.

This Pinot Blanc is exactly what I love about their wines – crisp, with prominent fruit and a nice acidity to finish. The nose on this is honeydew melon with a bit of kiwi hiding in there. A few swishes produce some nice tart pear and more melon with nice tart green apple acidity on the finish - just plain tasty on a warm summer’s eve.

This is a great bottle of local white, something you can say about pretty much anything produced by Wild Goose.

$17.99 at the winery (and some VQA stores) here in BC.

To be shamelessly cliché, when I found this wine I thought the old Reese’s peanut butter cup commercial where the guy with the peanut butter rounds the corner and collides with the guy eating the chocolate. Bliss ensues. This wine combines two of my favourite things in the world of white wine: New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc and Australian Semillon. How could this possibly fail?

Well the meeting is a positive one as the wine highlights the best traits of both wines. An 85 / 15 split, the first few sniffs are full of grass and lime, followed up by tasty tropical fruit, some guava and a bit of passion fruit/grapefruit on the tongue. The finish has mineral and more of the Semillon’s grassy goodness.

I had this with some light cheese and veg, and also on its own and either way this is a good value find. As it’s in the price range of the Kim Crawford, it’s a reasonable choice if you want a little less “power” on the Sauv Blanc traits and a little more on the green end of things.

$19.99 at LDB stores here in BC.

Y’all should know by now that I’m a fan of anything tasty and bubbly. Thanks to the folks at Kitsilano Wine Cellars, I’ve gotten hooked on the Znovin Classic. Recently Matt introduced me to this wine.

The winery has been making Blanquette, the original French bubbly for over 500 years, which predates Dom Perignon’s “discovery” of Champagne by over 150 years. The family’s vineyards are on the slopes surrounding the town of Limoux, near the Mediterranean Sea.

OK, can I just say that this wine is amazing for the money? It’s a blend of Mauzac, Chardonnay and Chenin Blanc. What it adds up to is sip after sip of crisp honeyed pear and mineral-laced goodness. Its crisp-ness would make it a great pairing for many foods, from seafood (salmon) to Thai or as an aperitif.

It’s more complex than the Znovin… more so than the extra $6 would imply. That’s not to say that the Znovin isn’t a great value. It just speaks volumes as to what a find this wine is. It’s actually tastier than some Champagnes I’ve had recently - at less than half the price.

Wow, tasty.

$23 at Kitsilano Wine Cellars.

I picked this wine up a while ago and had been holding it for the right meal to crack it open. After an 80km road bike ride today that included about 4,000 feet of climbing I felt pretty justified in grabbing a Canada Prime New York steak and firing up the grill.

Wow, I have to say that this matched up pretty bloody well. The Wine Dictator gave it a modest 84 points, but I’d rate it  bit above that. Not tonnes, but this wine came alive with a grilled piece of meat.

It’s a blend of 51% Cabernet Sauvignon, 47% Merlot, 1% Petit Verdot and 1% Cabernet Franc and comes in at a very balanced 13% booze.

I really tasted the Merlot in this blend, especially with the meat. The wine took on a slightly aged flavour, with black tea and dark berry/cherry fruit. The nose was all about the black tea, black cherry and tobacco, with a bit of bell pepper. A juicy sip gave up a nice mix of blackberry and black cherry juice along with an edge of that tannic black tea and licorice. Tasty.

It’s a very well-blanced bottle of wine, which would drink well on its own… and paired bloody well with the steak. Yum.

Amazing? No. Very good? Yes. If you, like me, are a fan of Ridge wines, you’ll think this is pretty damned good.

$49.99 at LDB stores here in BC.

I had tasted this wine and liked it at the 2008 Vancouver Playhouse International Wine Festival, so when I saw it at the main LDB store here in Vancouver on the weekend I grabbed a bottle.

All the grapes used to make this wine are organically grown, so y’all can feel good about that. The wine is a blend of 85.5% Cabernet Sauvignon, 9% Zinfandel and 5.5% Syrah, 91% of which is grown in Mendocino County while the other 9% comes from vineyards in Amador County. The booze on the wine is a relatively high 14.5%.

What this all means when juice hits the glass is that the wine is pretty big and dark, though not as much so as you would think from the blend. The nose gives up a bunch of black currants, mint, cherry candy and some vanilla from the oak. A slurp gave me a juicy, but balanced bunch of ripe black cherry fruit, along with pepper and a definite (though nice) edge of oak. The tannins on the medium-long finish give the wine some nice structure.

I liked this wine and have to say it (for now) wins my award for the best Cabernet-based wine out there in Vancouver in that important under-$30 category. It’s pretty yummy stuff, especially at the price.

$24.99 at LDB stores here in BC.