Vinifico! The Original Vancouver Wine Blog

Just a quick shout to tell you folks that tickets for all public events for the annual Vancouver Playhouse International Wine Festival go on sale tomorrow, February 2, 2010 at 9:30am.

Pretty much everything sells out each year, so make sure you head over to their site and plan your week. I’ll see you there.

After Taste BC 2010, I was determined to try to taste more of my home province’s wine over the next while. While there, we tasted a few wines in the under-$30 range that I figured needed a closer look. So, yesterday on my way home I dropped by Taylorwood Wines in Yaletown and grabbed this one, Tantalus’ 2007 Old Vines Riesling and the 2008 8th Generation Dry Riesling. They’re next in the series, but for now, let’s get down to this wine.

It’s worth noting that according to Tantalus’ web site, the 2008 growing season saw Tantalus Vineyards transition to organic vineyard practices. As a result, you can feel better about what you’re drinking from them and how they’re making their wines.

The nose was a zesty mix of lime, honey and stone, with a touch of petrol. A sip gave a burst of zingy lime, peach and a medium-long finish of stone and a bit of that petrol I mentioned. This is a heckuva’ Riesling for BC. I’m not sure I would have guessed that it was from here if I had tasted it blind. That’s not a bad thing.

If you’re a Riesling fan and are looking to try more of what BC has to offer, you really should give this wine a try. It’s delicious.

$22.90 at Taylorwood Wines.

A couple of weeks ago, I was contacted by an employee of Bennalsoft Technologies, who asked if I might be interested in reviewing an iPhone app of theirs, Wine Tripper – British Columbia Edition. Being both the iPhone and wine geek that I am, I was pretty eager to give it a go, so I said, “Sure!” I also figured that with all the visitors that are set to visit our province for the Olympics next month, this could be a very timely app to have on hand.

You can download it here.

OK, let’s get down to having a look at Wine Tripper.

Let’s have a look at the “Region Map” section.It takes you to a Google Map of BC and shows drop-pins on all of BC’s wineries. You can then zoom in and click on the pin for more info on that winery – nice feature.

When you click on “View Wines” in the next screen, you’d think it would take you to a list of the winery’s current line-up, but nope. What you get taken to is a “Your Wines” screen, which both lists and allows you to add wines from this winery to your personal wine list. It would be really nice if each winery’s selection of wines were already in here and easily selectable. Instead, you have to manually enter the wine.

One thing of note here is that in the “Varietal” box, if you tap to go in and edit, there is no way to simply input text (as you would need to if the wine were to be a blend of more than one grape). What you’re taken to is a sortable drop-down list with single varietals. They’ll have to fix this – maybe by adding a simple text edit icon/button. I tried tapping on the varietal, hoping that would take me to a text input screen, but no luck.

I also think that for wines whose names are just the varietal, that should be a choice in the wine name menu. The wine’s name should also be below the winery’s name and varietal on the entry screen. That’s my personal opinion.

OK, back to the home screen. Let’s have a look at the “Wineries” section. You’re taken to the following screen with its selectable sub-sections.

Tapping on “Alphabetical” brings up a pretty comprehensive list of BC Wineries (though I didn’t see Brad Cooper’s Black Cloud Winery in there):

Tapping on a winery’s name allows you to do all the same stuff that the winery screen in the map did – add wines, view wines, etc.

Back to the “Wineries” screen. Tapping “City” brings up a list of cities in BC that have at least 1 winery, sorted alphabetically:

Without starting to sound too much like a broken record, going back to the “Wineries” screen allows you to view BC wineries in each category – “Area“, “Rating” (sorted by your rating, though having the ability to synch with others using the program would be great to see how others have rated a particular winery), “Favorites” (side note to the developers – we spell “Favourites” with a “U” up here in Canada – and this is a Canadian wine region app) and “Proximity” (which uses the iPhone’s GPS to locate you and show wineries that are close-by in a list, sorted by actual physical distance from your location). A cool feature to add here would be to view other users of the program who may be nearby so you can organize tasting groups.

Back to the home screen again… Let’s have a look at the “Your Wines” section. The first thing you see there is this screen:

Once you’ve entered the data for a wine, you can then view your personal list of wines from this winery. Tapping the “Alphabetical” menu item takes you into a list of any wines you have saved, and obviously enough puts them in alphabetical order. One thing that became apparent as I used the app was that the page titles don’t really synch with where you are in the app. I’m in the “Alphabetical” list of my wines, but the page title I’m seeing is simply, “Your Wines”. I constantly had no idea what sub-section I was currently browsing. It would be nice to see a fix for that.

Now here’s another sign of things going wrong. Why can I rate and make notes on the wine now, but couldn’t when I initially entered the wine? The new wine screen should look exactly like what I’m seeing here, if you ask me. That’s a pretty big usability blunder.

Back to the “Your Wines” menu and into the “Varietal” section. Oops! I had 3 wines entered. Why do I only see 2 here?? Another app bug found. The program isn’t listing my Quinta Ferreira Estates Viognier at all (which was very tasty and will be reviewed later this week). That needs to be fixed.

OK, it’s back to the “Your Wines” menu we go and into the “Winery” section. Again, the program isn’t listing the Quinta Ferreira Estates winery, which I had entered. Another glitch… Again, that needs to be fixed.

All right, it’s back to the “Your Wines” menu we go and into the “Rating” section…. and again, the program isn’t listing the Quinta Ferreira Estates winery, which I had entered. Another glitch… Again, that needs to be fixed. I’m staring to feel like a broken record here.

So, let’s head back to the “Your Wines” menu we go and into the “Favorites” section (there’s that US spelling again). Well, if it isn’t the previously missing, Quinta Ferreira Estates Viognier! Maybe flagging it as a favourite hid it in other screens? No idea, but it’s nice to see it wasn’t lost completely.

OK, so that’s it… whew! What Bennalsoft has here is a really nice start to a BC wine program. I really like the map and proximity features… and I really don’t like the missing wine glitches and the US spelling (maybe that’s just me).

All in all the current version is just OK. It’s maybe worth a try, but the $2.99 price tag may be a bit more than I’d pay right now.

Attending the “Taste of BC 2010” event, put on by Liberty Wine Merchants and benefiting B.C. Children’s Hospital – Oak Tree Clinic, this year for the first time was a really great decision. We’ve had lots of conversations about “palate shift” of late, and I can honestly say I have been seeking the rustic and mineral driven wines versus the over concentrated wines I have been finding locally. The event was a pleasant reminder, if not a reawakening for me about some of the excellent wine being produced in BC. Pair that with some tasty snacks and you have decent evening all around.

In terms of wine, the highlights were:

• 8th Generation Vineyard – We first tasted their wines at last year’s Playhouse International Festival, and knew we had to seek them out. They had a full spectrum of wines including Pinot Gris, Chardonnay, two Rieslings, Pinot Noir and a Syrah. The whites stole the show, with delicious Rieslings being highlights. The Pinot Gris was also interesting, having spent some time on oak – unusual in my experience for a BC Pinot Gris, but really elegant and tasty. At an average price of about $22, these are real benchmarks for local wine quality/price ratio.
• La Stella Winery – These were some of the real standouts in my mind. Their Vivace Pinot Gris had amazing grapefruit zest on the nose and some pear and peach. The two reds they were sampling were also superb. The Allegretto Merlot was full and tasty, and the Fortissimo Cab Merlot had excellent pepper and dark fruit. Definitely need to find the Vivace to include in the under $30 challenge.
• La Vieux Pin Winery – Another highlight. I was cautious upon approaching these wines, as I wondered if they could live up to some of the preaching I had faced on a trip into a local cold beer and wine store. The salesperson there proclaimed them “the best out there, from some of the best Merlot vines in the world” and on and on… Hyperbole aside, these are some excellent wines. The Petit Sigma Blanc was perhaps the highlight of the whites at the event for me. Beautiful floral and citrus, this is an amazing deal at $22. The Belle Pinot Noir was dark and full or earthy plum – an excellent BC Pinot.
• Meyer Family Vineyards - Brand new for me, I wondered if the hype would live up to the reality. We tasted an excellent Chardonnay (the best BC Chardonnay of the event) and a couple of quality BC Pinot Noirs. The Chardonnay was well balanced and full value for it’s $35 price tag. The pinots were quite different from each other, both with nice structure and red fruit. They’re definitely worth a try if you find them.
• Tantalus Vineyards – Their 2008 Riesling and 2009 Rosé were both very good. Keep an eye out for them in your local stores.

Other good sips included the Seven Stones Winery Meritage that had a really nice Cabernet Franc backbone and Vista D’Oro’s Walnut Port was a delicious way to end the evening – so tasty!

On the food/pairing front, the smoked sablefish with horseradish cream from Bridges was superb with the Wild Goose Stony Slope Riesling. The oysters from Rodney’s were fantastic and would have been great with the Focus2 Sauvignon Blanc from Twisted Tree (couldn’t carry them over there). Central City Brewing had a maple cheesecake with beer-brined bacon on top. It paired fantastically with a nice breath of air.

A good night full of new tastes and a much more optimistic view on the future of BC wines.

Next up in the under $30 challenge is the Campo Alto Crianza. I picked this one up last week, being struck that is always nice to find a reasonably priced bottle that has a few years on it, particularly one from Rioja.

I popped this one, poured and gave it a swirl. Initially the nose was full of dusty violet, dried cranberry and a bit of vanilla. I gave it some time to sit and came back some felt marker had joined the fray. Pretty appealing to me! At that point I figured it was time for a swirl and slurp and I got much more of the vanilla on the palate, perhaps a little too much wood, mixed with tart red currant, a bit of veg. In general this was a nice wine for the money. The finish showed more tart red fruit and a really nice acidity, and was for me the best part.

I enjoy this wine. It’s good value Spanish sip that would certainly please the masses at a dinner or gathering.

$23.99 @ Liberty Wine Merchants here in Vancouver.

I picked this up the other night when I was in the mood for a crisp Riesling… something that happens fairly often.

The nose showed a tonne of zesty grapefruit, lime and dusty-flinty stone. I love Riesling. A sip gave a refreshing squirt of fresh grapefruit and lime and finished off with that I-just-licked-a-rock flinty minerality that stays around for a bit. It really hit my taste buds in the right way.

This wine really hit the spot, especially if you’re not in the mood for, say a Spätlese with its hint of sweetness – not that there’s anything wrong with that. Its crisp minerality is just right in that tangy kinda’ way. It’s a perfect aperitif wine (sitting around sipping on its own) and its crisp acidity means it would also pair very well with foods like sushi, squash soup or even a salad.

Tasty stuff… and oh yeah, drink more Riesling!

$22.99 at LDB stores here in BC.

A couple of days ago, I had the chance to sit down with Shea (from JustGrapesWine.com) and the owner of Marquis Wine Cellars, John Clerides to taste the delicious wines from Mayacamas Vineyards. Last night I headed into Marquis hoping that the Sauvignon Blanc would hit the under-$30 sweet spot. Alas, it didn’t… being priced at $34.90 (though it’s very good and may make its way into a future post). So, in its place – and due in part to Shea’s glowing review of their Petite Sirah (yes, I picked some up) – I chose to give this a go.

Well, I’m glad I did. For those of you who are New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc fans (myself included), California SB’s are a different beast entirely. Many of them see time in oak and show a completely different range of flavours. According to the winery’s web site, this wine was cold pressed into stainless steel tanks, then spent its fermentation in 60 gallon French Oak barrels; (80% once-used and 20% new). Once fermentation was finished, the wine rested sur lie for 7 months prior to bottling. It was not put through malolactic fermentation. This all adds up to give the wine a very complex and alluring nose and flavour profile.

The nose was really interesting. I got something like candied ginger peach. The flavours were completely different from the nose – I got vanilla-spiced pear leading out to a round and then crisp lemon and orange edged finish. It’s really very nice stuff.

If you want to explore how Cali Sauvignon Blanc differs from the New Zealand fruit bombs, this would be a great start.

$26.90 at Marquis Wine Cellars.

Given that the last couple of Chardonnays I’ve had have come from France’s outstanding Tissot winery, this wine had a tough act to follow. To move from having those fresh in my taste sense memory into this bottle was a bit of a shock, but we’re also talking about 2 Chardonnays that sell for over $60 (CDN) being compared to one 1/3 that price. Having said that, this wine didn’t make my mouth happy in the way a really good Chardonnay can.

I’m not saying it’s a badly made wine… or that was unpleasant to drink – just that it does nothing to stand out, even in this price range. There was nothing at all memorable about it. It had a pleasant crisp edge that shows it would pair decently with food. The nose had a nice dose of light citrus and minerality. A sip showed a slight edge of green bitterness on the thin body and led to a light clean and crisp finish.

It’s a decent wine… just not, in my opinion, memorable.

~$2o at private wine shops here in BC.

So far this under-$30 thing is working for me. I’m 2 for 2 in finding wines I would happily sip at any price, let alone for under $30 CDN.

While I was in the Thurlow & Alberni specialty LDB store last week, I took a look at the Italian section. Knowing that 2006 was a phenomenal vintage for all things Tuscan, I spotted this 2006 and decided to give it a go. It’s a super-Tuscan blend of 46% Cabernet Sauvignon, 33% Sangiovese and 21% Merlot that I had tasted, but not loved, a few times in the past.

Well, 2006 seems to have fixed that. For the money, I was really happy with this wine. After a bit of time in the glass, the nose was a sultry mix of ripe cherry, perfumed rose petals, tobacco and an earthy minerality. The flavours were equally seductive, offering up rich and ripe berry/cherry fruit, chocolate and a finish laced with floral notes and silky tannins.

This is a seriously tasty and enjoyable wine for $25 (CDN).

$24.99 at LDB stores here in BC.