Vinifico! The Original Vancouver Wine Blog

Hey folks… if you’re looking to find out what wine events are happening in your area, visit LocalWineEvents.com.

Of course, while you’re there, you could always vote for my blog as well.

I thought I would get a head start on the whole New Year’s thing, and have a drop of bubbly. There is never a bad time for sparkling, and as Sean says “it’s the Disneyland of booze” – just so damn fun.

This is one darn tasty sparkler. A nice blend of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, it has nice bubbles, with a light lemon nose with a bit of pineapple to boot. Smooth in the mouth with a little bit of yeast and vanilla and a surprisingly long finish. What a great shift from all the bold reds at this time of year.

This is a great sipper on its own, but would be fantastic with a fruit based dessert or even a nice seafood or cheese appetizer.

A fine value sparkler if you are headed to the LDB and don’t want to shell out for the bigger money French Champagnes.

$29.95 at local liquor stores in BC.

What do you get if you take a good Syrah from France’s Rhône Valley and cross it with a peppery, fruit-forward Australian Shiraz? Well, the end result of that marriage would taste a whole lot like this wine. It has the rustic minerality of the Rhone wine and the meaty full-bodied fruit of the Aussie Shiraz… and you know what? I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that at all. In fact, I love it.

This was the 2nd South African wine I picked up at Liberty Wines yesterday, and I’m happy I did.

When poured in a glass, the wine is an impressive dark red with an opaque look… obviously the folks at Rust en Vrede didn’t filter it. I like that.

The nose: imagine a dark chocolate cherry tart served on a stone plate… dark fruit with a mineral edge.

The taste of the wine is all sexy dark fruit wearing a new leather jacket with a pocket full of black pepper. The leather adds a rustic edge to the impressive, but not over-sweet, dark cherry fruit. The finish stays with you for a while…. and you won’t want it to leave.

OK, to sum it all up – I loved this wine. It’s in my top 5 for the year, without a doubt. This is bloody good stuff.

$40 at private wine shops (again – Liberty) here in BC.

I wandered into the little treasure trove that is the Liberty Wines shop on Granville Island today. It’s a great little store that has a fantastic selection of hard-to-find wines packed into their small space.

While browsing, I came across an interesting selection of South African wines and realized it has been years since I’ve drunk a wine from there… so, I picked up a couple of bottles that caught my attention.

First up is the 2003 Firefinch Ripe Red. Now anyone who knows me, knows I like the slutty reds, so having “Ripe Red” in the name of the wine was all that was needed for this wine to make its way into my shopping bag.

This wine is from the Robertson wine region east of Cape Town. It’s an interesting blend of Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Ruby Cabernet (a cross of Cabernet Sauvignon and Carignan). What was also very interesting to me was the nose of the wine – it had a definite edge of chili pepper. I half expected it to be spicy.

Thankfully, that wasn’t the case. Instead, it’s a mouthful of ripe cherry mixed with raspberry-laced green tea with a good dose of tannins. Very interesting… and I think, very good. This tastes unlike any other wine I’ve had in recent memory, and that’s not a bad thing at all.

Welcome to the site, South Africa.

$26.99 in private wine shops (Liberty) here in BC.

OK, so I’ve been contacted by a few people to taste/review wine… and let’s face it – if there’s anything I want to make easier for y’all, it’s getting in touch with me to send wine my way.

To make this as easy as I can, I’ve added a Contact form to the site. The verification code is necessary to get around all the SPAM I’d get if it wasn’t there. So, if you want to get in touch with me, you now can. Say “hi”.

Cheers.

Here’s another wine find from over the holidays – a tasty $24 French Pinot Noir. Like I said in my write-up for the Sanford Pinot, it was always my theory that to have a good Pinot Noir, you had to shell out the big bucks to get one that would make you go, “Mmmmmm…”. Thankfully, that’s just not true.

The fruit in this wine was a bit of a surprise. Being a cheap “Burgundy” I expected it to be lip-smackingly dry. Instead there was juicy blackberry and cherry flavours and a well-balanced silky texture, which were all backed up by decent tannins to hold the whole package together.

After all the wine and food over the holidays, I’m feeling like a bit of a round turkey. Fortunately this wine goes very well with that. Hand me my glass.

Merry belated Christmas everyone!

The other day, I was thinking it was time for a good Cab… so when Kirk at Kitsilano Wine Cellars pointed this one out to me, I grabbed it. I figured 2002 was interesting – it gives the wine a bit of bottle age, and Kirk said it was tasty, so why not?

Wow, this is a really interesting wine. And by “interesting” I don’t mean that as a polite way of saying crappy. It’s really good, but not what I was expecting. The nose is the first hint that it’s different from many other California Cabs I’ve had. The fruit is cool and dark, with an edge of mint and dark chocolate.

Being outside the summer temperatures of say, a Napa Valley, the grapes show a complexity that comes from warm days and cool nights in the Santa Ynez Valley, near Santa Barbara (yeah, near where Sideways was filmed).

In their fact sheet for the wine, Lincourt describes it as, “Dark in color, delightful fruit aromas of blackberries, cherry, cassis, and latesummer plum unite with vanilla and dark chocolate in the bouquet.” I’d say they’re spot on with the plum – and the rest. This is a heckuva’ tasty wine.

$30 in private wine shops here in BC.

(Interestingly, the winery’s fact sheet suggests a retail price of $35 USD, which would normally make its price up here $70 CDN. The $30 feels like a bargain.)

Yep, it’s official. I love Pinot Noir. Mind you, there are a bunch of grapes I love – Zinfandel, Riesling, Cabernet Sauvignon and the list goes on – Chardonnay is even on there. I think the reason I had held out on professing my affection for the noble grape is that I had tried too many cheap, bitter and poorly made “Burgundies”… and some New World takes that just didn’t hit the target.

It was always my theory that to have a good Pinot Noir, you had to shell out something in the neighbourhood of $80 – 100 to get a decent French wine with the depth and complexity that they are capable of showing.

Not so much. Lately I’ve had wines ranging from $23 – 50 that show just how sexy this grape can be. This is definitely one of those.

The nose is all ripe blueberry and blackberry with an earthy edge. A sip fills your mouth with crisp cherry and juicy berry fruit, which is braced by a healthy dose of tannins. With more time in a decanter, the wine’s nose takes on a bit a berry syrup edge. Sexy. This is a very good wine with the structure to take a bit of aging.

Man, oh man… so many wines, so little time. This one is worth a stop to smell the Pinot.

$35 here in BC

My good friend Graham picked this wine up for me back in the rosé days of the summer. We finally did a wine exchange this week and it had been sitting in my fridge tempting me for the last few days. Anyone who read this blog throughout the summer knows I’m a big fan of tasty rosés. I finally decided to give my taste buds a break from my usual big reds and try it.

This may not be complex, but it sure is tasty. The blend of Pinot Meunier, Pinot Noir, Tinto Armarella and Grenache is just bursting with cotton candy, fresh strawberry and cherry flavours. Although there is 14% booze here, it’s not in-your-face at all. The fruit is far more evident than the alcohol. It’ a great drop for the hectic pre-Christmas days… and hell, it would be a great match with turkey.

Refreshing as hell!

$17 here in BC

Wow… the weather in Vancouver has been nuts this year – yet another sign that global warming is well under way and presents a real danger to our future.

Every summer, my quick cycling workout is 3-4 laps of the road (not the seawall) in Stanley Park here in Vancouver. I literally do 100′s of laps a year. It’s our wilder, more rugged (and hilly) version of a Central Park.

Last week a near hurricane-strength storm struck our city and literally changed the landscape of the park. The winds, combined with the extremely wet weather of late, caused considerable damage.

The CBC News web site has a photo gallery of the effects of the storm – sad. One of my favourite things about riding in the park is the 1,000′s of shades of green that surround me while I ride. I find it calming, inspiring and beautiful. There’s a hell of a lot less of it now.