Vinifico! The Original Vancouver Wine Blog

“Hedonisticament” – was the defining word Italian Wine Consultant Barbara Tamburini used in her rather verbose keynote presentation to open the Vancouver International Wine Festival. She explained that to her this meant the desire to create and drink great wine versus producing large volumes. Sounds great to me

As we entered, we were presented with a lovely glass of Mionetto Prosecco (not bad for 9:30am) and a tasting station with twelve wines each. I’m not sure if “good things come to those who wait” is an Italian adage, however ninety minutes later we were finally given the opportunity learn exactly what she meant by “innovation by tradition.”

The wines got to have their say and they spoke to the immense and wonderful diversity of Italian Wines. Some highlights included:

2006 Agricola Marrone Langhe Arneis “Tre Fie” – Nice honey and apple on the nose with soft citrus and peach on the palate, nice lime and fennel on the finish with great minerally acidity (4 Stars)

2003 Antinori Tenute Marchesi Antinori Chianti Classico DOCG – Amazing eucalyptus and mint with some pepper on the nose, followed up with jammy black currant and berry. Yep, I’m likin’ this year’s festival theme now. The finish was all nice firm tannins vanilla and hint of liquorice. (4.5 Stars)

2003 Prunotto Bussia Barolo DOCG – This will definitely make my top choices for the festival. Plain gorgeous is the place to start with it’s brick brown color and nose full of prune, violets, brown sugar and some pepper. A nice big sip showed jammy blackberries and currants with lovely raisin overtones, followed up with nice balanced tannins with some tar and peppers. A nice way to end the tasting to say the least. (4.5 Stars)

We followed this up with an afternoon of amazing Barolos, Barbarescos and Bubbles. A great start and back at it tomorrow.

I’m pretty excited about some of the tastings I’ll be attending at this year’s Vancouver Playhouse International Wine Festival… most of all the one I participated in today, the Bertani Amarone Vertical. I’ll let their words do the talking:

Carefully selected grape bunches are hand-harvested in Bertani’s best Valpolicella vineyards in Fumane, Marano and the Novare Valley. Unlike most leading Amarone producers, who buy grapes from outside growers, Bertani’s harvest originates entirely in the firm’s own vineyards. With their marly-calcerous soil sheltered by surrounding woodland, these vineyards offer the ideal terroir for nurturing the quality of grapes necessary for producing a world-class Amarone. Light appetizers will be served at the end of the tasting, which takes guests all the way back to the 1964 vintage.

That’s 1964 people… I can’t say I’ve ever had a wine older than me, so I was pretty worked up over the chance to taste these wines. What can I say? They lived up to my expectations.

Bertani has been around in the Verona area of Italy since 1857 and started making Amarone somewhere back around 1957 (the presentation at the tasting mentioned 1957, ’58 and ’59). I knew that Amarone is made from choice grapes (for Bertani this is usually a blend of 80% Corvina Veronese and 20% Rondinella) dried on mats for up to 4 months, but I didn’t know that after a 50-day fermentation in glass-lined cement vats, they spend 6 years – many of the older wines spent 10 years or more – in large (5,000 litre) Slovenian oak barrels before being bottled and spending another year aging at the winery before release.

Today, Lorenzo from the winery took us through wines from the 2000, 1990, 1983, 1975, 1973, 1967 and 1964 vintages. All of them had a still-vibrant red colour with a slight brick-ish orange edge to the older ones. Here are my quick notes:

2000 vintage: The youngest of the bunch and still tight. The nose was all spicy violets, raisins and cherry. The tasty flavours showed intense spicy cherry candy along with licorice spice leading into a firm tannic finish. (4 – 4.5 stars)

1990 vintage: The nose was a sexy mix of dark plum, ripe cherry and spice. The flavours were spicy dark cherry, leather and dark chocolate-coated raisins, which lead into a cherry brandy finish. Tasty stuff! (4.5 stars)

1983 vintage: An intense and perfectly-aged nose of dark chocolate, raisin and licorice-edged dark cherry cola. The flavours were soft dark cherry fruit with leather and spice. Complex stuff. (4.5 stars)

1975 vintage: Pretty different from the ’83… it actually seemed younger. Its nose was a fresh and intense mix of plum, raisin, walnut/cherry liqueur and spice. At this point I was thinking, “Jesus, I love Amarone!“. The flavours pretty much mirrored the nose with walnuts, cherry liqueur and bitter chocolate with a finish that went on for minutes. (4.5 stars)

1973 vintage: This actually seemed younger than the ’75… Its nose had a schwack of cherry brandy, prune and a meaty edge to its spice. Wow. Still young! Complex and sexy. (4.5 stars)

1967 vintage: The wine seemed to really change with the next 2… there were new layers of flavours and aromas. The fruit started to disappear a bit, being replaced with the leather, nut, spice and herbs. This was one gorgeous bunch of grape juice! There was a distinct walnut edge to the cherry brandy and the long luxurious finish. I want to drink this every day. (4.5 – 5 stars)

1964 vintage: This one was really interesting. I got a bit of burnt rubber on the nose… of course it also had the cherry brandy/raisin thing going on, but the nuts, tobacco, leather and spice were really evident. I loved it.

In order, here are my picks:

1. 1967
2. 1964
3. 1973
4. 1983
5. 1990
6. 1975
7. 2000

Hopefully I’ll get a chance to visit the folks at Bertani when I’m in the Verona area at the beginning of April. I’d love to see what else they have stored away. I’ll say it again. I love Amarone.

The wines are available in Vancouver through Select Wine Merchants Ltd. (www.selectwines.ca). The prices for these ones? Well, let’s just say that if you have to ask…

Well, it looks like the start to my 2008 wine festival season is off to a great start and about to get better. A few weeks ago Graham and I went down to San Fransisco for the 2008 ZAP Festival and our calendars are full in the coming week with events at the Vancouver Playhouse International Wine Festival… and wait for it… it gets even better. Last night I bought my ticket to visit Rachel in Italy and we’re going to hit up VinItaly while I’m there.

You may not have heard of VinItaly, but dammit it has me worked up. It’s pretty much the world’s largest wine event. Over 5 days (April 3 – 7, 2008), 4,200 exhibitors (wineries and wine-related businesses) show their wares to folks like lucky ‘ol me. It’s going to be a blast… and I get to share the experience with my favourite wine partner, Dr. Rachel Black.

Of course, I’ll bring back notes and pictures, but first up is the Vancouver wine stuff later this week. Stay tuned.

Wow. How can you possibly go wrong with a Zind-Humbrecht wine?.. I’ve had a few of them now and they’ve all been among the best white wines I’ve had the pleasurable opportunity to quaff. I had this wine tonight with some Thai food. Thai and Gewürztraminer make for one of my favourite wine and food pairings. If you’ve never tried it, you should.

This Gewürztraminer shows a lot of what I love about the grape. The nose literally leaps out of the glass… with loads of of ripe lychee, white pepper and smoke. There’s a thick mouthfeel to the wine. The flavours follow that up in spades. There’s honey, lychee fruit, rose petal and a nice mineral edge to the soft and round finish.

Pretty bloody tasty stuff.

$39 at Kitsilano Wine Cellars (after a $20 agent mark-down – get it while it lasts).

It’s been a busy week here at Vinifico. We received our press passes to the upcoming Vancouver International Wine Festival, I received a schwack of side work and there was finally some sun in Vancouver, which meant less time inside in front of a computer. There was wine though. Oh yes, there was wine.

This is yet another bottle I picked up at Kitsilano Wine Cellars. I had tried the Pinot from these folks a while back and had liked it… but not loved it though. Well, for a wine I almost left on the shelf, this is quite the find. It actually reminds me a lot of the much more expensive Abeja Cabernet Rachel and I had last year in Walla Walla. This one I do love.

The nose has a beautiful brown sugar edge to the coffee, blackcurrant, blackberry and licorice mix. A juicy sip gives up licorice-edged blackberry, currant and tea leading into a long and sexy finish with firm tannins.

There’s a lot going on in this one. It’s a beautiful wine from the Columbia Valley… Let’s face it, a wine from Napa with this much going on would cost at least $20 more. This is quite a deal. There were only 150 cases made!

$35 at Kitsilano Wine Cellars.

You may know by now that I’ve got a soft spot for Italian wines, especially the reds. They were among the first wines I drank when I started my love affair with wine years ago and still make up a large percentage of my wine budget.

I grabbed this wine last week at Kitsilano Wine Cellars and took it home to have with some pizza. Yum.

I would call this Sangiovese an elegant wine. Its nose gives up dark berry and cherry fruit with a flinty mineral edge. The flavours? Well, it’s a lot like licking fresh blackberry juice from a stone bowl… you get the fruit along with a long and balanced mineral-laced finish. Fruity yes, but with an earthy edge.

This is really a great bottle of wine for the money.

$26 at Kitsilano Wine Cellars.

I’m pretty sure that “Zind Humbrecht” is, in an Alsatian dialect sort of way, French for “sexy“. Each time I’ve had one of their wines its been a sensual experience.

The nose of this wine is decadently fruity, with ripe apricot, honey, flinty stone and a spicy floral edge. A sip reveals thick, juicy liquid that rolls around on the tongue. The flavours literally explode… ripe and juicy apricot and lemon combine with honey to make up what can be described as a beautiful tart. It’s almost dessert-like. The finish goes on for a while, leaving more time to savour the juicy flavours.

Pinot Gris may not be a grape that excites you, but if you have a chance to try one from these folks, jump.

$22 at a discounted/clear-out price at an LDB store in Langley (usually ~$40).

I’m sitting here organizing my notes on the 2008 ZAP Festival that Graham and I were all over last weekend… I think I’ll hold off until Saturday so I have enough time to get it all down here on the site. What I will do is write up one of the highlights of last week. When we visited the Ridge Lytton Springs Winery, we picked up this bottle to quaff in SF.

Ridge’s Advance Tasting Program (ATP) is a winery-only program based on limited production wines in quantities ranging from 5 to 55 barrels. I forgot to take note of the amount of the Nervo they produced, but this blend of 88% Zinfandel, 8% Petite Sirah, 4% Carignane has 14.3% booze and was bloody tasty.

Wow… Who says Zinfandel can’t age?? Well, if anyone can do it, that would be Ridge. It’s still got medium-dark red colour, with a slight orange edge from the 12 years of age. The nose is a sexy mix of cool stewed cherries, plums and Chinese 5 spice. Sip after sip gave up layers of dark chocolate, cherries, light berry, spice and pepper. The finish lasted for minutes.

If you can find this wine and you have a curious palate, grab it. Unless you’ve had a great Zin with some age, it’ll be unlike anything you’ve tasted.

$40 USD at the winery.

One of the joys of wine is when you hit that perfect food – wine pairing. This weekend I had another superb meal at Abbotsford’s Restaurant 62 (great wine list) that included Moroccan Spiced Lamb Chops with Chickpea fritters as an appetizer. The wine pairing was the 2006 edition of the Conundrum.

I hadn’t had this wine in a number of years, however I recently noticed that the price had begun to drop again. (I believe this was over $40 in the last few years after a couple of big Spectator ratings). What a great bottle.

The nose on this is full of honey and floral notes with some nice orange and a hint of spice. A couple of sips proved it to be a perfect pairing with the cumin and coriander on the lamb, with beautiful peach and apricot flavor and acidity balancing the subtle heat on the chops. The finish has nice honey and some vanilla to smooth everything off.

This is a really tasty wine and it’s nice to see the value ratio improving with the drop in price.

$29.99 at LDB stores here in BC.

OK, so on with our day in Sonoma… a hurried and miserable day weather-wise, but neither Graham nor I really noticed the rain. Our minds were on the wines we had tasted and the ones that were yet to come.

Our next stop was Ridge Lytton Springs. Anyone who has read this blog for a while knows that I’m a long-time fan of Ridge wines. I’ve loved almost every wine of theirs that I’ve tasted. The visit to their tasting room only strengthened that opinion.

When we pulled into the parking lot we were greeted by the sight of the old vines that go into their Lytton Springs bottling. They were old, gnarled and lovingly tended. The vineyard made me thirsty

We didn’t get the name of the lovely lady who poured our samples, but she was great. She not only was a great source of information on Ridge wines, but she also gave us tips on where to go and buy wine to take with us before we left Sonoma.

OK, so what did we taste? Well, here you go:

• 2003 Zinfandel, York Creek (4.5 stars)
  tasty, tasty stuff… still young with a load of tannins.
• 2005 Geyserville (4.5 stars)
  has consistently been my favourite Zin blend from Ridge and this one continues that. There was a tonne of that briary, berry fruit and great structure. I love this wine.
• 2005 Zinfandel Carmichael (4.5 stars)
  if you can find it, buy it.
• 2002 Syrah I, Lytton Estate (4.5 stars)
  wow… gorgeous peppery dark fruit.
• 1998 Lytton Springs (4.5 stars)
  a beautiful aged Zinfandel blend. It had stewed dark fruit and a still-young tannic edge.

Man… I do love their wines. It was a great visit. We left with a 1996 Zinfandel, Nervo Vineyards to drink when we got into San Fran that night.

Another winery I’ve been a long-time fan of is Seghesio Family Vineyards. When I talk about Zinfandel to people who dismiss it as a slutty, boring wine, Seghesio wines are ones that I always tell these anti-Zin folks they have to try. They generally have more structure and complex flavours than some of the fruit-forward Zins some folks love.

We retraced our tracks though Healdsburg and made our way to the winery. There are no wines around the building, but rest assured there are Seghesio vineyards not far away. It’s quite the facility. They make a fair bit of wine and do it well. Like Ridge, I can’t say I’ve had a wine of theirs I don’t like.

Their tasting room manager took us through their line-up. We even chatted with Cathy Seghesio, who is their marketing director. Here’s what we tasted:

• 2006 Sonoma Zinfandel (4-4.5 stars)
  this is their big seller… it’s a very solid Zin, with lots of briary-edged dark berry and nice tannins.
• 2005 Home Ranch Zinfandel (4.5 stars)
  yum… lots of dark berry, raspberry, rhubarb and again, that nice tannic structure the Seghesio folks do so well.
• 2005 Cortina Zinfandel (4.5 stars)
  what can I say? This was great as well.
• 2005 Old Vine Zinfandel (4.5 stars)
  I had drunk this wine a few weeks before going down to California… and I loved it just as much in their tasting room. Great stuff. There’s a load of dark, brambly blackberry fruit with pomegranate and a good tannic backbone.
• 2005 Rockpile Zinfandel (4.5 stars)
  the grapes for this wine come from a vineyard 1,200 feet above Dry Creek Valley. The grapes are made to work to earn their keep… by having to find their nutrients deep beneath the rocky topsoil. The struggle produces a deep wine with all the intense berry flavours and structure I’d expect from these folks.
• 2005 Sangiovese (4-4.5 stars)
  intensely dark and very tannic. This wine needs some age, but has gorgeous dark fruit.
• 2004 Omaggio (4.5 stars)
  this blend of 60% Cabernet Sauvignon and 40% Sangiovese makes for a New World super-Tuscan blend that is young, deep, dark, sexy and very tannic. There were great dark pepper and chocolate notes on top of the dark berry fruit.
• 2004 Venom (4.5 stars)
  an Italian wine consultant told the Seghesio family that they had the makings of a great Sangiovese wine when he tasted the grapes growing in their Home Ranch vineyards. So, they started making this wine. This was the surprise and the standout of the day. It’s huge, incredibly dark, complex and the best North American Sangiovese I’ve tasted. It had dark cherry, flowers (violets) and a big, bad tannic finish. This needs to age, but is a helluva wine.

Wow… the folks at Seghesio were really nice and the wines were great. It was all the motivation that Graham and I needed to head off to the Bottle Barn in Santa Rosa. This is the kind of place that is especially impressive to a Canadian. Our government is so oppressive up here that we never encounter what amounts to a supermarket-sized building that sells booze. It was fantastic…. not to mention that many of the wines were cheaper than they had been at the wineries.

It was a great day, filled with many sips that reinforced just why I love wine so much. If you’ve never paid the area a visit, I’d heartily recommend you get on it. Tell them I said, “Hi”.