Vinifico! The Original Vancouver Wine Blog

So while on holidays, (as if I needed an excuse for the bubble), and I picked this up at the Safeway (Oregon) for $14.99. Now I love the Gloria Ferrer and figured that this one would be in the same ballpark.

This is darn tasty. Nice nose of some lemon and almost sourdough bread. That might seem a little strange, but there’s that little bit of a sweet yeast tang on the edge when you smell fresh bread. But it doesn’t carry on with a sip. The palate is full of tart apples and some citrus and some hints of sweet almond towards the back. (think amaretto in a good way) The finish is crisp and tart and a bit short with a lemon lime zest goin’ on.

This one is a refreshing, crisp and fruity – a nice change from the creamy Gloria Ferrer.

All together now, love the bubbly… love the bubbly… Yum.

$25.95 at LDB stores here in BC.

Wow. I LOVE Nebbiolo… it’s just full of rose-petal, cherry, violets, raspberry and even a bit of tar all done up in a usually medium-bodied, lighter coloured wine. It’s a complex grape that is definitely done best in possibly my favourite wine region – Italy’s Piedmont.

I picked this up last week at Kitsilano Wine Cellars and cracked it open tonight with some steak after a good workout. For the $33 this cost, it’s a really good bottle. This is a nebbiolo. There’s no mistaking that. It’s a great example of the grape for a good price.

The nose is vanilla-oak, raspberry, cherry, rose and a bit of that tar. A slurp gives up a mouthful of all the nose offered along with a long-lasting and firmly tannic raspberry finish.

Hell yeah. I really liked this wine. For the money, it’s a great buy. Try it.

$33 at Kitsilano Wine Cellars.

(verging on 4.5)

I picked this up last night at Kits Wine Cellars with the aim of pairing it with some food this week. Well, that time came tonight with some chili and corn chicken sausages from Granville Island’s Oyama Sausages.

I can’t say that I loved the wine, but it was solid. It had nice citrus and mineral on both the nose and in a sip, with a finish that really showed the mineral and lemon side of the wine. The wine had a medium-bodied feel in the mouth. Both that and its acidity make it a great little food wine.

I just felt like writing a quick post (I’ve been bad at that lately), so I’ll keep it short and sweet. Did I like the wine? Yes. Would I buy it again? Probably not. It was a bit plain for my tastes. Nothing about it made it stand out, as solid as it was. There are just better Sauvignon Blanc-based wines out there for the money.

$24 at Kitsilano Wine Cellars.

This is the first post from my iPhone. I can’t say this is something I’ll do too often, but this could evolve into a very cool tool to have at festivals or tastings.

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.