Vinifico! The Original Vancouver Wine Blog

To celebrate Hall’o'ween and the site being named one of Google’s top 100 wine blogs, I thought I’d do what?.. Yep, you guessed it – try another wine.

I picked this up on our recent trip down to Portland at the stupendous Vinopolis Wine Shop around the corner from Portland’s Ace Hotel. It was Oregon, so of course it’s a Pinot Noir.

It’s had some time in the decanter and is starting to open up. The nose is a mix of sour cherry, berry and spice. The flavours are a juicy blend of all that cherry and spicy berry fruit the nose was hinting at, along with an interesting earthy/vegetal edge to the long finish.

The wine comes across as a bit boozier than its 13.5% rating suggests, but I don’t have a problem with that. Overall, the balance is there to round it out and nothing really seems to be where it shouldn’t. It’s a tasty wine; and a very good one at that.

Did I absolutely love it? Kinda’. Would I buy it again. Yep. ‘Nuff said.

$27 at Portland’s Vinopolis Wine Shop.

OK, this was a bit of a surprise this morning.. Vinifico made Google’s Top 100 Wine Blogs! I don’t know exactly how they came up with the ratings, but I’ll take kudos wherever I can get ‘em.:)

Check out the rankings.

I’ve really been digging this wine lately. With the economy tanking, I’ve been a bit more conscious of the money I’ve been dropping on the vino lately… and I’ve been searching out quality wines at good prices. I’ve found a few and this is the first of the bunch I’ll write up.

I’m a big fan of St. Cosme’s wines… I’ve had many of the Rhones and have also loved their Gigondas. Well, some of the grapes used for the Gigondas make their way into this bottle of juice. Each year they take some of the grapes destined for the Gigondas and, using the Solara method, cascade the vintages down into the blend they label “Little James’ Basket Press”.

If you’re not familiar with what the solera method is, the good folks over at wikipedia.org have the following description:

“In the solera process, a succession of containers are filled with the product over a series of equal aging intervals (usually a year). One container is filled for each interval. At the end of the interval after the last container is filled, the oldest container in the solera is tapped for part of its content, which is bottled. Then that container is refilled from the next oldest container, and that one in succession from the second-oldest, down to the youngest container, which is refilled with new product. This procedure is repeated at the end of each aging interval. The transferred product mixes with the older product in the next barrel.

No container is ever drained, so some of the earlier product always remains in each container. This remnant diminishes to a tiny level, but there can be significant traces of product much older than the average, depending on the transfer fraction…”

To sum it up, what you get in the bottle of wine is a blend of older and newer vintages. That’s a good thing. For the money, it presents very good layers of flavour from great grapes and it comes from a very good producer.

The nose is a tasty mix of dusty cherries, licorice, herbs and dark berry. The flavours back all that up, with a firm and mineral-laced finish. This is a very tasty wine for the moolah, folks.

Buy it if you can find it.

$24 at Kitsilano Wine Cellars.

Like many of you, I’m a big pizza guy. I love cooking a good pizza at home (tonight’s was a prosciutto, artichoke and red pepper concoction). What’s not always so easy is pairing wine with those pizzas.

As a rule of thumb, I’ve always stuck with relatively inexpensive, earthy and lightly fruity Italian reds when it comes to my pizzas. It’s a mix I’m pretty bloody happy with. Tonight’s wine fit the bill to a “T”.

Barbera del Monferrato is generally known in Italy as a pretty middling sparkling or still red wine. Obviously some folks are striking out to create a quality product in the region though… I found this as enjoyable as almost any Barbera I’ve had in the last while.

On the nose, you get cherry syrup, mineral and a spicy earthiness. A sip shows some dark cherry fruit, licorice and some pomegranate on the mineral-laced finish.

Tasty stuff, especially for the money. Try some… even with pizza.

$24 at Kitsilano Wine Cellars.

Oh. My. God. Anyone who has read this site for a while knows I’m a fan of a good Riesling… and this, folks, is a good Riesling.

The nose is a classic light mix of that diesel fuel-citrus nose that only the Germans seems to get down with in their Rieslings. A sip really shows what this wine is throwin’ down. There’s a bunch of stone fruit (peach & apricot) along with lemon/lime and a beautiful, slightly sweet mineral-laced finish.

It’s really just so damn good… and one sip makes you want another. At 9% booze those bunches of sips won’t put you under the table either.

$39.99 at Liberty Wine Merchants here in Vancouver.

Look at these French guys being all straight-forward with their wine labeling. You look at the label and you can pretty much tell at a glance who makes it, where it comes from and what grape’s juice made the wine. Refreshing.

I’ve had this a few times and have been meaning to review it. That hasn’t been too rushed along just because I’ve really liked it each time, so buying it again hasn’t been a real stretch.

This has everything I like about the Chardonnay grape goin’ on. On the nose, it’s got the nutty, tropical edge, but that is immediately followed up with a good whiff of crisp lemony-minerality. A taste shows melon, nut and stony mineral leading into a healthy squeeze of lemon on the finish.

You’ve just finished an almond and a piece of honeydew melon and then take a big lick of a lemon soaked rock – that’s this wine. Sounds kinda’ tasty right? Oh, c’mon. Well, it is. Buy it.

$35 at Kitsilano Wine Cellars.

(verging on 4.5)

Tonight was my Thanksgiving dinner at home. With Candace out of town, it was me and whatever I wanted to eat… and my mood lead me to some grilled Ahi Tuna paired with another of my favourite dishes – mushroom and asparagus risotto.

I mulled over what I should pair with this… and by-passed the obvious choice: Sauvignon Blanc. I felt like having something I hadn’t poured lately that would match the food, and Chablis came to mind.

I reviewed the 2005 version of this wine earlier this year and felt like giving the new vintage a go, so here we are. Wow… I loved the wine with the food. It paired amazingly well with the vegetable stock-based risotto and matched the grilled tuna just as well.

The lemon I squeezed over the dish really made the wine come to life. On its nose, it had lemony-stone fruit (peach) and a distinct mineral-y stone edge. The flavours were a crisp mix of the chalky minerality and lemon dripped on a slice of peach and melon fruit with a tart acidic finish that made the wine a great match with the food.

Yum. If you like the crisp Chardonnay edge paired with food, give this wine a go.

~$35 at Kitsilano Wine Cellars.

I made a quick stop at Kitsilano Wine Cellars tonight and had this wine pointed out to me… and y’all now I’m a fan of the Pinot, so I had to give it a try.

I’ve had a couple of Pinots from New Zealand’s Marlborough region that I’ve loved in the last year and I’ve gotta’ say that this is among them. In the glass its colour is incredibly light – bordering on a rosé. A sniff belies its red character. It shows ripe red cherry, cranberry, and a citrus edge. A sip gives up all that fruit with a medium-long mineral-laced finish.

Yum. Tonight, it paired incredibly well with grilled salmon.. and because of its bright acidity, would pair equally well with many foods.

This is a winner folks. If you enjoy Pinot, you really should give it a try. I have to add, that as a design geek, I also love the label.

$31 at Kitsilano Wine Cellars.

OK folks, I’ve been busy and am plum out of the witty wine analogies. I’ll just get right down to it. I visited this winery in Walla Walla early last year and have drunk a few of their wines since.

Mmmmm… this one is a juicy, deep, dark and sexy New World Cab blend (56% Cabernet Sauvignon and 44% Merlot). Yes, it is. I gave it roughly 2 hours in the decanter to open up. Once there, it gave layers of intense dark cherry and berry fruit to go along with some dark chocolate and oak-driven spice on the medium-long finish.

I loved this wine. It just gave me exactly what I was looking for on Saturday. In a word, it was decadent. My mouth was left wanting more – and that’s never a bad thing.

$32.99 at LDB stores here in BC.

As the climate blends cool and warm in the transition to fall, Pinot Noir is making more frequent appearances at the front of the wine fridge.   This offering was one I picked up recently in a clear out at the local LDB, and was worth every penny.

The nose has earthy mushroom with a little bit of raspberry.  I really starting crave that rustic, funky start of the Burgundies I’ve had of late.  Great to have the palate evolve as I learn a little more.  A swirl of the new Riedel Tyrol I picked up (kinda cool) and on to the tongue with some nice floral and tart raspberry and cherry.  The finish is more red fruit with nice tartness and some mineral hangin’ around.

A tasty treat!

$34.99 (then 30% off) at the Local LDB Store.