Vinifico! The Original Vancouver Wine Blog

So, the story goes something like this. In 1985, Gérard Gauby began making wine from his family’s grapes which had previously been sold to the local co-operative. Domaine Gauby was born from the grapes that his family had been growing for generations.

Domaine Gauby’s vineyard management is biodynamic and Gérard Gauby has become a rockstar in the Languedoc-Roussillon… What’s not to like?.. and when Kirk at Kitsilano Wine Cellars poured me a sample of their wine, I knew I had to take a bottle home. I chose this one.

According to their web site (in French) it’s made up of 35% Carignan (from 125 year-old vines), 30% Syrah (20 year-old vines), 25% Grenache (55 year old vines) and 10% Mourvèdre (25 year-old vines). That all adds up to a bloody tasty bottle of wine.

On the nose it has a bunch of cool stuff going on. There’s gorgeous ripe red berries, cherry and an herb and floral edge to it. A sip gave me even more. There’s the cherry and berry, along with licorice, the herbs (thyme? – maybe because I had some with dinner tonight) and a long and kinda’ tannic finish that goes on for over a minute.

Do I like this wine? Actually, I love it. It’s a gorgeous Old World wine with a bit of the New World’s density of flavour tossed in. It’s naturally farmed, comes from a great producer and has a very reasonable price for its quality.

$35 at Kitsilano Wine Cellars from the Farmstead folks.

I’ll start with a simple statement. I love this wine. It’s a wine geek’s wine – all funky “I don’t know what I’m really smelling here” on the nose and then full, fresh fruit and an insane finish when you take a sip.

Seriously though. When I took my first whiff of this wine, my first thought was varnish…  and maybe cracked almond shells or liqueur. That made the first sip even more surprising. Even with a touch of that Frangelico liqueur going on, it had fresh squeezed tangerine and lychee fruit. The finish builds on that and goes out with almond, citrus and a mineral-edged herbal marathon that lasts for minutes.

It’s 100% Viura and is aged in American oak barrels for 4 years before being aged an additional 4 years in the bottle before being released. This is Old World wine done in a uniquely Old World way. God bless them for it too. If you’ve never had a white Rioja and are intrigued by a wine with some age, you really need to seek this one out.

One note if you do buy this wine. Don’t chill it much. This is the type of white that is best served slightly chilled… and by slightly I mean just below room temperature. Don’t leave this in the fridge for long at all.

Shea, from JustGrapesWine.com was with me when I grabbed this and bought the 1989 vintage. I can’t wait to hear what he has to say about it.

$35 at Kitsilano Wine Cellars.

This is a wine that knocked my wine geek senses out of the park. I was down in Portland last weekend and wandered into the local wine geeks’ paradise, Vinopolis. I picked out 5 bottles of Oregon Pinot to bring back home and then asked the shop’s on-shift wine guy to pick the coolest bottle of the wine in the store in the under-$45 range. He immediately made his way to the back of the store to the Italian section and grabbed this wine.

Anyone who has ever read this site knows I’m a huge Nebbiolo fan, especially in its Barolo and Barbaresco forms… and Freisa is Nebbiolo’s genetic father, so it’s to be expected that you’ll have to get ready for your tar and roses fix… though rumour has it that Freisa has a more refreshing approach with its flavours.

With an initial whiff, I could have sworn that it was a gorgeous example of a Langhe Nebbiolo wine. Even though it comes from the very warm 2003 vintage, the wine has an extremely complex and sexy nose – all of that already-mentioned tar and rose petals mix, along with the Barolo/Barbaresco-like walnut and cherry brandy. It just smells so good.

A sip really shows what this wine has to offer. It slips into another gear. Wow. It’s like a Langhe Nebbiolo on steroids. More Barolo-like than anything. It’s not as raw as a Barbaresco. It has the gentle, sexy fruit of a good Barolo with softer tannins. That could come from the warmth of the vintage, but this is one of the better 2003 Langhe wines I’ve tasted. Again – wow.

The everlasting finish is full of walnut and cherry liqueur followed up with a long-lasting floral-edged (think violets) finish… very tar-like, but much better than you might be thinking. This is a complex and wonderful bottle of wine. If you come across it and are a Piedmont fan, you have to give it a try.

Trust me.

$39 USD at Vinopolis in Portland, OR.

This past weekend, Candace and I were in Portland, right near the Willamette Valley, which is home to some of my favourite Pinots… so what do I do? I head to Vinopolis Wine Shop and grab an Italian wine. Hey, they had a sale on and I always like a good Piemontese wine. I did bring back 5 bottles of Pinot  – all destined for write-ups on the site over the next while.

A bit later in the afternoon, when we were back at the Hotel Lucia for a bit of a break, I popped it open and stuffed my nose in the glass. What did I smell? Rose petals in cherry juice with a touch of your next-door neighbour tarring their roof, with an edge of felt tip marker. ‘Nuff said. It smelled pretty good. I like those smells from Nebbiolo.

I took a sip and tasted walnuts dipped in cherry syrup followed up with a gnaw on a leather bootstrap… with a long and very tannic finish. The flavours are good, and certainly reflective of what I’ve come to expect from a Nebbiolo-based wine, but it lacked the build and linger of the good stuff. The middle gets lost somewhere. It’s wandered away in search of its big brother, Barbaresco and the better grapes.

Don’t get me wrong I do like this wine. I just don’t love it. After having the Barbaresco from these folks, I was just expecting more.

$18.99 (on sale from $21.95) at Vinopolis in Portland.