May

Ciao! Anthony and I just came back from Italy!!! It was a phenomenal trip!!! We are so excited for our September Culinary Adventure!!! We met all our vendors visited our amazing villa and, of course, several wineries;) We could not go past our favorite one: Padelletti in Montalcino. We very much look forward to bring our tour there in September! We have 2 rooms available if you would like to join us and visit Tuscany wine country with us;) For those that can’t join us, I thought I would give you a little taste of our trip through a great wine! Cheers

Padelletti

Rosso di Montalcino

Visiting wineries is probably one of our favorite sport. When wine touring, we usually stick to visiting wineries with wines available in Alberta. There is nothing more frustrating then falling in love with wines that we can not bring to UnWined. (Sadly Alberta liquors laws only allows us to sell wines, we have to rely on importers with importing license to bring us all the god bottles we can sell;)

But when we checked in our hotel in Montalcino on our first trip to Italy in 2018, we learned they also had a winery! One of the first family making wines in Montalcino! We just had to go, although it did not meet our criteria of being available in Alberta. Of course, we fell in love with the wine. It was the absolute best of entire our trip! We spoke so passionately about it that our friends at Tesouro Wine Import trusted us and invested to bring palettes of this gorgeous wine in Alberta!!! We were stoked we could share our new discovery with all of you!

Fast forward a few years, we are bringing our friends and clients wine touring in Tuscany. Padelletti, of course, was a must on our itinerary! We stopped by to say hi to prepare for our September itinerary. As good as we remembered. I wish you were with us, there is something about drinking a glass of wine with the view of the Tuscan hills fresh breeze of the countryside and the sun basking our skins. It just enhances the experience. On this wine club I wanted you to have a little taste of our Tuscan Culinary Adventure. Cheers to dreaming of travelling!

Rosso di Montalcino is made of 100% Sangiovese grape. It is the “baby brother” of the famous and elegant (also a lot more expensive) Brunello di Montalcino. The main difference between a Rosso and Brunello is the aging. Rosso must be aged for at least 1 year and the Brunello at least 5 years. At Padelletti, they the age the Rosso for 3 years which gives it an incredible complexity that can rival several Brunellos.

A treat I hope you get the chance to experience soon.

- Val

$51

Pajares del Valle

Macabeo

I am so excited about this wine!!! You are probably familiar with the Pajares del Valle Monastrell its red sibbling. It is one of our best seller at UnWined. An organic wine extremly well made that is a fantastic value at $22. Well, very recently, the white or should I say orange wine, has made its way to Alberta! I jumped on the opportunity to bring it to the store!

What is an orange wine you will ask me? Well, let’s go back to the difference between red and white wines. When making white wines, we pick the white grapes, put them in a tank, press the grapes to extract the juice, take the skins out and let the juice ferment without the skins. To make red wines, we pick the red grapes, put them in a tank, press the grapes to extract the juice and let the wine ferment with the skin of the grapes. The contact with the skins gives the tannins and the color to the wine. Orange wine is a white grape wine fermented with the skins just like the process of a red wines. The skins (although whitish) give the orange color to the wines along with body, texture and tannins. It is quite interesting!

This orange wine is made of Macabeo and display notes of candied orange, tangerine, melon and white nuts. It is grippy, structured with a long finish. It is a great paring with asian or indian food.

- Val

$25

Nericon Durif

2019

I am most interested to offer something different for the wine club. I was excited when I sampled this wine as I had seldomly heard about Durif varietal. I appreciated its deep  color and purple hues. It offers a complex and deeply layered structure of cassis, blueberry anis and pepper spice. After some research about Durif, I discovered I may not have been so original… Durif is in fact the original name of Petite Syrah! Not surprising with its intense color and aromas! Nether less, it is a great wine, more especially if you enjoy powerful wines. Best paired with a hefty cut of red meat.

-Val

$23

CVNE Selección de Fincas

Ribera Del Duero Tempranillo 2020

I’ve got some history with this wine, back in my days at co-op I snuck three cases in under the nose of head office and was able to sell the bottles by putting stickers over the barcode and punching in the price manually.  The reason I was so eager to skip the approval and jump straight to selling was because this wine is from an area in Spain called Ribera del Duero.  This region has grown from just 9 wineries when it received Denominación de Origen status in 1982, to over 300 now.  The quality of this region has caught on and it is growing fast.  This wine is made with 100% Tempranillo grapes from a number of vineyards in the region, hence the name “selection of farms”. This wine is Tempranillo taken to a far degree of intensity due to the high temperature and longer growing season in this region, expect rich blackberry, plum, and raspberry.  There is of course strong oak intensity as well, vanilla, cedar, and smokiness wrapping up those fruit flavours.  While my days of feeling like a bootlegger may be over, I’ll continue to keep my eyes open for any more Ribera del Duero wines for the future.

- Eric

$21

Sunday Sail

Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc 2021

Last month I attended The Grape Escape in Calgary with the idea that I would taste lots of wines and see a few recognizable faces in the wine industry.  What happened was the opposite, I spent most of the night talking rather than drinking!  I did find a couple gems though, and this Sauvignon Blanc was one of them.  Coming from Marlborough, New Zealand, this wine is exemplary of the style, with lime zest up front, tropical fruit, and a grassy, vegetal character. The acidity of this wine is somewhat reduced, and it is just off-dry, which I find lends well to having a second or third glass.  Find yourself a relaxing Sunday (and a sailboat if you can), and enjoy!

-Eric

$21

Hess Select

North Coast Cabernet Sauvignon 2018

I’ve been studying hard for my WSET level 3 course and have been reading many textbooks and study materials.  In one of these books the author, Kevin Zraly, mentioned Hess Vineyards as one of his favourites.  I did some searching and found some of their wines are available for us in Alberta.  It seems Mr. Zraly has excellent taste indeed.  This wine boasts an impressive range of black fruit flavours; blackberry, plum, cassis, and black cherry.  The higher than usual acidity keeps these fruits lively and in great balance with the oak usage, being complemented with vanilla and dark chocolate.  2018 was a good year for California, and this bottle having some age on it now is drinking beautifully with soft tannins and hints of tobacco coming through.

- Eric

$33