May

For this Month I’ve got an old favourite, a new experiment, and four discoveries from my trip to Grape Escape!  Now I’ll fully admit I was only present on business at about 20% capacity, the other 80% was dedicated to my own fun.  So I’ve ordered the wines I remember liking, but I can’t say with perfect recall what it was about them that I liked.  

In other words, I’m kind of winging this.

Aside from that I had a slight issue with Grape Escape in that they should probably change the name to Grain Escape!  The wine distributor stands were clearly outnumbered by Beer and Spirits.  Something to keep in mind if you’re a wine enthusiast thinking of attending.  But it is still all you can drink for $65 so yaknow, it’s pretty easy to enjoy yourself in that manner.

Anywho…

This month our Wine Workshop will cover Bordeaux!  Tickets have been timed to go live with the release of this newsletter, so if you’re reading this, that means they’re available!  I have been having issues with the Workshop becoming increasingly competitive to get tickets for.  I’m currently brainstorming some possible fixes for this.

Dog Point

Sauvignon Blanc

Marlborough, New Zealand

This is the aforementioned “old favourite”.  Dog Point stands firmly as a Sauvignon Blanc with more personality to it than many other New Zealand offerings.  I’ve heard that part of this samey-ness from NZ SB is due to many producers using the same yeast strains for their ferments.  60% of this wine was fermented with indigenous yeasts, so I would say that gives this claim some credibility.  Additionally, Dog Point undergoes processes like hand harvesting and restricting yields which characterize this as a premium style Sauvignon Blanc.  This is apparent in the power behind this wine.  The acidity is clean and driven, carrying flavours of citrus skin and white peach.  Underneath those flavours a smoky, gravelly note hangs out that is a joy to uncover.

$40

Cantine Torri

Pecorino

Abruzzo DOC, Italy

Okay, so lets get into the Grape Escape wines.  After scanning the outside edges of the hall (and tasting a few cocktails) I finally made eye-contact with someone I knew.  Amir from Joyhall was pouring this Italian number along with a couple others.  Pecorino is a such a cool grape and I’m happy to see more of them on the market.  These tend to be richly textured and complex.  This particular wine definitely covered complexity with floral aromas, peach, and some herbal hints.  Texturally though this showed more pronounced acid than other Pecorino’s I’ve tasted, giving it a feeling of being a little lighter, and therefore, more suited to these sunny spring days!

$29

Ricasoli

Albia Rose

Toscana IGT

If this name seems familiar to you, that’s because just a couple months ago we featured the Chianti Classico Riserva from Ricasoli.  Now that we’re seeing spring weather in full it seemed a good time to get switch from the bigger Garnacha based  Rose’s to the lighter, herb driven nature of Toscana Rose.  That herb character comes from Sangiovese which was interestingly vinified as a white wine for this, then blended with Merlot made in a traditional Rose fashion.  This blending of essentially a white wine with a rose leads to a very pale colour, and a palate set on white wine like  flavours of apricot and orange, with just a touch of unripe strawberry and rhubarb.

$24

Dirty Laundry

Hush Red

Okanagan Valley, B.C.

I’ve been humming and hawing about the Hush wines for quite a while.  On one hand, they are absolutely gorgeous in the bottle, cleverly decorated with cheeky quotes that compels you to pick it up and turn it over two or three times.  On the other hand, there’s hardly any info about the wine itself.  So when I saw these bottles on the South by Southwest Imports table I jumped at the opportunity to find out what they’re like.  Well, they’re juicy, approachable, and fun.  Turns out all those Marilyn Monroe and Mae West quotes were telling me everything I needed to know about the wine all along.  Enjoy this one sometime after the sun has set, when the night is still young.

$28

Zenato

Alanera Rosso

Veneto IGT

If there was one style of wine that seemed to be in the spotlight for Grape Escape, it was the humble Italian Rosso.  It seemed as though every booth had at least one open for tasting, and it makes a lot of sense why.  Grape Escape is a public event where importers are pouring wine for thousands of people, so they need crowd pleasers.  There may be no better crowd pleaser wine than a Rosso.  

This Alanera from Zenato stood out as the best to me, likely for the complexity and care in which it is made.  55% Corvina, 25% Rondinella, and 10% Corvinone are the usual suspects for Rosso, but this wine gets an addition of 5% each Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot.  50% of the grapes are dried for 45-60 days, concentrating aromas and grape sugars.  The wine comes out on the other side with rich baked and dried fruit aromas.  This also saw 12 months of aging in French oak, allowing time for all those different berries to meld together.  All that and the price remains top of the heap competitive.  Another reason to love Rosso.

$25

Enguera

Aliats Tinto

Valencia, Spain

This is the experiment wine I mentioned.  Save the strangest for last I figure.  I don’t usually go for natural wines, but sometimes they are just too intriguing to ignore.  From Valencia this is a fifty blend of Monastrell and Marselan, which is a grape I had never even heard of before!  It is a crossing between Cabernet Sauvignon and Grenache, so that’s pretty cool to me.  Those grapes are then fermented carbonically, and aged for a brief period in oak.   On the nose there is a touch of that natural wine funkiness, but not in a bad way.  I think it really gave this wine an extra touch of complexity.  Tasting it shows dried plum and blueberry flavours, something common in Valencian wines for the sheer heat of the area.  There is some milk chocolate creaminess as well, and after tasting it I continued to smell and some sweet licorice started to come through.  Tannins were surprisingly low but carried a tightness to them.  Overall an easy going red that avoids being boring.

$22