181 days

1. Domaine Guiberteau Saumur 2008 was just too good to be my house red.
2. Bera Moscato d’Asti su Reimond 2009 was perfect bubbles in the summertime.
3. La Vis Simboli Müller-Thurgau Trentino 2009 was crisp, lime-scented white fruit that refreshes for under $10.
4. Alois Lageder GAUN Alto Adige 2009 was ace chardonnay.
5. Hecht & Bannier Côtes du Roussillon-Villages 2006 was full of pure fruit and love five years in a bottle.
6. Casa de Santar Dão 2007. Gem. No, pearl.
7. Vincent Lacombe Pommard 2009. Pommard!
8. Damien Coquelet Fou de Beaujo Beaujolais-Villages 2009 was an amazing mineral stylish non-cru (bottle $45 at Pullman, $50+ at Dominion Square Tavern and others in between).
9. Bricco Maiolica Sorì Dolcetto Diano d’Alba Superiore 2007 [pictured] was fantastic.
10. Pithon-Paillé Anjou 2008 was the kind of white wine that stands up to duck.
11. d’Arenberg The Twenty-Eight Road Mourvèdre McLaren Vale 2006 was just awesome. Awesome!
12. Domaine J Burrier Côte de Besset St-Amour 2007 left me speechless.
13. Valdesil Godello Valdeorras 2010 was Jancis-approved <3 <3 <3

March 31

The Early Fool

Château des Matards Cuvée Spéciale Premières Côtes de Blaye 07

The Early April Fool buys quick-release 2007 Bordeaux labeled as a Cuvée Spéciale. A big no.

This cuvée, which thankfully does not exist in Quebec anymore, does continue to make appearances elsewhere apparently, from year to year, on special occasions (but we all know what special means in Québécois).

The 2007 did not come across in the glass as special at all. Mostly Merlot with Cabernet Sauvignon. Hard and flat.

March 30

Cork jam

Fürst Von Metternich Riesling Sekt

Non-vintage sparkling wine from Germany. Also non-openable. What do you do when a cork won’t come out? Don’t say sabre. I’ve seen this before: http://www.youtube.com/user/telerezin#p/u/2/x84eguhfzdw

March 29

Drinking wine discounted into my price range

Ampeleia Maremma Toscana 04

ORIGINAL WINE NOTE: Rich and lovely, with a full body best appreciated away from the dinner table. Pretty much without perceptible acid after 24 hours but it’s so delectable you can still enjoy it on its own. It’s about half Cabernet Franc, with the rest being a mysterious amalgam of various Mediterranean grape varieties of which only Sangiovese is a named component. 

TWO YEARS LATER: Coincidentally, the SAQ is STILL trying to sell off this vintage at its Beaubien store by offering a discount on the few remaining bottles on shelves. I bought my 2004 at a more steeply reduced price over two years ago. Go figure. The fluctuation of wine markets is something I’d to get to know better, but one thing I know for sure is this wine is definitely retail-aged and not designed to go the decade. The Quality Assurance team at the SAQ were the assessing the 2003 with tasting notes dated 2006. Five years later, they might want to tackle the 04 to see if they can any soupçon of display showcase potlights. Might not help sell the remaining 3 bottles but opening one or two for create some tasting notes does make their sale irrelevant. 

March 28

Leftovers night

René-Noël Legrand Les Terrages Saumur-Champigny 06

This is a yes two days later. Initially I talked more about how it complemented the food than the wine itself. 48 hours later, Legrand has improved; minerality on nose and palate, clean lines and dark fruit and somehow still quite delicate with dinner. The stuff has mystique.

Michele Chiarlo Le Orme Barbera d’Asti Superiore 06

Langlois-Château St-Florent Saumur 07

More Asti, and more Saumur. These wines - one Barbera, one Cabernet Franc (both food-friendly pinnacles of the dining room - make opposite impressions but work you over in a similar way in how they highlight the food. 

My theory: Barbera is for umami seekers. It’s bold but its boldness never exceeds its acidity so you serve it with a bag of chips if you wanted to (IF YOU WANTED TO). Cabernet Franc is more muted on the acid so no chips. But it owns the minerality/earthy scene to make up for it. Against a Barbera and other bombshells it can come mistakenly come across as fruitless. I needn’t remind you green peppers are actually fruit because they have seeds.

March 27

@ La Raclette

Château des Matards Premières Côtes de Blaye 07

Would you aerate a white wine? Why not ask your server to decant it, or at least uncork it to give it some air before diving in? Either way, this Sauvignon, plus some additional Muscadelle to round it out, is a yes.

TWO YEARS LATER: The image above shows the new colourless glass bottle and redesigned label for Matards, neither of which I am fond of, especially given the fact that they went all that distance and chose to maintain a cork closure on this. Why? If ever I wanted a easy-opening stopper in a wine, this is when.

McWilliams Hanwood Estate South Eastern Australia Riesling 07

Another yes: Suddenly steely yet luscious in the way that only Riesling can separate itself from other white grapes, especially Bordeaux varieties like Sauvignon Blanc.

TWO YEARS LATER: This wine is currently worth stocking up on for today’s semifinal of Marc Madness (and potentially for the final tomorrow and the celebratory taste-off on Friday as well). Most people will have access to the 2009 vintage rather than this one.

Laroche De la Chevalière Pinot Noir Vin de pays d’Oc 07

I would not necessarily get this wine again. So it’s a firm NN, especially when retasted with delicate food, the reason I originally championed it. An MSG-pairing wine, little more.

TWO YEARS LATER: This Chevalière is kicking it with a new 1L format, most likely because 1.5L magnums can be hard enough to pour and basic 750mL bottles hardly ever pour enough [rimshot]. It’s another timely Marc Madness heavy-hitter, already having made it to the finals with yesterday’s big win. It now awaits its white grape opponent.

Pisano Rio de Los Pajaros Merlot Reserve Progreso 06

It’s a yes here on this unknown Uruguayan wine. But by this point I am really starting to enjoy myself despite the notes. Sign of a true hobbyist I suppose. So for better grounding, please read the capsule review from Jacques Benoît.

TWO YEARS LATER: I am always distracted by the busy, bustling clientele at Restaurant La Raclette, which I now realize has obtained its own real web presence sometime over the past two years while I wasn’t looking. Their website trumpets the three most important things (aside from the reliably good food) that I would’ve told you about, namely: Raclette is BYOB, festively loud and Swiss (which of course means they heavily promote their “terrasse fleurie”… how Swiss is that!?)

[Sometimes it’s nice to get a non-professional impression of how a wine performs but I admit to being limited. I’m kind of glad the experts exist to back me up. And, at the very least, the following list of more clinical reviews backs up the suitability of my selections for an evening at La “terrasse fleuri” Raclette.]

• Matards:  from Marc André Gagnon (“bon pour la terrasse… floral”)
• McWilliams from Marc André Gagnon (“floral”)
• Chevalière: from Marc André Gagnon (“sur une terrasse”)

March 26

Cooking with friends

D’Arenberg The Stump Jump McLaren Vale 07

Blend number one is white and it has a lot of zest. It’s Riesling, Roussanne, Marsanne and Sauvignon. I didn’t know the proportions going into opening this bottle and never expected anything this refreshing and expressive. But it’s majority Riesling and really wears it well. Another example of great affordable white wine from Australia, which I need to better tap into.

Domaine Aiguelière Tradition Coteaux du Languedoc Montpeyroux 04

Blend two: My first thought was too much Carignan in this Mourvèdre-dominant red. If on the palate it lets me down a little that’s somewhat because it follows one of the most gorgeous noses of the Languedoc. [Update: A year later, this red seems wholly integrated and meant to be drunk at this very moment. It’s a supple blend with a bit more personality than you would expect from mid-priced Midi. Only 2006 vintages retailing now.]

March 24

Cooking with friends

Domaine Labbé Abymes Vin de Savoie 07

ORIGINAL WINE NOTE: Okey-dokey

TWO YEARS LATER: For my show (I’m here all week):

• Yes, you can still get a taste of the Jacquère grape at the SAQ. It may not be labeled.
• Jacquère: A wine so neutral, only the catchphrase “Pinot Blanc, you don’t know Jacq” does it any justice.
• Bored? Then you’re doing it right.
• A grape so insipid Jancis Robinson can only muster the descriptor “common” in a three-word review necessarily involving the words “Savoie” and “grape.”
• I like it so much I use it to brush my teeth.

Cantine Settesoli Inycon Negroamaro Sicilia 05

ORIGINAL WINE NOTE: Oaky

TWO YEARS LATER:

• Jancis waxes on and on about this Apulia variety over several sentences (and she doesn’t even charge by the word, she charges by the Internet subscriber): Negroamaro “can make seductively heady, ageworthy reds”
• In its native Italian, negro = black; amaro = bitter; and Inycon = Inycon… thanks marketers.
• The SAQ no longer carries this cuvée. The LCBO only carries counterfeits of it (pictured above).

March 22

Blending dinner wines at the table

Ninth Island Pinot Noir Tasmania 06 + lost-in-the-mists-of-time Asti Dolcetto from my fridge

I took two fairly lame red varietals and added them together to make a blend greater than the sum of its parts. I don’t do this kind of reckless blending — other than now. I may be drunk on the results…

The non-stop tingle vibration of freshness in the Aussie Pinot (now a couple of days since its initial opening) would neither subside over time nor offer any tannic grip — it was all sour and zingy and uninteresting. My lingering Dolcetto was in the doldrums, dryly astringent and without much life, sitting there in the back of the fridge. Mix the two together 3:1 and reap rewards.

The dose of the slighty-oxidated tannic thump of old dolcetto did wonders. Now I get a pleasantly bitter and dry edge with a nice finish to follow up on the non-stop attack. Overall, I assembled a quite nice wine.

It’s a plea that winemakers start blending fruity Pinot with dusty Dolcetto so I don’t have do it myself at the dinner table.

March 21

First day of spring

Michele Chiarlo Le Orme Barbera d’Asti Superiore 06

ORIGINAL WINE NOTE: NN FF - Harshly acidic, but can be tamed and cast in a good light by food.

So really it’s less food-friendly, than food-exigent: FE.

TWO YEARS LATER: There’s really no grape that sends me for a loop as much as Barbera. It vibrates with acid. You have to prepare yourself for it.

Sometimes I feel like I’m critiquing the grape more than the expression of the grape, which is okay as long as you know you are doing that. With cheaper versions of Barbera (under $20, say), it’s even harder to be aware of that line - the line between judgment and taste.

March 20

Cooking with friends

Sella & Mosca Riserva Cannonau di Sardegna 05

ORIGINAL WINE NOTE: It’s Grenache and it’s a no. I don’t get it. It’s a reserve wine but what best conveys itself to me here is an already-faded flavour profile, like the fruit has checked out, and perhaps never had a lot of meat on it (I suspect that might’ve liked it had it been released earlier).

TWO YEARS LATER: The makers of this wine continue to release this cuvée three to four years following harvest and vinification. The current vintage which is widely available is the 2007. It might be worth picking up for re-examination, given its pedigree. 

March 19

@ Grenadine

Paul Buecher Réserve Personnelle Gewurztraminer Alsace 05

ORIGINAL WINE NOTE: I like this wine despite it being outside the box for me. There’s a cool spearmint note on the finish. The wine has some residual sweetness but it is not any kind of interference with refreshment. Does its job. A fantastic aperitif wine.

TWO YEARS LATER: My fondness of this cuvée coupled with this AOC’s aspersion to clearly indicate sweetness on the label has led me down many Alsace aisles in utter frustration. Would like to say I’ve drunk more of this stuff over the last two years. But I’ve been daunted by shopping for the right white Alsatien and have kind of given up.

Ninth Island Pinot Noir Tasmania 06

ORIGINAL WINE NOTE: NN - Not necessarily a wine worthy of searching out again. In fact, just the realization that we left a restaurant with a half-full bottle of food-friendly Pinot tells you something important about it.

TWO YEARS LATER: The image displaying shows a cork-stoppered bottle but this cuvée was not, and all bottles had switched to a screwcap closure some time ago. I tend to associate that Pinot Noir rusty nails flavour with screwcaps, which is totally irrational I know. Yet I remain a bit anxious when I think of a 2003 Carrick Pinot I still have laying down.

March 18

Blind vertical (Day 2)

San Felice Chianti Classico 2005

San Felice Chianti Classico 2006

After tasting these wines blind after the bottles were first opened, I did a reveal, then stored the remaining wine in small air-tight containers in the refrigerator. I removed them to warm up and retaste them two days later, blind again (but not truly blind since I had been revealed the results 48 hours earlier).

Do the results sadly say more about me than the wines? These consecutive Chianti Classico vintages were distinguishable from one another (insofar as you could tell when you tasted them blind that the wine was not from the same cuvée). But unfortunately for me, I could not identify them correctly the next time I encountered them on Day 2. I feel really stupid about this.

TWO YEARS LATER: I am not fond of experimenting with wine in this way because of the frustration of incorrectly identifying wines. One thing blind tastings like this one has proven to me over the years is that I cannot underestimate the effect of time, of food accompaniments, and even of your changing temperament, on how you perceive a wine. I keep telling myself this. I hope it is true and I am not hugely deficient in my tasting abilities. Wine is alive, so if blind tastings like these were games, what’s in your glass is a bit of a cheater.