Two Hits and Two Misses
Over the last couple of weeks, I have tried a variety of different wines from my cellar.
Two of the wines I had were amazing and two were, well, not so great.
Let's start with the worst story.
I had the opportunity to buy a couple of bottles of a 1996 Chateau Vieux Rivallon from an importer a few weeks ago. That's right, 1996! Each bottle was $63 so this was definitely pricey for me but I thought it was a pretty incredible deal. I had a 2007 from Bordeaux on my birthday and it was a super bottle, despite being a challenging growing season. This wine was from the right bank, from St. Emilion, and I was very excited about trying such an old wine - because I have rarely had that opportunity.
I carefully popped the cork - well, at least the first two thirds of the cork! I managed to get the rest of the cork out and then poured the wine through a strainer into the decanter. As I decanted, I thought - hmmm - maybe I should just try a bit to make sure it's ok.
Ugh! It was very blah! There were lots of mild ageing flavours like leather and tobacco as well as some tannins but not much else.
This was our Saturday night date night (a new, Coronavirus inspired event) and we had dinner taken out from one of our favourite restaurants, Bouchons (cassoulet). I panicked! I thought that it must be off.
So I opened my other bottle.
I had better luck with the cork and then decanted this wine. I had a quick taste and....
it tasted the same!
After panicking again, I left both wines, in their respective decanters, for about two hours.
After breathing for two hours, the taste certainly had improved but was still kind of watery. Or is my palate not delicate enough?
We had our dinner and drank the wine but the amazing meal was not supported by an amazing wine.
We did have the other bottle the next night and it was OK - more or less the same even after all that time being opened.
So was it me or the wine?
I think it was a case of the wine reaching its peak and starting a downward decline. It wasn't tasteless, like the 2011 Tinhorn Creek Pinot Noir that I tried a couple years ago. But it did not have the flavour that I usually associate with Bordeaux wines.
Maybe I should stay away from really old wines?
The other wine that was a miss was an orange wine. I'm not a big fan of orange wines so I'm not sure how we ended up with it.
Orange wines are made when white wine grapes are treated like red wine. Instead of just pressing the juice out of them, what happens is the juices is pressed out of them AND the skins are left in the juice for a period of time. That skin contact gives the wine an orange-ish colour.
The wine we had was a 2018 Stag's Hollow Vidal Orange wine ($22). It was a watery, harsh, sour wine that neither my wife or I could drink. A rare thing happened - I poured it down the drain.
I really tried to have an open mind to this wine but it was not good to drink. Maybe orange wines are all like this for me - I haven't found one that I like - but this was particularly undrinkable.
Funny thing is, Stag's Hollow is a fantastic winery. Every other wine I've had there (especially their Syrah) has been excellent and I would recommend their wine without reservation - except for the orange wine. Once the Coronavirus has settled down, I would definitely recommend going for a tasting. Just skip the orange....
Two wines to buy - right now!
The first might be hard to find. It is made by Synchromesh, a boutique winery in Okanagan Falls. They are famous for their Riesling and I absolutely love it. This year, we finally became members of their wine club so we received 10 bottles of their various Rieslings and 2 of their Cabernet Franc.
The bottle we had last week was their 2019 Drier Riesling ($23). I'm not sure if this wine is actually bone dry because there is a wonderful fruitiness to the wine as well as breath taking acidity. There were flavours of lemon, honey, apple, and even oranges. On the palate, there is a wonderful fruitiness that grows into amazing acidity. This wine was nicely balanced, had a great long length, was intense in flavour, and was really quite complex. I really enjoyed this wine and would rate it as Outstanding. And there are a few other Synchromesh Rieslings to try!
The final hit is a great pasta wine. I find that a lot of Chianti wines that I try are not that great. These wines are good enough with a coating of tomato sauce in my mouth but not that great to sip while I'm cooking up a batch of sauce.
Chianti Classico wines are wines from the Chianti region that are in the better parts - usually the hillier areas. These can get quite expensive but I recently found one that tastes good before and during the meal - and doesn't break the bank.
The 2017 Rocca Della Macìe Chianti Classico ($20) is a perfect accompaniment to a Tuesday night spaghetti or a Thursday night pizza. On the nose and palate are red fruit flavours such as cherry, cranberry, and strawberry and oak flavours such as tobacco, coffee, and vanilla. There are also earthy and leather flavours. There is also enough acidity to cut through the tomato sauce of Italian food. I really enjoyed some of this while I cooked but it really showed its ability to pair with some pasta with tomato sauce. A Very Good wine.
So there it is - two hits, two misses, and a lot more learned about the amazing world of wine!
Cheers! And stay healthy!
