Carmen Shiraz 2008

Not much background on this wine. I have no idea how it landed in our wine rack. I can't find an image of the label on the internet. The winery website doesn't even list it. So we're flying blind here. All I know is it's a shiraz from Maipo valley in Chile.

A little acidic right out of the bottle, but not too shabby. A very nice inky purple colour, with a fairly hot alcoholey nose. Now that it's been out to play for a few minutes the wine is rounding out a bit and mellowing nicely. I'm getting some plum and leather smells/tastes. The back label mentions blueberry, and I'll agree with that. Good structure if a bit astringent, this would probably match with sweet Italian sausage, or rich chocolate cake, or the usual suspects. If it's in the price range I think it is, this is not a bad value at all. A good, solid, balanced shiraz that's not too "big" but is quite drinkable with food or on its own.

88 points. Guessing this is about $12 somewhere.

Monkey Bay Sauvignon Blanc 2009

We've come to rely on these grapefruity New Zealand sauvignon blancs like Oyster Bay and Kim Crawford as our go-to whites when we want something tasty and not overly expensive. There are a few that are on the cheaper end like Stoneleigh that are noticeably a point or two below the bar - still very drinkable, but it feels like a compromise instead of a treat.

Monkey Bay might be the least expensive of the Oyster Bay middle tier. It is tart but balanced, having the signature taste of the kiwi Malborough region of grapefruit and gooseberry. But it's acidity is not overpowering, even after a couple of glasses without food (trust me). It would pair well with shellfish, pasta in white sauce, or dubliner cheese (a sharp old white cheddar flavour).

We now buy Barefoot pinot grigio as our cheap quaffable house wine, and Monkey Bay as our standby when we want something a little nicer. And it keeps us from tearing through our Okanagan stash we just hauled back last week. A very good wine at a very reasonable price.

89 points. $12 at Superstore.

Alpha Zeta Ripasso Valpolicella 2008

Discovered at a tasting event at deVine. Usually I find Valpolicella on the thin side, like Pinot Noir but without the character. Maybe I've only ever tasted mediocre Valpolicellas. The one - Alpha Zeta - is very robust, more like a meaty Zinfandel. At first it blew me away: I was thinking 91 points. But as I keep tasting it, the wine doesn't hold up. It's still very good, but usually a fine wine will start tasting better as you get further into the glass. Not this one for some reason.

My initial reaction was that it engaged all of the palate, especially a slight sweetness that balanced the sour acidity nicely. But as I keep going, the sweet just seems to take over. A little pruney, to be honest. I am impressed that it has such a full body and mouthfeel, and I think this would be excellent paired with any good pasta (especially a tomato vodka sauce), veal or chicken.

From the winery website:

This wine is made using a traditional Veronese practice known as "ripasso". Traditonally, the young Valpolicella wine was re-fermented on the skins of the Amarone grapes once they had finished fermenting in March. The new, more expensive approach is to ferment the young wine together with dried grapes in the January following the vintage, giving the wine more body and depth. This blend of modern and traditional winemaking produces a wine with a combination of freshness, structure and depth that is fairly unique among Ripasso wines.

A great value, and something a little different that I wouldn't have otherwise tried.

89 points. $19.99 at deVine

Sumac Ridge 2006 Cabernet Franc

To set the scene: we've had an usually long and brutal winter here in Edmonton. Our winters are usually several months long and, yes, cold. But this one was exceptional, with tons of snow, and people have reached their limits. Now, yesterday and today, the temperature has finally climbed a few degrees above zero, the snow is melting with a vengeance, and the sun is out. Winter is over.

All of which reminds me, we are about a month away from our annual Okanagan wine pilgrimage. Each year, for no deliberate reason, we start the wine fest off at Sumac Ridge, probably because it's open early and on the way to our accommodations. One year our friend Paul worked there and he overserved us greatly, but we survived his generosity.

Cab franc is becoming one of my favorite BC varietals; in the past couple of years I've been impressed with cab francs from various wineries in the Okanagan. The Sumac Ridge Black Sage line is their Cadillac grapes from near Osoyoos, and I've never had one that wasn't excellent. And this one is too.

Probably my imagination, but I smell some of the wild sage that grows in the very southern part of the valley - you have to get out of Kelowna to see it. I almost detect a blueberry aroma as well. The bouquet is full and pungent and promising.

The taste is robust and delicious - not the body-slam of a shiraz but much more heft than a pinot noir or a merlot. Sublime and surprising with a little muscle - a Taylor Hall wine. There's a definite acidity to the wine, but it's balanced by some sweet flavours like vanilla and dark fruits. The winery notes plum, cherry and cedar as well. Yup - a dee-licious wine. I won't even suggest a food pairing - drink it by itself.

91 points. $20 from the winery.

Luigi Bosca Reserva Cabernet Sauvignon 2007

Never tried this wine before, so I'm opening the bottle and writing as I drink. No vague recollections: these are my immediate reactions.

Nice ruby colour. Plum and a little lavender bouquet. A bit of an edge, maybe this needs to breathe/aerate a little to soften. Tastes jammy. But firm and not too tannic. This cab would be great with beef stroganoff or spaghetti and meatballs topped with chilis. Very drinkable.

Now that's it's been out of the bottle a few minutes I'm starting to taste the chocolate notes as advertised on the back label. Not bad at all, very versatile and a good value wine.

89 points. About $16 from Costco.

C.R.O.W.N. 3

C.R.O.W.N. (Cheap Red or White Night) 3 was held September 25th. The theme this time was aeration: each bottle would be tasted with and without the benefit of our Vinturi wine aerator (which is supposed to open up red wines, very approximately the equivalent of one hour in the decanter, or one year in the bottle). The idea was to taste the difference between aerated and non-aerated wine from the same bottle.

How we did it: just before we started, I aerated half of each bottle into another clean bottle, and marked both the original and aerated bottles with the same number on a piece of masking tape. Then all ten bottles were bagged, shuffled randomly, and then given a letter A through J. So we had no way of knowing what we were tasting, whether or not they were aerated, or which wines were the same. (In fact, this was part of the fun, trying to guess aerated vs. non, and which were the same wines before and after.) Each couple brought one bottle costing no more than $30.

Now we come to the point where I have to confess that I lost the results. I know the page with the compiled results was in our living room the next morning, so it's not what you're thinking. I do have the list of wines tasted here, in order of overall scoring as I remember it:

1) Whistler The Black Piper GSM 2008 (Barossa, Australia) $30
2) Tinhorn Creek Cabernet Franc 2008 (Okanagan, Canada) $17.49
3) Seghesio Zinfandel 2008 (Sonoma, USA) $22
4) Renwood Zinfandel 2006 (Sierra Foothills, USA) $22
5) Summerhill Pinot Noir 2006 (Okanagan, Canada) $24.60

Some other notes from memory: the aeration did not always improve the wine's score. I wonder if this would have been different if we had stuck with meatier wines like Shiraz and Malbec, which tend to show the most difference from aeration. Also, in general wine scores did not change dramatically - either up or down - due to aeration. I think the Whistler Black Piper, for example, did well both aerated and not.

I really wish I had the full results, since most of us were quite surprised at the minimal effect the aerator had when tasting blind. We agreed that we might have to try this again to see if the results are the same. All in the name of scientific research, of course.

Bleasdale "The Old Press" Cabernet Malbec

I was actually looking for the Bleasdale Second Innings Malbec, which is rated 90 points at about $16. That was sold out at Vines, but in its place they had a sale on this one - normally $39 marked down to $26. I bought two, one to drink and one for a Christmas gift. We gave the gift first without tasting it.

Well, turns out it we had nothing to worry about in giving this gift blind. Bleasdale is from Langhorne Creek, Australia, with 160 years of experience. The Old Press is 76% Cab Sauv and the rest Malbec. I poured a big glass and put it beside a lamp: the reflection of the etching on the glass was perfectly reflected in the inky black wine. Beautiful, dark purple colour. The bouquet has lots of alcohol, and dark berries.

The wine itself is a viruoso. Self-confident and strong. Tannins are balanced but could still use some aging (I didn't aerate this one). Delicious blackberry, plum, violet, cherry flavours would match well with blue or hard cheeses, lamb, pasta, or on its own. A complex, impressive and mature wine.

91 points. $26 (sale price) at Vines.

Road 13 "Rockpile" 2008

I was shocked - SHOCKED - to learn that this wine is a blend of eight different grapes: mainly syrah, cab sauv and merlot, with dashes of cab franc, zinfandel, viognier, grenache and mourvedre. And that's not all: the syrah and merlot have three different "clones" each in this blend. Ironic in that the winery's motto is "it's all about the dirt", they have come up with a spectacular blend that is likely more than the sum of its parts. Maybe it's really all about the blend: what you do with the grape afterwards is more important than how you grow it.

And by the way, this wine is fantastic. The first glass was merely very good, but after a little air the second is mind-boggling. I get an earthy cherry and a rich, multi-layered structure (I guess this is to be expected given the number of ingredients) with firm round tannins. The bouquet is like surround-sound. Rockpile is the appetizer, main course and dessert. I don't remember it being so good when we first tasted it at the former Golden Mile winery.

Don't waste your time eating food with this one. But if you must, it would match well with roast lamb, steak tartare, most cheese and I'm sure chocolate as well.

92 points (really). $24.99 at the winery.