This Saturday Marquis held a tasting of several of their new products and I attended in order to provide all you readers with a summary of what I thought of some of their new stuff. Most of the wines tasted were under $30 and I had about 20 different wines, although I am only posting reviews of wines I think were decent.
As anyone from BC knows, finding a good wine under $30, and especially under $20 can be a serious task. This tasting continued to show that it is hard to get complexity and purity of flavour at the below $20 range, but that there are some decent options. Let's see what made the cut. All wines are available at Marquis.
Whites
Qupé Bien Nacido Cuvée 2006: Qupé is always a reliable producer from Central California and this effort is no different. It has a fair amount of toasty-nutty flavours coupled with some nice orchard fruit and low acidity. It's a bit manipulated for my tasted, but this is a decent effort at a pretty good price.
Very Good - $29
Alphonse Mellot Sancerre "La Moussiere" 2006: Quite excellent. Peachy grassy tones with an excellent crisp acidic core. This will go well with food and will be excellent on a hot day. Very refreshing.
Very Good+ - $35
Grosset Watervale Riesling 2006: The nose on this Australian Riseling was a bit weird - I even picked up some notes of rubber. But, the palate had a nice core of citrus fruits and a decent length finish. What was special about this dry Riesling, though, was its superb structure and amazing acidity. This was very crisp, well built, and well integrated. The strange nose brings the rating down a notch, though.
Very Good - $37
Reds
Chateau La Gravette Minervois 2005: This is good value wine, but only if you like pepper. A simple but inoffensive nose leads into a very peppery palate, which while a tad over peppery, was still very natural tasting. It's hard to get a wine this cheap that doesn't taste overextracted or funky. So, while not my style I think many will enjoy this.
Good+ - $16
Laura Hartwig Cabernet Sauvignon 2005: This winery hails from Chile and is well known for producing quality value wines. This is no exception and is a fantastic wine at the price. Classic Chillean flavours of cassis and blackberry with a solid oak core - but not overly oaky. This is definitely not over-extracted, but of course still somewhat simple. Compared to the plonk out there at this price point I am pretty darn impressed.
Very Good+ - $19
Westrey Wine Co. "Justice Vineyards" Pinot Noir 2006: I've been wanting to taste a Westery wine (an Oregon Pinot producer) for quite some time so I was pretty excited to get this liquid in la bouche. I was a bit disappointed. This had pretty strong blackberry flavours and slight strawberry flavours, but overall the fruit was dominated by tannins. I think this wine was really just far too young and so it lacked the depth and complexity I was hoping for. The structure seemed pretty decent, but I didn't love what I was tasting. So, while I think this will get better with age, I don't think it is my style of Pinot. It has promise, though, and I would still love to try other wines from this winery.
Very Good - $38
So those are my picks from the tasting. I wish more stores in Vancouver would put on proper tastings like this: they really magically do lead to more sales and more customer loyalty. Maybe one day the local wine business will get its act together. Until then we'll have to rely on these occasional events at the couple decent stores in the city.
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