Plantagenet Riesling Great Southern 2005

Tonight was an order-in sushi night. I also felt like some wine with the sushi, and I had heard that Riesling was a good pairing. Thus, I chose the Plantagenet Riesling from Western Australia, which I believe was chosen as the best value white wine at last year's Vancouver International Wine Festival. It was a good choice.

This is a pretty citrusy wine with a lot of lime action on the nose and palate. It's quite a well balanced wine with solid acidity that stood up to the spicy salmon and tuna rolls. It's also a dry riesling, which I tend to prefer to the overly sweet ones (except when they are made exceptionally well). The Plantagenet has a firm structure with a tart but very crisp finish. After about 30-40 minutes the palate revealed some pretty interesting and flavourful raw clay-like/limestone flavours. Overall, an exceptional value.

Very Good+
$23 at BCLDB

Far Niente Estate Bottled Chardonnay 2005

So I was in Toronto over the weekend for a law competition, which went fantastically well, despite my team not getting picked for the final (but we were robbed!). This little excursion gave me the chance to catch up with some good friends from back in the days when I used to live in that dread city. To celebrate our brief reunion we decided to open a bottle of Far Niente Chardonnay. Now, I have to say that the actual winery Far Niente in Napa Valley is annoyingly pretentious and made for super-rich people to feel good about themselves. However, they do make absolutely killer wine, and this bottle is no exception.

It has a quality oak backbone, but is not in any way overly-oaky. In fact, this chard has a wonderful crisp acidity that gives it a beautiful freshness. But, it also has a supremely velvety texture which just provides tremendous satisfaction when swishing the wine around your mouth. I detected a hint of nuttyness, but couldn't really place that flavour well. The wine is beautifully balanced, has nice length and drinks amazingly well at room temperature. All in all this wine was a great wine for a great occasion: if you like Chard, this is one to get.

Excellent

$? (probably over $60 here)

Tommasi Viticoltori "Ripasso" Valpolicella 2004

I've always been a big fan of the wines of the Veneto, especially wines of the Ripasso style, which involves exposing the wine to the dried skins of the grape for an extended period of time. Amarone's are the epitome of this style, but I've always found that valpolicella ripasso's can offer a great value if you find the right bottle. I was lucky enough to have a Tommasi Amarone over Christmas and it was excellent so I had strong hopes that this ripasso would deliver. I was right: this wine proves to me that Tommasi is a brilliant producer and I look forward to checking out more of their wines. This is one of Tommasi's more 'budget' wines, but it has a lot of character and goes fantastically with pasta, especially the sun-dired tomato, chicken pesto pasta I had tonight!

In the glass, the wine is a nice medium garnet colour. The nose suggests dusty raisinated fruit. The palate provides cherry fruit and a wonderful barnyardy flavour that gives the fruit tremendous depth. The wine generally has fantastic concentration. The tannins are very moderate and well balanced. What can I say, I love this wine and it is the best value wine I've had in a long time. I am greatly looking forward to the wine festival coming up at the end of february and especially its focus on Italy. And if this wine is of any indication, we are all up for a treat.

Anyhow, buy this wine and enjoy it at your earliest convenience: it is superb value.

Excellent
$30 at BCLDB

L.A. Cetto Petite Sirah 2004

I should first note that I drank this while watching The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, which is such a great movie that it maybe swayed my mood upward! If there ever was a perfectly paced and structured western, it certainly ranks among the best.

The Ugly: The only thing ugly here were my expectations, since this wine hails from Mexico. I admit I had preconceptions about its quality (although I still got it on a recommendation). This was pretty unfair given what I ended up drinking.

The Bad: the structure is a bit simple and the wine has a tinge of that 'burn on the way down' feeling that is oh so wonderful. However, no more than most wines at this price point.

The Good: Let's just say this wine made me realize that I should spend a bit more time seeking out good budget wines, because they can often give you the value of something twice as expensive. The nose revealed mostly blackberry aromas, and a bit of alcohol (even though this was only 13.5%). The palate was quite interesting with cherry, blackberry, a bit of blueberry, black and red licorice and a hint of tar. I wasn't too into the slight taste of boysenberry on the finish, but that's cause I really don't like boysenberry. Overall it was a medium bodied wine with a lot of flavour. It comes from the valle de Guadelupe in Baja, and while I'm not too sure how many Mexican wines are worth drinking, generally this is an impressive effort and well worth the price.


Very Good
$17 at Liberty

Cloudy Bay Sauvignon Blanc 2006

I am not one who is usually into whites. However, a good friend of mine was raised on white wine and never drank reds until I convinced him otherwise. Part of this process involved each of us bringing a bottle (or 2) of our favourite red/white and using it to convince the other to switch allegiences. I'm happy to say that while I wasn't converted to whites, I gained a new appreciation for them, and this wine was one of the ones he brought over. I just had it again, and it lives up to the memory.

The wine is quite pale, even for a sauv blanc; however it still has a lot of character and body. The nose is powerful and pretty grapefruity. The palate is strong on the grapefruit/pomelo with a nice hint of passion fruit. The wine has a lovely buttery texture, but not like cheap crappy over-oaked chardonnay. I believe the original wine makers at Cloudy Bay have moved on to other projects, but I think their legacy is still quite good (although I've heard not as good as it used to be). Given how much I like this wine, I'm going to seek out their new premium winery project (Dog Head I think...). Anyhow, the wine has a nice finish and a firm yet not overbearing structure. Well worth it.

Excellent
$35 at BCLDB

Achaval Ferrer Quimera 2005

I generally drink a lot of california and Australian wines, probably because I visited Napa and Sonoma and loved it and Australian wine offers good value for money (given the Australian government's reduction on tax for exports of wine). Anyhow, I decided I wanted to try a region I used to go to a lot for good value wines: Argentina. However, in this case I wanted a wine that would express some authentic Argentinian terroir and a little something extra in the flavour department.

This wine consists of 27% malbec, 28% merlot, 25% cabernet Sauvignon, 10% Cabernet Franc. The nose presents aromas of chocolate, mint, and blackberry. The palate is mostly blackberry and earthy leather. The wine is a moderately tangy and has a decent length in the finish, even if the complexity is somewhat lacking. It is a little closed and simple on the palate, but this might be due to the year - 2005, which saw less heat and therefore less ripeness and lower alcohol levels. But, the lower alcohol provides somewhat of a 'raw' element to the wine, which is appealing.

Upon first tasting the Quimera promises a lot, but kind of fails to deliver on the mid-palate and the finish. That is not to say it is a bad wine - far from it. It's well integrated and structured. It just lacks a 'wow' factor. It is certainly enjoyable sipping wine. However, it's too expensive for what you get. So, I would recommend a pass on this, despite the 'very good' rating, unless you are interested in tasting a slightly 'finer' wine with a decent sense of Argentinian terroir.

$45 at BCLDB
Very Good

Heather Ale Ebulum Elderberry Black Ale

This is another of Heather Ale's traditional Scottish ales brewed with various alternatives to hops. The Scottish were not too fond of English brewing laws and decided to supplement their traditional alternatives to hops despite English laws to the contrary. Despite being just generally cool for their disobedience, the Scottish also create some pretty unique flavours with their hop alternatives.

For this particular beer, Elderberry is used instead of hops and produces quite a nice floral/fruity aroma. The beer is slightly smoky with moderately roasted malt flavours. There is a slight bitternes, but a lot less to traditional hops and it compliments the floralness nicely. This ale is a very unique combination of light and dark flavours and I think it's very tasty. Nevertheless, it might be a bit strange for some people and it was definitely too expensive where I got it. But if you are adventerous, like dark beers, and can find this for a better price than me, definitely give this one a whirl.

Very Good
$6 at Liberty