Let Wine Be Drunk Though the Heavens Fall
Another South African wine, again from Thelema – a renowned producer. This was a classic Cab, perhaps lacking in concentration, despite having reasonable potential. The flavour profile revealed cedar-forest, cassis and red fruits. This had excellent balance and was quite elegant and polished, but it lacked a wow factor. It was, perhaps, too thin for this price point.
I picked up this wine on a high recommendation that this was Penfold’s return to form on 389 – the wine also known as the ‘mini-grange’. I am glad I followed up on the suggestion.
Mas La Plana is a Cabernet based blend made in the Penedes region of Spain by one of Spain’s top (or at least most widely known) family wineries. Known as an elegant and stylish wine, Mas La Plana is really an attempt to produce a terroir based approach to an international grape variety. And, on that level, I do believe that Torres has succeeded: this is no heavy-oaked malo-lactic’d pimped out flavour bomb. Rather, this has real terroir and a real sense of style.
This wine is a perfect example of an unknown producer from an unlikely region creating a varietal based wine that outshines others at a much higher price point. My thanks goes out to Sean over at Vinifico for writing about this little beauty, which actually hails from the Oregonian side of the Columbia Valley. Only 150 cases were made.
The nose was very opulent with rich cassis and a hint of vegetables. Up front this was all spice, smoke and bacon – and it was big, very big. The palate expanded into mintiness, and a bit of woodyness and an underlying current of cassis and other dark fruits. This is all about secondary and tertiary flavours, though, and is completely distinct from a New World fruit bomb, even though it is big and bold. The finish is very long and very fantastic. Overall the wine has great balance, depth and outstanding variety of flavours and scents. I HIGHLY recommend picking this up if you have the chance. It’s a steal at this price point. Sitting at the very upper end of:
Excellent
$36 at Kitsilano Wine Cellars
Page built this fascinatingly elegent Cabernet from Washington grapes of the Red Mountain AVA (American Viticultural Area). I’m a sucker for the concentration often seen from high altitude grapes -which is a result of oxygen deprivation and increased exposure to ultra violet light – although I have never tried this particular AVA before. The wine, while definitely dense and brambly, is also quite elegant and really shows the quality of Washington viticulture. Being in Vancouver and Living so close to the state promises many fantastic wine trips in the future, especially given that Washington and Oregon have established a fantastic nexus between old and new world styles.
I’ve been pretty busy lately and so I’ve also been backed up a lot with the wine reviews. Today I plan to go through a few wines that I’ve had lately. The Montes Alpha Cab was a good value wine from Chile with a nose of roasted tomatoes, burnt hay and cherry. The palate was a blend of earth, cassis and chocolate. This wine was a bit rough, but it had a really nice flavour profile and a pretty darn good finish given the price point. Its moderate tannins gave it a nice structure but they do not overwhelm. If I have any critique it is that the wine is a bit over-extracted. Still, a good value.
To celebrate my grades from last semester my girlfriend and I decided to go out for some sushi (which we hadn’t had for a month – and if you live in Vancouver you know how long this is to go without). The evening evolved into a stroll to Granville where we popped into West (one of Vancouver’s premier restaurants), sat down at their very nice bar and ordered a bottle of wine to share.
I visited Napa and Sonoma about 8 months ago, and the first winery I stepped into was a little homey place called B.R. Cohn. I thought the wine was excellent (as was the olive oil they also make there), but I didn’t want to get overambitious and buy tons of wine at the beginning of my trip so I ended up not picking anything up. This was clearly a bad idea as I never ended up getting a bottle from this great little winery. So, when I saw one of their wines on West’s wine list, I was intrigued, and a very positive recommendation from the sommelier tipped the scales in favour.
This is a great little wine that goes for only $20 in the US, which is well worth it. It is a more old-world bordeaux style cab with flavours of damp earth, wood, and a little mushroom. There is a nice balance with the fruit, but the fruit is quite subdued and acts more as a canvass than as the full expressive character of the wine. Even with this earthiness, which is the one of the ‘old-world’ style flavours I love, the acidity was not at all over-bearing and it made a great sipping wine. No food required, although we ordered a fantastic cheese plate (Pecorino goes amazingly well with this wine).
It’s probably impossible to find this particular bottle in vancouver at a liquor store, but I do remember seeing the higher end B.R. Cohn Olive Hill or Olive Grove (something like that) Cabernet at Kitsilano Wine Cellars. It won’t be cheap, though, as that particular cab goes for $50 in the US.
Very Good+
$20 in the US
