In honor of the Olympics taking place just a few miles north of us, our neighborhood tasting featured British Columbian wines this month. I took no notes (no opportunity, I was one of the presenters), but these were my overall impressions:
The self-pour wines:
2008 Thornhaven Gewurztraminer: rich fruit, heavy ginger, pink grapefruit, clove spice and a bit of gardenia, good acidity, very offdry, Alsatian style. In fact, this is the only North American gewurz I've ever had truly nailed the Alsatian thing in a big way.
2008 Calona Vineyard Artist Series “Sovereign Opal” Vin Blanc: A very refreshing white blend with a refreshingly low 11% alcohol, bless their hearts. Not sure of the constituents, but there's a grassy sauvignon blanc thing in the nose. On the palate, however, it's completely different: there's a sweet thing in the entry that tastes like it's going to be very sweet that suddenly makes a u-turn and disappears, leaving the finish clean and tangy. My favorite of the four.
2008 St. Hubertis Winery “Northern Summer”: A curious blend of pinot noir, gamay and pinot blanc that sounds more interesting on paper than it did in my mouth. Lean almost to the point of seeming a little harsh, like an underripe spatburgunder. It was not popular.
2008 White Bear Riesling: This won a lot of fans: it's a light, dry riesling for a hot afternoon in the style of the Hungarian whites of the Balaton.
For the sit-down portion of the program, we served the wines in two flites. The first flite purposely compared two contrasting styles of pinot blanc, a grape that produces bland unremarkable whites here in the lower 48 but has amazing character when grown in Canada's Okanagan Valley. The first was made by a winemaker who describes his overall style as "gentle", and the other made by a winemaker who loves acid and isn't afraid to scare people. We had the group taste and compare both, then get food, and compare again. We didn't lead them in what conclusions to reach, so I was both surprised (we have a goodly number of novice drinkers in our group who don't spend more than $10 a bottle at home) and very very impressed with how many "got it": when asked to vote for their favorite, many offered that they preferred the first as a sipper but the second with their food. YES!
2007 Sandhill Pinot Blanc $17: This is the "gentle" wine. Far from the insipidity that word could imply, this wine was more than medium bodied with an admirable rich fruit-acid balance. Yellower and fruitier than the second wine with ripe pear, meyer lemon, quince and loquat.
2008 Blue Mountain Pinot Blanc (cream label) $22: BC’s #1 “cult” winery, these wines are typically impossible to buy retail. Pale yellow color with multi-vitamin minerality on the nose. Less giving on the palate than the Sandhill, but with food pear, granny smith apple and pineapple flavors came forth. One to buy and lay down for a few years. This wine actually got one more vote than the Sandhill for favorite white.
For the second flite we compared four Bordeaux style blends. All were splash-decanted and returned to the bottles about four hours before the tasting, though I left the Petales in the decanters as it was more backward than the others:
2006 Petales d’Osoyoos Vin Rouge $25: You wouldn't think the luxury brand Osoyoos Larose had been around long enough to spawn a 'second' label', but here you are. Made from predominantly merlot (67%) but having all four other Bordeaux varieties in the mix, this wine was a bit green both initially and after air time and just didn't seem to have enough fruit. It certainly showed better with food than without, but not well enough to garner more than 11 points.
2006 Church & State “Coyote Bowl” Meritage $35: old world style wines are made with new world technology is the objective at this Vancouver Island winery under the tutelage of consultant Bill Dyer (formerly of Napa winery Sterling fame, and more recently the winemaker who put the Okanagan's Burrowing Owl brand on the map). The Coyote Bowl is their 40 acre estate vineyard in the Okanagan (and where they're building another winery to eliminate the risk and expense of grape transportation). More fruit than the Petales but less fleshy than the last two, this wine has a spicy dark fruit nose and stylishly structured palate. I believe the grape mix is CS, CF and merlot only. By far the favorite of the more experienced wine tasters in the room, including me, and winning fans among the rest with it's complexity, it took first place with 56 points.
2006 Road 13 “Fifth Element” $30: Only wine of the four under screwcap. Very ripe blackberry nose a healthy dollop of strawberry jam and relatively simple on the palate, this was the most fruit-forward of the four and the obvious choice for those who favor the friendliness of both lower acidity and tannins. I was wrong in my prediction that it would (not should, just would) take first place, but not by much: 51 points.
2008 Nk’Mip Meritage $30: North America's only wholly native-owned winery produces this wine from grapes grown on their 32,000 acre tribal lands in the southern Okanagan Valley. The darkest and most extracted (though not highly so) of the four and showing the most oak (vanilla), it's more international than the Church & State but more structured than the Road 13 and soundly took third place with 36 points.