2006 Moreau Chablis Valmur – a nice lemon and pineapple nose and with time some butter and smoke, clean and smooth.
2006 Moreau Chablis Le Clos – at first much more reticent in the nose, but fuller and sweeter in the mouth, with good length. Some switched allegiance to this one when the nose finally started opening up, while I still preferred the Valmur.
1999 Produttori del Barbaresco Ovello – typical burnt rubber and anise nose, with some dark cherry, slightly astringent in the mouth, and some cocoa coming in late. Smooth enjoyable wine.
1990 Les Ormes de Pez – nice sweet claret nose with hints of road tar, mellow in the mouth with sweet fruit and good acidity, and a long finish. This has developed quite a bit since I last tasted it and is in prime drinking time right now. This one goes into my mental drinking list soon.
1998 Mission Hill Oculus – a great vintage for almost all BC wines and this is the flagship wine of a large local winery. Slightly funky ripe nose, a smooth sweet core to the wine, and a long sweet finish. No rush, good showing.
1998 Leconfield Cebernets (Coonawara) – the ‘S’ is on the cabernet because the wine includes cab sauv, cab franc, merlot and petit verdot. edges starting to go a little pale, but dark core colour and a nose that showcased plum. Notes of coffee and herbs (the latter possibly from American oak?) and lots of acidity. My small stash goes into my drinking pile!
1998 Dom. de Marcoux CNduP – my sniffer was off this day as while I noted too little midpalate fruit on the wine, I wasn’t picking up the TCA that I usually would and that a couple of other people did. Good – that this isn’t the way the wine normally shows. Bad – that I was the one that brought this bottle!
2004 Chapoutier Cote Rotie Les Becasses – clearly a asyrah nose, though without the floral element that many Cote Roties exhibit. More like a southern Rhone nose with black olive and garrigue in fact. Pleasant on palate, with excellent midpalate fruit and a long smooth finish. Well balanced and enjoyable now.
2008 Perseus Invictus – this won’t be familiar to anyone – a small recently opened BC winery, and this wine was a Bordeaux bland that the perpetrator had one taster believing was a decent Bordeaux. Lovely up front fruit in nose and palate, elegant and long with chocolate hints, this drinks well now and should age well enough that I intend to search out a few bottles for the cellar.
1986 Ficklin Port – this Californian wine is always made from Portuguese varietals, and this wine wasn’t as sweet as you expect a Port to be, and we were guessing about a decade later when we thought it was a real Port. Ficklin doesn’t do many vintage dated wines but they are worth looking for – very nice wine with lots of tannin and some black pepper in the finish, and no rush to drink.
