Met up with a couple of travelers from New Zealand yesterday and arranged a wine lunch. It was Sue and Neil Courtney coming to the end of their world tour!
2011 Blue Mountain Sauvignon Blanc – several of us thought it a good idea to introduce the guests to BC wines and this was the first. Decent SB nose though not all that varietally typical, clean and crisp. Refreshing.
2011 Le Vieux Pin Sauvignon Blanc – I figure this is probably the best BC SB I’ve tasted from a winery that has been putting out wines consistently in the top ranks of BC wines generally. More typical nose with green notes and grass, crisp lengthy finish. I’ve always liked this one.
2004 William Fevre Chablis Grand Cru Valmur – lovely buttery citrus nose with mineral content. Quite full bodied and very tasty middle, and medium to long finish with hints of butterscotch at the end. Really liked this but Chablis wasn’t my first guess, it was so rich.
2012 Cowan Cellars North Coast Rose – I guessed this correctly as Pinot Noir Rosé right off, but fumbled about a little on where iot came from. Very pale pink with none of the ripe nuances normally associated with Grenache nor spiciness with cab franc. It was a clean well made wine that I’d be happy to be able to get up here!
2009 Shannon Vineyard Rockview Ridge Pinot Noir – this wine from the Elgin Valley was a bit of a poser as it showed an odd vinyl and red currant nose, fairly simple on palate with a round sweetness. We got to PN fairly quickly but had trouble with where it came from. I recall better bottles tasted some time ago, but this one was decent.
2006 Arcadian Sleepy Hollow Pinot Noir – similar colour but not nose. Here we experienced some iron and pure fruit in the nose, and strawberry and s little spice on palate. Very pleasant.
2005 Le Vieux Pin Merlot ‘Epoque’ – low cropping at 2.75 tons/acre in BC’s interior. Quite dark with an earthy nose that included a big sweet fruit component that made you expect high concentrated sweetness on palate, but it turned out to be medium bodied and finished with some pleasant terminal spiciness and soft tannins. Good showing.
2003 Mission Hill Oculus – a BC Bordeaux blend. Big sweet plummy nose, dark wine and ther was a hit of up front soft but significant tannin that slapped you in the palate. No edges now to the wine, mellow medium length finish. I found the sweetness to be a bit out of balance with the structure, but not bad.
1998 Poplar Grove Cabernet Franc – from perhaps the best vintage BC has seen in 20 years. Dark still and showing some mintiness in the nose, this wine is smooth, has soft tannin and lots of acid. It has clearly peaked and is holding. Nice for guests to get to taste a fully mature local wine.
2003 Turley Hayne Vineyard Petite Sirah – this was a surprise! I have always considered Turley Zins to be relatively early maturing and the PS to be hard wines needing long ageing, and so have some PS from the 90s still sleeping in the cellar untouched. This wine, however, although quite dark, showed a really nice blueberry nose, was a fairly full bodied spicy wine with good length and purple edges, but it wasn’t as stand-offish as I would have expected and actually drank amazingly well now. May have to take another look at my 1997s!
We went back to my place after lunch to play some bocce (Neil has a talent for that!) and of course we had to open a couple of bottles while we did it. One was a decent but unremakable Plan Pegau (2009), but the other one merits cokmment.
2011 Le Vieux Pin Syrah Cuvee Violette - good sweet varietal nose with lots of floral character, soft tannin and ample fruit on palate, shwoing beautifully now. A wine to be drunk over the next half decade, not for longer ageing, but so delicious I may just have to lay a bit more down!