Wine Whines

Whining about wine. Unless we're enjoying it; then there might be less whining. Or not!

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Continue whining with us... elsewhere

The Wine Whines have moved to http://www.winewhining.wordpress.com, because we don't get Tumblr and want to Comment and Make Our Opinions Known. Join the discussion there!

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First fall red! Label pandering edition

Cattail Creek Catastrophe Series - Red, $13.95 at the LCBO. I usually try to be immune to cute/trendy labelling, but they got me with these cats. Actually, the bottle I bought has quite a different label -- a sleeker, black-on-black silhouette, rather than the cuddly black kitties on white shown here and on the winery website. In my defense, I also chose it because it was on the VQA "Wines to Watch" display with a tempting description. :)

This is a nice light dive-back-into-reds wine (and I bet it would be a good spring red, too). The site says "A blend of Gamay Noir, Merlot and Cabernet Franc creating a crowd-pleasing, medium-bodied red wine with flavours of black cherry, raspberries and vanilla with just a touch of mint on the finish." I don't get the mint or vanilla, but it's very tangy without being too sweet or too light (I drank it with a heavy pasta meal). It's very clean and refreshing for a red, but it's definitely RED in flavour, which makes the colour in the glass all the more surprising. For the first glug or so I thought maybe I'd accidentally bought a rose! Observe (yes, that's pie for dessert):

It's pale!

A bit of the money from the sale of the Catastrophe wines goes to help rescued cats, which I'm a huge fan of, so there's that too.

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Non-LCBO wine whine

A couple of days a week lately you can stalk me at C'est What, where they serve the owner's Silver Peak wines, which I don't think are available at the LCBO. It couldn't be more local, though -- the winery's located in Oakville (I drive by the sign a lot but have never been). They don't even seem to have a website! This is a ridiculous post. However, I've tried a couple reds recently and wanted to write up my favourite so far: the Baco Noir. It's a completely perfect in-between-season drink, IMO: something like a Beaujolais but with a bit more depth, with the vinegary tang that sometimes jumps out of a Beaujolais-Villages... but again, with more deep flavours. If someone put sour cherries in your Pinot Noir and aged it for a year? Or just added a touch of sweet balsamic vinegar to your bog-standard popular Cab Whatever? I'm having trouble here. But I liked it A LOT.

I may try it a few more times at the restaurant and then... maybe I need some direct from the source!

(NB There's a California Silver Peak as well -- I don't think they're at all affiliated, but it's confusing.)

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Best-ofs: another off-dry Riesling

Fielding Estate, Lot No. 17 Riesling

The Fielding regular Riesling is good, too, and more reasonably priced (usually about $16 I think); the Lot 17 pushes up to about $25. However, this is amaaazing and I get to drink it from time to time at a friend's house where they buy it up in bulk. For the price, I'd rather have 1.5 bottles of Lingenfelder; but it's really a wonderful wine. Quite complex while still qualifying as a "light" white; lots of identifiable flavours and scents from the pears/apples/light woods family. It always seems a shame to drink it with food, because there's so much going on and it's lovely to sip, going from very refreshing to more mellow as it warms up to room temp. Great gift wine if you need something truly nice for someone who'll appreciate it.

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Last pink for a while?

This might be the last pink wine for a while... I've been craving reds like I've been craving fall. :)

This, bizarrely, tastes almost like a Wild Vines type of thing. After my first sip, I went back to the fridge & checked the bottle to see if it was raspberry flavoured or something. So it's definitely... not for everyone/every situation. But I enjoyed it with a very spicy sausage dinner, and certainly a second glass to sip with some after-dinner comfort TV was pretty much perfect (except I was cold, it is already so cold in the house). It occurred to me that you could add a really tiny amount of token fruit to this and call it rose sangria without waiting for the fruit flavours to blend their way in. That might have seemed more appealing in July.

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Greek white!

Out for dinner at a Greek restaurant on Danforth the other day, the smooth-talking waiter convinced us to try the "greatest new thing, not yet on our wine list!" Restaurant wine prices always give me the heebs, especially since I know quite a few of the standby low-price LCBO items, and it can be tough to pay $7/glass when you know the bottle itself is only $7.95 (I'm looking at you, Farnese). ANYWAY. That's what you get if you're buying in a restaurant, and I flat-out asked the waiter what the bottle would cost; it was in line with the low range on their menu, so what the heck. (Image hunting reveals that the bottle we had seems to cost less than 4 Euros from overseas stores, so I'm betting that even with shipping the restaurant makes a killing charging over $30, but again: ANYWAY. I drank it, didn't I? I sure did.)

This Tsantali Makedonikos White ($9.80) from the LCBO isn't EXACTLY what we had; ours was called Tsantali Makedonikos Athiri (so I'm guessing it was a varietal they imported, while the LCBO carries a blend?). But for under $10 you could try this, especially if you are feeling cheap (or hot, like so hot you might put an ice cube in there, or start spritzering it with tonic water, or just pour it over your head if it's coming right out of the fridge) and bored with the usuals. It was really perfect for lightening up the muggy-as-doom evening and the heavy food.

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Yet more pink: Sibling Rivalry

I haven't tried the Red or White versions from this Henry of Pelham "hip and cool" branded offshoot, but I decided to sample the Pink, and I like it! More flavourful than the extra-dry rosés below, but not as sweet as Yellowtail's, it seems like a really good balanced all-purpose rosé, especially for sharing with people you think might be wary of an off-dry, but when you want the "pop" of flavour and not just a summer white. At $13.95 it's in my "mid-price" range (hilariously). But that and the kicky marketing also means I'd be comfortable bringing it to someone's house who I couldn't trust to understand that I don't mean my $10 bottle as a diss, but a compliment to their tastebuds' ability to overlook a price tag.

Worth trying!

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Off-Dry Wine Whine Featuring Lingenfelder

I never miss the opportunity to buy a few bottles of Lingenfelder Bird Label Riesling when it comes into Vintages (twice a year, I think).

I just don't know how you could get a better off-dry riesling for $13.95. Which brings me to my whine. It seems every time I mention that I like riesling someone says "Oh, I can't drink sweet wine". Being an ABC (Anything but Chardonnay) wine drinker, I really shouldn't judge. I should just accept. But, I can't help wondering if they've only ever had Blue Nun or Black Tower and think all riesling is sickly sweet. See, I'm willing to admit that I can appreciate a really good chardonnay. But most really good chardonnay is about $50 a bottle. So the option is usually cheap chardonnay, and I may as well lick the side of an oak barrel. But you can get a really good riesling for $18 a bottle and not resort to Blue Nun. A couple of times a year, you can buy this good riesling for only $13.95.

ANYWAY, the 2010 Lingenfelder Bird Label Riesling pleases me, as has every year before it. Vintages says "this off-dry wine features lovely aromas of peach, nectarine, and citrus"....sounds about right. I always get a bit of honey, too. It has a lovely label to boot, which would make it a great gift wine if everyone didn't hate off-dry wine. Harumph.

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More pink

Apparently I thought I'd keep the Famille Perrin in business this month. Also described as "extra dry", this has more flavour and body than the Ventoux, so we're better friends. Not on the LCBO site, which makes me wonder if this is a gift wine, and perhaps does NOT fit my personal mandate of dirt cheap gulpers.

Famille Perrin Cotes du Rhone Réserve Rosé - app. $15.95?

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First post! It's pink

But it looks red, in the glass (despite the fact that it seems pretty pale in the bottle). And it tastes mostly white, to me -- like a REALLY tangy white. I'd almost go as far as to say "sour" but with food, it's fine. It's just not the patio sipping rosé I usually crave, nor is it the refreshing light drink of a Cotes du Provence, which comes out around the same time (I thiiiiiiink?). I feel like you could serve this to someone dubious about rosé and it would come across as classier than whatever it is people who are dubious about rosé are dubious about? The price is right, anyway.

Just noticed this is described as "extra dry" on the LCBO site, so that's what I get for blindly buying whatever's cheap and has a pretty label. :)

La Vieille Fermé Cotes du Ventoux Rosé, $10.95.