Award Winning Wines:
This weekend Stephanie and I opened up a couple of the wines that won awards at this Year’s All Canadian Wine Championship. The first wine we opened was the silver medal winning 2006 Smith’s Vidal from Smith & Wilson. It was a well balanced, easy drinking summer sipper loaded with grapefruit and pineapple aromas. Enjoy it on its own or with light seafood dishes (pickerel with a pineapple salsa would be a good match).
The second wine was the double gold medal winning 2006 Pinot Noir from Muscedere. It was a light bodied wine that tasted youthful and tight at first. It wasn’t until it was matched with food--- a grilled pork loin with sweet potato roesti and dried cherry demi glace—that the true spirit of the wine emerged. Raspberry and cherry aromas started to jump out of the young tannins revealing a beautiful balance between the fruit and acidity. Muscedere only made 50 cases of this wine, and at $20 retail, this is definitely one to pick up a case to drink in a year or two.
Showing posts with label Pinot Noir. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pinot Noir. Show all posts
Monday, June 9, 2008
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
All Canadian Wine Championship
I write this blog post during a break from judging the All Canadian Wine Championship in Windsor. This is a really great competition for wines from right across the country. There are wines from Nova Scotia to BC here and it gives me a feel for what is happening across the country.
On the first day of judging I had the opportunity to taste 50 gewürztraminers. The flight was quite impressive as most of the wines were quite good. There were 1-2 that were impressive and I look forward to getting the results later this week to see who made them. Following the flight of Gewürztraminers I tasted a flight of 18 merlots all priced under $20 a bottle. I was impressed at this bunch of wines as they showed ripe fruit (usually in a flight of value merlots there is green flavors of unripe fruit more often than not). There definitely are some values here.
To end off the morning of day one I tasted 12 red Icewines. There was quite a cross sample of wines here including a red sparkling ice wine. All the wines in this flight were quite good, but not surprising considering Canada in known for making good Icewines.
After lunch I tasted a flight of 38 Pinot Noir’s priced at over $20. I must say that on mass I was very disappointed with the pinots. Of the 38 only two actually tasted like a pinot should. I was really surprised at this as Canada can usually produce a decent pinot noir. I assume that most of the wines were from the 2006 vintage which was not a stellar year for red wines.
I ended up the afternoon with a flight of 18 fortified fruit wines. There were 4-5 wines that were in the style of a tawny port and a really good blueberry wine.
Tomorrow is another day of tasting and I will keep you up to date with what I taste. I will also post the local winning wines as well as all the Trophy wines later in the week.
On the first day of judging I had the opportunity to taste 50 gewürztraminers. The flight was quite impressive as most of the wines were quite good. There were 1-2 that were impressive and I look forward to getting the results later this week to see who made them. Following the flight of Gewürztraminers I tasted a flight of 18 merlots all priced under $20 a bottle. I was impressed at this bunch of wines as they showed ripe fruit (usually in a flight of value merlots there is green flavors of unripe fruit more often than not). There definitely are some values here.
To end off the morning of day one I tasted 12 red Icewines. There was quite a cross sample of wines here including a red sparkling ice wine. All the wines in this flight were quite good, but not surprising considering Canada in known for making good Icewines.
After lunch I tasted a flight of 38 Pinot Noir’s priced at over $20. I must say that on mass I was very disappointed with the pinots. Of the 38 only two actually tasted like a pinot should. I was really surprised at this as Canada can usually produce a decent pinot noir. I assume that most of the wines were from the 2006 vintage which was not a stellar year for red wines.
I ended up the afternoon with a flight of 18 fortified fruit wines. There were 4-5 wines that were in the style of a tawny port and a really good blueberry wine.
Tomorrow is another day of tasting and I will keep you up to date with what I taste. I will also post the local winning wines as well as all the Trophy wines later in the week.
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