2001BC - A Gay Odyssey (American Edition)

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We can only guess how many bottles are behind us and aren't included here, but it's better to start late than never at all. Monday, January 31, Saturna Gewurtz. Boo and I may drink our fair share of BC wine. There's little doubt, however, that the vast majority of that wine comes from the Okanagan and Similkameen Valleys. Every so often, we run across the opportunity taste a bottle from BC's Wine Islands.

A couple of years back, Mickey Rooney asked us to visit them at their place on Saturna Island. That little trip happened before I'd started off on this Odyssey of mine. So, unfortunately, I didn't get to do a couple of postings there - because we certainly finished off more than a couple of bottles. It also included a hike along the cliff top and a leisurely lunch at the island's only winery.

I'd have liked to add a picture or two from the weekend, but I couldn't find any of the pictures quickly.

Tonight's bottle has somehow managed to last until now before we've gotten around to opening it. I'll say that's because we kept wanting to get Mickey Rooney over to our place so that we could knock it back with them, but it might be more reasonable to admit that we don't tend to drink a lot of Gewurtz. This one we liked though. I remember thinking that it was our favourite of the estate's wines at the time and I was glad to see that it hadn't suffered from our delay in popping the cork.

Neither too floral on the nose, nor too acidic, this was a dry fruit-laden sip that I'd easily go back to again and again. The Gulf Islands bank a lot on their climate that they liken to the Northern Mediterrean, but they are largely limited to growing white varietals and to Pinot Noir with a few stabs at other early ripening reds. Although during the late 's, when the winery was just getting started and the vineyards were still being planted, grapes used to be purchased and shipped in from the Okanagan, but all the grapes are now being grown on the estate's 60 acres.

Maybe we can find some time and persuade Mickey Rooney to have us over again and I can blog some Saturna wines property. I'll just have to look into that. Posted by Bob at 7: I've hit another one of those posts that's really more about where we were drinking the wine as opposed to the wines themselves. This weekend was the Pac Rim Curling Bonspiel and I won't try to kid you - a curling bonspiel is not likely going to be a prime spot to find fine wine. Curling has more of that beer cachet - even if it is a gay bonspiel.

But wine is more like a hard double. I won't pass judgment on the fact that the Unity label - wines that can be a blend of BC, Ontario and international grapes - is all that was available at the curling club. As mentioned, the fact that they have wine at all is encouraging. For the second year running, the weekend's organizers have randomly drawn three teams in the bonspiel to pick one of their players to get all dolled up and perform a lip-sync for the gathered teams.

I don't know if anyone was going to challenge last year's winner, Beyonce, performing Single Ladies Put a Ring On It , but it was still as entertaining as all hell. I'm just ever so glad that they didn't pick our team - since two of our players had magically disappeared and there's no way I would have had the slightest idea of what the words to Britney Spear's Toxic might have been.

I have to admit that I think our Britney must have been channelling Ms Spear's during one of her breakdown or rehab periods. There's no doubt that she was a lively girl, but she was, indeed, a tad "toxic. I'd like to see her explaining some of the pictures to the cowboys back home. We actually played Ms. Ho and the Calgary team the next morning and I don't know if it was because they'd won Drag in a Bag and had lost their killer instinct or because "Margaret" just couldn't see the broom through the residual blue eye shadow, but, in any event, we managed to beat them for yet another unexpected win.

Our win over Calgary took us to one of the divisional finals where we managed to pull off another upset to win ourselves a nice little wad of cash - enough that, if we'd put it all towards cheap, red wine, we'd have had enough to bring about more than a couple wicked hangovers the morning after. We took the money and ran though. Playing in one of the finals did leave us rushing to get to the banquet though. What was surprising was that there was even less choice of wine at the hotel than there was at the curling club. The banquet facilities offered one red and one white.

What options were there but to get one of each? It's funny that this is the only red that they had available. I guess getting gigs like this where there's lots of drinking to be done and your's is the only wine being sold does wonders for corporate sales. That'll also help make your wine one of the best selling wines in the province. Then again, there's plenty of this wine available when this export brand for Concha y Toro's presence in Argentina produces millions of litres of wine annually.

I don't know how much wine Gabbiano produces but it also is one of the Top 20 wines sold in BC. Simple and easy on the pocketbook. I guess that's the secret. We were in a good enough mood following the weekend that we'd have been happy with virtually any bottle of wine - plonk or not. So, to come away winners and add three wines to The List, I'd say that the weekend was quite the success. Posted by Bob at 9: We had nothing but gorgeous sun on this Australia Day - despite the fact that we're really still in the middle of winter.

Granted there were no Aussies in sight of our Vancouver household but that doesn't stop us from flying an Aussie flag and opening a bottle of wine from Down Under to celebrate. There may not have been any footy on the TV and no Merlot Boy not to drink Merlot with, but Boo and I had a nice long toast to our friends and all things Antipodean just for the heck of it.

I grabbed a bottle of wine that's been in the wine rack for some time now and, to be honest, I have no idea how we came about it and it's not a wine that we've had before. I can't recall whether I ran across it at a tasting or at the Playhouse Wine Festival or I grabbed it just because I saw it in a bottle shop and didn't recognize it at all. Even after having finished it off in quick order, I don't know much more than when I started - except that both Boo and I quite enjoyed it.

I generally start most of my internet searches for Australian wines on James Halliday's website Australian Wine Companion. I didn't see any mention of Barletta on the site.

I didn't do a whole lot better just doing a regular search either. I'm not so sure that the winery still exists. I did find a reference to brothers Ben and Mario Barletta who are Adelaide retailers and there are references to wines from the early 's that were being produced occasionally as boutique winery affair in the Clare Valley. From what little I saw, however, it appeared to be more of a garagiste operation - where they purchased grapes and made the wine with the assistance of another winery.

That assistance appeared to be in the form of a relationship with winemaker Neil Pike who operates Pikes with his brother Andrew. It looks like there is still a partnership happening between the two sets of brothers in the form of the small Gaelic Cemetery Wines. The operation is limited to a single vineyard and to the production of approximately cases of a premium Shiraz.

I don't know if this Barletta Shiraz is the pre-cursor of Gaelic Cemetery but I'd sure like to find some more or something just like it. The wine harkened back to the big, full bodied Shiraz wines that are dark, concentrated and fruit forward that helped make Australia's advance into the world's wine markets. There's no mistaking this for a "critter wine" though. Since I don't remember where we got it from, I rather doubt that it goes for the price of a critter wine either. It looks like I might never know though. However, if this is the only bottle of Barletta I'm ever going to run across, I'm glad we did and that it made it to The List.

Posted by Bob at 6: Sunday, January 23, Kaiken.

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Kaiken was one of the wineries that we visited while we were touring Mendoza back last Fall. I had never heard of it before and likely would never have thought to stop there. The agency that coordinated our wine tours felt that it would be an interesting stop in that it showed yet another aspect of investment into the Argentine wine industry.

This time, it was Chilean investors - and big name ones at that. Due to the strict Canada Customs limits we faced in bringing back wine from our trip, we didn't buy any wine at Kaiken - much to our gracious host's chagrin. I note, however, from re-reading my earlier entry about touring Kaiken, that I said that "I'd definitely grab a bottle [of the Malbec] if I do see it at home.

Apparently, Kaiken wines have been in town for some time. I'd just never run across them before. I know that Montes has a firm footprint in the Vancouver wine scene; so, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that their Argentine operation would take a stab at our market as well. Kaiken actually has two varietal Malbecs available - this Reserva and a premium label called Ultra. I'm pretty sure that it was the Ultra that we so enjoyed at the winery, but it was the Reserva that I've run across first in town.

I think I'd like to do a bit of group tasting with some of the competitors though to try and figure out if there's enough difference to justify the extra pesos. In the mean time, it was great to run into some product from one of the wineries we toured. I think it's always nice to have a sense of place to look back on while enjoying a wine. I'm sure we'll look back some more should I run across more of their wines. Argentina , Malbec , Mendoza. That designation on the bottle simply means that the winery has sourced at least a portion of the grapes going into the wine from outside the province of BC.

Those grapes could have come from anywhere in the world and are often seen as being the fruit of overproduction in countries like Chile. They are also often the wines you see with cute little animals on the labels. Although none of Pacific Breeze's grapes are grown or sourced from BC, the principals behind the winery are definitely not simply buying up the seconds or leftovers from mass producers around the world. Far from it, those principals like to think of themselves as the first "garagiste" winery in Canada. They simply had no interest in buying or maintaining vineyards.

They decided on a business plan that sees them buying premium grapes from contracted growers in California and Washington state. The grapes are harvested to Pacific Breezes's specifications and carefully shipped to the Lower Mainland where the New Westminster winery which literally is a warehouse garage in a storage park crafts small production wines. My sis, Vixen, has friends that are big fans of the winery and we dropped in during an open house some time back.

You know we were impressed ourselves when we leave with a case of wine - including some Chardonnay. This is the first bottle to be opened from the ones we bought that day. Most of the wines we purchased were red - no surprise there - but I recall thinking, at the time, that the Chardy was nicely balanced - a nice creaminess to the wine but with lots of fruit still coming through. Unfortunately for tonight's dinner, my recollection was a little brighter than the juice in our glass this evening though.

The grapes for the wine were sourced from a noted vineyard in California's Sonoma region and, like a great many Chardonnays from the Golden State, there's been a liberal use of oak in the aging of the wine. Methinks that, after a couple of years in the bottle, the fruit has subsided more than I would have like and the oak has become a little more dominant. We've got a tour of the winery facilities planned in the months to come. So, it will be good to taste their current Chardonnay again and see if maybe we should have just popped this cork a tad sooner. Saturday, January 22, Petales from La Rose.

With our last wine documenting a snippet of a French excursion into Mendoza and Argentina, it seems only natural to follow it up with a story of the French venturing into our Okanagan backyard. The first of its kind in Canada, saw the commencement of a joint venture between two wine powerhouses in their respective countries. If you know anything about BC wines, you know of Vincor wines - even if you don't recognize the corporate name.

They were negotiating to bring in a French partner to look at producing a premium Bordeaux-style blend in the Okanagan. That partner turned out to be Groupe Taillan - a superstar in French wine, with a handful of top tier estates under its control in France, including the "classified" second growth St.

Julien producer Chateau Gruaud- Larose. After locating the chosen vineyards outside of Osoyoos hence the combined name Osoyoos-Larose and a painstaking planting of those vineyards, the label debuted in under the firm hand of Pascal Madevan, one of the most passionate winemakers to make it to the Okanagan. Le Grand Vin was unveiled to much local press and rather glowing reviews.

For a first effort, from new vines, buzz for the new kid in the valley was ripe. A few years later, as the vines began to produce more and better grapes, there was enough fruit to release a second label - just as most of the top Bordeaux chateaux do as well. Petales is that second wine and the was its first vintage. With a slightly different blend than its older sibling, the powers that be go to great lengths to instruct that Petales is not a lesser wine. All the vineyards and vines are tended in the same manner and to the same production levels. It's simply a fact that different barrels will have different effects on the flavour profile of the wines inside.

Some of the resulting wines may not fit the needs of the master blend, but can still be used in a second bottling. Indeed, for many of us who can't afford the classified growth wines of Bordeaux, second labels from those chateaux, especially in good vintages, are often a great means of sampling some of the big names of France. I'm a little surprised that I've taken this long to add bottle of Petales to The List. I think we might just have waited a bit long too open this bottle.

I've generally recalled and enjoyed a more prominent fruit presence in the Petales than I noticed in this bottle and the winery does say that - unlike Le Grand Vin which almost needs some extra time in the bottle - Petales is pretty much ready to drink right away. Even if this bottle didn't impart wild eruptions of joy, I do know this won't be the last bottle of Osoyoos Larose, whether it will be a second wine or a grand one.

Bordeaux , Meritage , Okanagan. We've already tasted - and I've already added to The List - two vintages of this wine. Both of those bottles were opened more as part of an event though and, consequently, I didn't really spend any time writing about the winery in my posts. This time, the wine is all on its own; so, I suppose it's time to look a little deeper into the winery.

When Boo and I were in Argentina last Fall, I was amazed by the myriad of historical ties between Mendoza, wine and Italian immigrants. It seemed like, every which way we turned, there was more Italian heritage staring us in the face - much of it well over years old. This next wine is not an example of those historical ties; rather, the wine is a product of a whole new approach to Argentine wine - but one that is becoming evermore present.

Clos de los Siete is the result of multi-million venture involving world renowned - and controversial - "flying winemaker" Michel Rolland. Rolland is one of the wine world's most influential personalities. As a consultant to over wineries in 13 different countries including Canada , Rolland epitomizes the globalization of wine. He's known for a decidedly New World signature style of big fruit and heavy oak and Clos de los Siete was conceived of as a vehicle for personal involvement in the burgeoning Argentine world of wine.

The project originally started as a gathering of Rolland and six other French producers. Indeed, the winery's name refers to the "vineyards of the seven" and, in addition to Rolland, his partners included a Rotschild and the family behind Champagne powerhouse Piper Heidseck. The unique concept behind the joint venture was that each of the seven partners would have separate sections in the vineyards and their own distinct winery - with their own winemakers and viticulturists - however, one half of the production would go to a "collective" winery, Clos de los Siete, where Rolland would create the branded wine for world-wide consumption.

Two of those original investors seem to have abandoned the project as only five of the planned seven wineries have set up shop; however, things have definitely kept moving ahead. The vineyards are geared towards quality production and low yields so that the resulting wine would be a quality bottling; however, at a million and a half bottles being produced annually, it can hardly be seen as an artisanal project. Whereas there are plenty of old vines in Mendoza, the planting of the winery's vineyards was all from scratch and only started in With the first vintage having been released was in , this is still early indication of what the winery might ultimately be capable of.

As you might expect with an Argentine blend, Malbec is the backbone of the wine and accounts for half of the blend. Despite all the press and the hoopla surrounding the wine - it continually gets glowing reports and rankings in the wine press - it's never seemed to live up to my expectations. And it didn't tonight either. It's certainly not a bad wine; it just doesn't make me holler for a refill - like now. I'm sure we'll see more bottles at our table in the years to come as it's a favourite for people to bring to dinner parties as a guest, but I'll have to experience a few more "wow" moments before I commit to regularly stocking it in our cellar.

Argentina , Malbec , Mendoza , Red Blends. Sunday, January 16, Riesling Out of Nothing. Seems like we're starting the new year off with a batch of BC wines. Ex Nihilo is a relatively new entrant onto the BC wine scene. The winery was some time in the making and was finally set up in , but this vintage was an initial foray into the world of winemaking when Jeff and Decoa Harder worked out an arrangement with a neighbouring winery to purchase some grapes and make an initial stab at producing some wine.

That first vintage consisted of cases of Merlot and cases of this Riesling. It's hard to make a big splash when you don't have a physical winery and your total production is cases. It is not, however, difficult to gain instant notoriety when you offer up a wine or two sporting an association with THE Rolling Stones and then follow it up with a Gold medal or two at the prestigious Riesling du Monde competition. It's almost like something of note can appear "out of nothing. Now granted, it was the Riesling that won the first Gold medal and that wine was apparently made in quite a different style than this as perhaps Riesling is easily wont to do.

The Stones are forever though - and that association garnered the new winery a whole lot of local press. The story goes that Jeff Harder was attending a dinner in L. The light bulb went on and, after four years of intense negotiations, a limited release Okanagan Icewine called Sympathy For The Devil, that prominently displays those well-known lips and tongue, was released and history was made.

There's also a red blend made from Napa Valley grapes that is marketed as Satisfaction , but that's yet another story and I need to get back to the Riesling. From what I've found on the net, the Riesling seems to bring about some pretty strong reactions - from Gold medals at big competitions to online reviews that offer little, if any, positive feedback. Boo and I fell somewhere in the middle.

We were hardly reaching for the Pepcid, but nothing about the wine stood out for me as being extraordinary. That being said, I am a Riesling kind of guy and, if this bottle wasn't that indicative of the winery's current product, it won't take much to get me to open another bottle down the road. On top of that though, I do want to say that I think Decoa Harder's marketing background really shows through with a stellar label.

As much as a wine is ultimately judged by the juice inside the bottle, an intriguing label can coax more than a couple folks to pick up the bottle in the first place. For me at least, this label is a glowing success. We'll see if the next Ex Nihilo wine I try impresses me as much. Saturday, January 15, J-T Meritage. After last night's stellar Burrowing Owl, the dictates of Boo's "No Buy Leash" resulted in my grabbing another older BC wine from a box at the bottom of our "cellar. It wasn't that long ago that everyone would hold their collective breath when opening a year old BC wine.

We were never sure that it would have the capability of aging that long. I doubt anyone would be so brash as to say that you can lay down all BC wines and expect them to last or improve at all with any substantial aging - but it's definitely been shown that the potential is there. After learning the surprising pedigree of last night's wine, it was equally as unexpected to find out that this Meritage had fared pretty well for itself on the award circuit as well.

Same wine, just ramped up a notch. As Jackson-Trigg's Okanagan winery only started up in , the vintage was one of their first attempts at a Meritage blend. Personally, I don't think the wine aged quite as well as last night's Syrah did.

Smashwords – BC - A Gay Odyssey - A book by Fergie Boy - page 2

The back label talks of "intense" raspberry, chocolate and mint, but I think the "intensity" had diminished over the years. Nothing wrong with the wine, but it didn't jump out and grab us in the manner that you might expect of one of the best wines of the year.

I know there'll be more J-T wines that do achieve that "jump out and grab us" status. An operation doesn't get named "Canadian winery of the year" in as many competitions as Jackson-Triggs does if doesn't have that calibre of wine to pour.

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The question is "do we have one of those bottles in our cellar? On the whole, it's been a fairly mild winter for we folks in VanCity; however, today was a snow day. So, I figured that called for a little comfort food and nice, big and hearty red to warm our cold and wet soles - you'll note that's "soles" and not "souls.

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It didn't take many sips to understand why this wine won some serious Canadian wine awards. As is usual around here, I didn't actually realize the pedigree of the wine until I took a look on the internet after we'd finished the bottle. It turns out that this vintage was not only presented with one of twelve exclusive Lieutenant Governor's Wine Awards in - perhaps the most prestigious award given in British Columbia - but it also won a Gold medal and was named Red Wine of the Year at the Canadian Wine Awards.

The was still only the fourth vintage of Syrah produced by Burrowing Owl, but it was abundantly clear that their vineyards were capable of producing some stellar fruit. At this time, the winemaking was still under the direction and tutelage of Bill Dyer, an all-star in the BC winemaking pantheon.

There have been a number of changes at the helm since Dyer left Burrowing Owl not too long after this vintage, but the winery has wisely stayed with his basic approach to making wine. I've always said that I'm not the guy you turn to if you want exuberant and overflowing descriptions of a wine, but even I'm comfortable in saying that this was a beautifully balanced wine, with plenty of dark - but NOT over-the-top - fruit.

Comfort food doesn't necessarily need to be treated with care when it comes to wine, but this Syrah elevated every bite of our meatloaf with a special treat. This is clearly one of the reasons why Burrowing Owl leapt to such prominence in the BC wine world right from the get-go. I'm going to have to check and see if I've managed to store any additional bottles of this beauty because, snow day or not, I'd look forward to some more.

Burrowing Owl , Favourites , Lt. Wednesday, January 12, Seven Stones Chard. I must be pulling wines from a particular box because, without a determined theme or my even noticing a trend, the last three wines that I've opened are all from Boo's and my drive through parts of the Similkameen and Okanagan Valleys on our way to Boo's mom's place in the Kootenays last summer. We only made quick, run and gun stops at five wineries and the last three wines were all picked up at those stops - Forbidden Fruit, Twisted Tree and, now, Seven Stones.

During our last couple of trips from the Kootenays, we'd noticed a new winery sign while driving Highway 3 between Cawston and Osoyoos. We'd never passed by when the winery was open however. This time it was. And lucky for us because - despite being on a tight schedule for time - we had a delightful little visit with one of the owners, Vivianne Hanson. She was a gracious host and was full of thoroughly entertaining stories about setting up the vineyard and winery.

She and her husband, George, may have only opened the winery in , but there a full slate of tales from the years leading up to the initial vintage. It's interesting, for me anyhow, that this first bottle of Seven Stones to be added to The List is a white. Of the nine wines currently produced at the winery, this is the only white and, while we left with a full case so much for Boo's "No Buy Leash" , we certainly focused on the reds as well.

I like the fact that the Hanson's utilize both limited oak and sur lies treatments for their aging and fermentation of the Chardonnay, but I found the wine to be a bit bold for my tastes. It may have been the meal pairing but I think a grilled chicken breast should have matched up nicely.

A second glass, without food, didn't move me any differently. I'm going to look forward to opening one of the reds that we bought though. Hopefully, I'll be able to gush a little more after those sips. Sunday, January 9, A Twisted Tempranillo. According to the back label on this bottle, the name for Twisted Tree winery comes from the "weathered, gnarly cherry trees" that the new winery owners, Chris and Beata Tolley, found on the property when they bought the old fruit farm.

Without knowing that fact, I might have thought that it's kind of "twisted" to find out that the winery is even producing this wine. To continue on a bit from the naming of the winery, when the Tolley's uprooted most of those "twisted trees," they decided NOT to plant the same varietals that most of the other Okanagan wineries were laying out in their vineyards.

It didn't mean that they wouldn't make those wines, particularly in the interim years while they waited for their own vines to mature, it just meant that they'd source the more common grapes from other producers in the Valley. So, instead of planting more of the varietals that we might think of as now becoming traditional to the Okanagan, they planted Tempranillo, Carmenere, Tannat and the white Rhone varietals Viognier, Marsanne and Roussanne. Although Viognier is making quite a name for itself in the Okanagan, you'd be hard pressed to find more than a handful of other wineries devoting their lands to the other varietals - let alone producing varietal wines with them.

Part of the effort was to see how well suited the new varietals might be to the lands.

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Twisted Tree released its first vintage of Tempranillo in and, at that, they were the first Okanagan winery to release the varietal. As such, this vintage is still only the second release of Rioja's - and perhaps Spain's - most famous grape. Yet, new to the scene or not, it turned more than a few heads, earning a Double Gold Medal at the All Canadian Wine Championships. The most unfortunate aspect to the wine is that there were only cases produced.

I say "unfortunate" because Boo and I were nicely surprised when we opened it. It was more of a New World take on Tempranillo, having more fruit and freshness than a more traditional Rioja bottle would likely have, but we had no idea what to expect and we were very happy. One thing I would like to do is try a blind tasting of the wine with a selection of Spanish Tempranillos.

That would certainly be interesting and worth another posting. Okanagan , Tempranillo , Uncommon Sources. Saturday, January 8, Another Forbidden Fruit. Ready for another little Forbidden Fruit? We've done some Pear and some Plum, what else is there in that bag of tricks of your's? Adam, if I've told you once, I've told you Lord how many times. The next one to try is the Apple. Having recently opened one of the winery's new ish grape wines the Sauv Blanc at , I thought it might be worth going back to one of the fruit wines that they are better known for. We were having shrimp and pineapple fried rice and I figured it could handle a fruitier wine - like truly fruitier.

The Adam's Apple is actually a blend of six different varieties of apple - all of which are organically grown in the Similkameen Valley. It is also one of only three fruit wines that Forbidden Fruit makes as table wines that tend to a dry finish. I found it interesting that this was a non-vintage bottling. I seem to recall their table wines as being vintage in the past. I'm not sure what the story is with this bottling. I must admit, however, that when it comes to me and apples, nothing beats the apple juice that Boo's Mom used to press every Fall. You certainly know that this wine is more than reminiscent of apples, but it wasn't as fresh and sweet as pure juice, nor was it as tangy as hard cider.

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