Peter Lehmann Weighbridge 2006 Shiraz

If you ever wonder why I review so much Australian wine, it’s because at the local liquor stores here they are usually the most decent wines you can get other than american (and I’m not really a fan of american wines).

I’ve been on a bit of a Shiraz kick lately, I like the spicy dry ones. Apparently Australia is renowned for it’s Shiraz, so an Australia Shiraz was in order.

The Peter Lehmann Shiraz I picked up the other night was slightly different than my expectations. It was very fruity (cherry and currents come to mind), almost slightly sweet (off-dry) with a hint of spice and a long smooth finish. The tannins were light and kept at bay. Although not quite what I was expecting (I think I’m accustomed to the Canadian Shiraz style), I was really impressed with this wine. I do like a bit more bite in my Shiraz, but this was a wonderful wine and is very well rounded.

 

Lake Breeze Winery

Lake Breeze Vineyards is a delightful stop on your naramata wine tour. I highly recommend dropping by in the afternoon for lunch in the summer. They have a lovely quaint outdoor patio with a beautiful view of the lake and vineyards. Additionally, the food and desserts are quite nice and paired wonderfully with their wines.

Producing only 6000 cases a year, this small winery has a small tasting room to match, but is well designed and appealing.

And on to the wines we tried…

2007 Sauvignon Blanc

• This is a very well balanced dry white wine. Tons of citrus on the nose, and very fruity and tropical in taste. While I haven’t had many Sauvignon Blancs before, I enjoyed this wine. $22/bottle.
• Notes from the winery: “This wine is so great, it joined the Seven Poplars ranks.  Remniscent of a New Zeland Sauvignon Blanc, the 2007 is herbal and grassy with a little tropical fruit and a very intense nose.  Clean, crisp and great with seafood.  Enjoy!”

2007 Seven Poplars Chardonnay

• This wine is everything you expect from an Okanagan Chardonnay: light, dry, and ripe with citrus fruit. I found the oaky nose and flavoring to overpower the wine a bit though. It would be close to the perfect chardonnay if the oak had been toned down a notch. $26/bottle.
• Notes from the winery: “This wonderfully complex wine is fermented and then age in new French oak barrels for seven months.  Look for a lemon/lime palate and subtle hints of vanilla with a buttery texture.”

2006 Seven Poplars Pinot Noir

• This is a well structured complex red with a strong boquet of cherries. The palate was round with cherries and plums and a smooth yet flavourful tannin finish. $27/bottle
• Notes from the winery: “You will find predominant aromas of raspberry, black cherry and anise with an earthy background. The palate is plush with a firm and ripe tannin finish. A well-structured wine designed for food and great with game dishes. I recommend cellaring this wine for 1 year, but it will continue to improve for 5 to 10 years.”

2006 Seven Poplars Merlot

• This wine can be summed up in two words: spicy berries. This comes through both in the boquet and the palate. This merlot has a bit of a dry bite and rich tannins, but has the potential to come to age. I recommend putting it away for about a year. $27/bottle.
• Notes from the winery: “This rich and full bodied Merlot is a great expression of the Naramata Bench terroir created from the fruit of Eventus, Olde Pine and Foxben Vineyards, and our own estate grown grapes.  Enjoy!”

2006 Delice

• This late harvest dessert style wine is wonderfully natural and sweet. While many late harvests come off as “syrupy”, this late harvests light style allows the true flavors of the wine to come through. The finish of this wine is delicate and delicious. $17/bottle.
• Notes from the winery: “This proprietary blend of Schonberger and Morio Muscat has been a favourite at Lake Breeze since 1998. The light style of this dessert wine will appeal to those who find others too sticky and cloying. Enjoy the perfumed nose and unique taste. The grapes for this wine were estate grown.”

Come for the patio, stay for the well made wines.

 

Yellow Tail Riesling

In an attempt to try more Rieslings, I recently picked up a Yellow Tail Riesling.

Although it likely isn’t a bad wine for its price, this wine certainly fell short for me. I found it syrupy and had a hard time picking out any interesting flavors. It fell flat and was somewhat forgettable.

This wine will likely go over well with friends who like sweet wines and aren’t too discerning in their taste for wine.

 

Barefoot Pinot Grigio

I had a girl’s night the other night and this wine was brought by one of my friends. This was the last wine we consumed of the evening, so my memory is a little hazy, but from what I recall it was a nice pinot grigio.

This wine was citrusy but well balanced with appley-pear type flavors. It was refreshing and zesty with a crisp finish.

Barefoot does a nice job with this Pinot Grigio, for the price range you can’t go wrong.

 

3 Blind Moose Pinot Grigio

My boyfriend was recently in the United States and I asked him to pick up a few random bottles of wine. Knowing that I like Pinot Grigio’s, he picked up a bottle of the 3 Blind Moose Pinot Grigio.

The first thing I noticed about this California is the cork – a played up bright yellow synthetic. I don’t have a position in the cork vs other debate. I’m happy with anything that keeps my wine nice and I haven’t been dissapointed yet. The second thing I noticed was it’s very pale straw colour. Or maybe it just looked pale in comparison to the bright yellow cork.

The scent was subtle, and almost flowery, but overal very delicate. The taste however, slightly suprised me. This wine packs a punch that the aroma doesn’t reflect. Overall, I found this wine intense at first, but by the end of the glass I was pleased and ready for another. Due to the intensity, I wouldn’t recommend drinking it on its own, this wine screams out for a pairing to balance it out. I think it would go nice with a pasta and cream sauce, but that’s just a guess.

 

2007 the Little Penguin – Chardonnay

The Little Penguin Chardonnay is a very versatile white wine. I enjoyed it as a casual glass on wine, but it also goes nicely with appetizers, during dinner, and after dinner. The little penguin also makes pairing recommendations on their website here:

http://www.thelittlepenguin.com/winetips/chardonnay

Although I enjoyed it without food, I can imagine it going well with a delicate white fish. It’s a subtle wine that would likely bring out delicious undertones in any meal. I personally found this wine to be very buttery and oaky.

Enjoy it well chilled on a hot day, it’s fresh and crisp taste is incredibly refreshing.

 

Winery Tours, Day 2

While originally I thought we’d only visit 3 to 4 wineries at most today, we managed to make it to 5.

We visited:

• Summerhill Pyramid Winery (Kelowna)
• St. Hubertus Estate Winery (Kelowna)
• Cedar Creek Estate Winery (Kelowna)
• Gray Monk Estate Winery (Winfield/Kelowna)
• Arrowleaf Cellars (Winfield/Kelowna)

It’s a good thing I had my notebook with me over the last few days! There is no other way I’d remember every place we visited otherwise, not to mention the wines!

As with day 1, I’m still working on writing up some posts. Please be patient!

 

Therapy Vineyards

The second stop on our winery tour was the Therapy Vineyards, located quite close to the Kettle Valley winery.

We can all use a little wine therapy, right? Well this vineyard has met the mark. Although somewhat new to the scene, the winery offers some contemporary wines likely to please all varieties of connoisseurs. The vineyard name, lables, wine names, is all very fun and unique. The wines follow suit and are very likely to please. We tried three vines on our visit there: the 2005 Chardonnay, 2007 Pink Freud, and 2006 Freud’s Ego.

2005 Chardonnay:

• My first impression of this wine is that it was slightly un-typical from a chardonnay in that it didn’t have the strong oaky taste. This wasn’t a bad thing through. Overall, I found it very clean yet somewhat buttery and smooth. $25/bottle.

2007 Pink Freud:

• This is a blended blush colored wine which I found to contain very fruity flavours (strawberries, raspberries, grapefruit) balanced with cream. Although I’m not usually a fan of rose’s or blends, I quite enjoyed this one and purchased a bottle. $18.99/bottle.
• Winery tasting notes: “Bouquet: Raspberries, black currants, vanilla, strawberries and cream. Palate: Rich and fruit driven with soft red berried intensity and a dry finish.“

2006 Freud’s Ego:

• This is another blend wine. The chocolate and currant flavors really jumed out at me. The finish was dry and slightly “burnt” tasting for lack of a better work. Not bad, but not good enough for me to want to try the “Super Ego” which was a paid tasting. $20/bottle.
• Winery tasting notes: “Bouquet: Black currants, chocolate, vanilla. Palate:  Rich and full bodied with ripe berry fruited oak driven complexity.“

This was a really fun winery to visit and I enjoyed the company of the lady doing our tasting, she was very personable and not overly pretentious like you can come across at a lot of these places. I will be back in the future and will be looking to see where this winery goes.

 

Kettle Valley Winery

The Kettle Valley Winery, which is located in the Naramata region of the Okanagan, is one I wanted to visit due to a merlot I tried about a week ago. My mother also wanted to find “a good red from the Okanagan” so i figured that would be a good place to start.

The sales and tasting room of the winery is modest, but do not let that deceive you. The lady who was running the room was very friendly and more than willing to boast the consistency of their wines.

We tried two wines, both reds, the 2006 Pinor Noir and the 2005 King Merlot.

2006 Pinor Noir:

• This was a tasty red. It was smooth and dry. I picked up lots of berries in the taste and it finished almost earlthy. Overall I though it was quite nice for a Pinot Noir. $26/bottle.
• The wine notes from the winery: “This wine is a blend of Pinot Noir grown in the Old Main, Crest, Hayman and Foxtrot vineyards in the Thibault vineyard in Summerland, Trovao, Village and Becker vineyards in Naramata and the Marchland vineyard on the Westbench in Penticton. The grapes were hand picked between October 13 and November 3, 2006 at approximately 24.7 brix. The wine has gone through a full malolactic fermentation and was aged in French oak for 19 months before being bottled.”

2005 King Merlot:

• A very delicious merlot. Flavoring started with berries and finished with chocolate. A bit intense of the start but smooth on the finish. Overall a wonderful red and one that I purchased. $35/bottle.
• The wine notes from the winery: “The grapes for this wine come from our King Drive vineyard in Naramata. This merlot was farmed at approximately 2.5 tons per acre, resulting in very intense fruit flavours. The grapes were handed picked on November 1, 2005 at approximately 24.6 brix.
  The wine has gone through full malolactic fermentation and was aged in French oak for 19 months before bottling. Total production 207 cases.”

If you’re every looking for a good, consistent wine, I recommend the Kettle Valley Winery. It may have been my first tasting of the day (which could skew my thoughts), but I do think it was one of my favorites.

 

Winery Tours, Day 1

Today was a very full day. We covered 8 wineries across the Okanagan in 6-7 hours. By the last winery we got to my palate was so confused I didn’t even do the wine tasting, I just bought a few bottles because I knew they would be good (you can’t go wrong when you see the display of medals, right?).

Here is where we visited:

• Kettle Valley (Naramata)
• Therapy (Naramata)
• Lake Breeze (Naramata)
• Poplar Grove (Naramata)
• Township 7 (Naramata/Penticton)
• Sumac Ridge (Summerland)
• Quail’s Gate (Westbank/Kelowna)
• Mission Hill (Westbank/Kelowna)

The wineries we visited today was a combination of both the priorities of my mother and I, we both had a few places in mind. At most of the wineries we tried about 3-4 wines. I will be writing up a post on each winery for you all to view.

Tomorrow we have about 3-4 places to visit on our list.