| Past Events |
| Monday, April 10, 2006 - A Day of Hello's & Goodbye's... |
| The real start to the day happened at 2:30 pm when the doors opened to the Canadian Room at the Fairmont Royal York in downtown Toronto. The event was the trade tasting for the 26th Annual California Wine Fair. It was an amazing lineup of almost 400 wines from 100 different wineries in California and some of the wine available would easily make your taste buds stand up and say "HELLO!" I originally went to this tasting on a mission for a friend who likes to drink White Zinfandel. She was intrigued when I mentioned Red Zinfandel in an earlier conversation as she had never heard of the wine originally designed for the same grape. Shortly after arriving at the tasting, I heard a tip on a great winery tucked away in the far corner of the room - Tandem Winery. They had brought four wines - all of which contained the Pinot Noir grape. One was a blend and the other three were single vineyard Pinot Noir's from three different locations in Sonoma County. Sangiacomo vineyard is located on the Sonoma coast and, naturally, is the furthest down the mountain. Keefer Ranch vineyard is located in the Green Valley which is halfway up the Coastal mountain range. Finally, at the top of the mountains, we find the Van der Kamp vineyard. All three of the single vineyard Pinot Noir's were from the 2003 vintage so it was going to be interesting to see how the differences in terroir affected the wine. Well, the final word on the differences was INTENSITY! All three exhibited the same typical characteristics of cedar and herbal with the not quite so common taste of, dare I say, mint, but the further down the moutain you went, the more intense the flavours became. Initially, it was very hard to determine what those flavours were, but, in retrospect, it was not really all that important. The reality of these three single vineyard Pinot Noir's is that they are very easy to drink and they taste amazing - which is all that matters when it comes to good wine anyway. Not only were these three single vineyard Pinot Noir's great, but several of the other vineyards brought amazing Red Zinfandel's and a couple of great white wines. Just to highlight a few of my favourites, see the list below: DeLoach Vineyards 2002 Zinfandel Dolce Wine 2002 Napa Valley Late Harvest The Hess Collection Winery 2003 Artezin Zinfandel L'Aventure Wine 2002 Paso Robles Zinfandel Pedroncelli 2002 Mother Clone Zinfandel Ravenswood 2003 Lodi Zinfandel Robert Young Estate Winery 2003 Alexander Valley Chardonnay Delicato Family Vineyards 2004 Gnarly Head Old Vine Zinfandel Murphy-Goode Winery 2003 "Liars Dice" Zinfandel Each of these wines brought something different to the table. From a light, fruity Red Zinfandel to a nicely oaked (but not over-oaked) buttery and citrusy Chardonnay. From a Sauternes like late harvest wine to a big and bold robust Old Vines Zinfandel, each wine had something different to offer everyone's palate. As the title of this article indicated, this day was also one of goodbye's. As many of the members of the Ontario Wine Society know, Bruce Barber has decided to step down from the executive after 10 years of service. In his honour, the executive organized a surprise party at the Summit House Grill located at the corner of Yonge and Eglinton. Our old friends, Chris and Henry, formerly of The Tasting Rooms, are now both at the Summit House Grill and, to celebrate the evening, created a menu for us to choose from. It was a night of great food, great wine and great memories. If you want to see pictures from the evening, check out pages twelve, thirteen and fourteen of this website. And so, until next time, friends, may life bring you good health, good food and great wine. Remember, life's too short to drink bad wine! |