E&E Barossa Valley Black Pepper Shiraz 1994
Cline Ancient Vines Zinfandel 1999
These wines don't have much in common except that they're red, and we drank them some time ago. (The bottles have been in storage waiting for us to either soak the labels off or finally get smart enough to realize that digital photos are a whole lot easier.) They're all favorites for one reason or another.
Stoney Ridge was Margaret Anne's favorite Niagara Peninsula winery. They've changed ownership since this was bought, and it's just not the same. This was bought on Margaret Anne's second (Ed's first) visit to the winery in 1996. We don't remember a lot about it other than that it was a really enjoyable wine to drink.
We could go on and on about the E&E Shiraz. Margaret Anne and her mother, Alice, first had E&E Shiraz at International Wine and Food Festival at the Banff Springs Hotel the year Australia was featured. After trying this wine in a tasting, Margaret Anne was all ready to go buy a couple of bottles, only to find them all sold out in the wine shop (some guy who knew about it beforehand had gone in and bought out the stock). However, they did have the sparkling version. She gave it a try, and was hooked. Since then, every time we go to Calgary we check the wine stores. We buy as much as we can (one store has a two-bottle limit when it comes in). Ed also found a dusty bottle in a basement liquor store in Banff. Both versions of this shiraz are full-bodied, lusty wines, full of flavor and good with food or on their own.
Margaret Anne loves Cline wines. We can usually only get them when some show up in the local liquor stores after the American Wine Fair comes to town. When we went to Sonoma in 2002 we made certain that we stopped in at Cline. This one, however, came from Regina. A great example of a wonderful zinfandel--a favorite varietal of both of us.
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