This could almost tempt us to make our own wine...

It's always been our philosophy that we'd rather let wineries make our wine for us than making it ourselves. But the WinePod almost tempts us. It's an:

...automated home winery that vinifies up to four cases of wine using traditional winemaking techniques combined with modern oenological technology, conducting the entire post-harvest process in its stainless steel chamber, cold soaking, pressing, and fermenting the grapes, and aging the wine for six to twelve months (or less, depending on personal preference).

Even if we never use it, if it improves other people's homemade wine, it will have been a worthwhile invention!

Apologies for light blogging...

It's been busy. But Willetts on Wine is still active, never fear! More, and more regular, posts on the way.

Wine's not just good for your heart...

...it may also (both red and white) combat tooth-decay and upper-respiratory-tract-infection bacteria.

An online TV network for wine-lovers

Check out The Winery Channel.

(Via Fermentation: The Daily Wine Blog.*)


*As opposed to The Willetts on Wine, which is currently more like a monthly wine blog. But we still hope to do better...

Beringer Founders' Estate Merlot 2003

This 2003 Beringer Founders' Estate Merlot had a lovely nose, both smoky and full of berry notes. In fact, we found the nose nicer than the taste, but that's not to say it didn't taste fine, because it did. Lots of apparent sweetness from the fruit, but good tannins, too, making it a well-balanced wine that was just what you'd expect from a good merlot.

We happened to be trying it with cheese from Regina's Bulk Cheese Warehouse, and found it went well with Blue Benedictine, especially at the back of the palate. It also went very well with Old Masters Gouda.

We'd definitely be willing to buy it again.

(Sorry for the poor-quality label shot: sometimes all you've got is your cellphone camera.)

Co-operative wine glasses

Drinking alone, they say, is a bad idea. These cooperative wine glasses force you to work together with your drinking partner to share a bottle of wine.

Although we suppose you could manage to drink on your own by holding one glass high in the air while drinking out of the other one...

Cape Barren 2003 Old Vines Shiraz

"Not a fruit bomb" was Margaret Anne's first comment on this Australian Cape Barren 2003 Old Vines Shiraz. It certainly has big flavour, but it's more in the leathery, smokey-oak sort of way. We didn't get the cloves/cinnamon flavours one expects from Shiraz, though the pepper was certainly there. We're not sure how much of that was from the grapes, though, and how much was from the extremely high alcohol content--15 percent. Maybe our tongues were just burning.

Quite possibly we drank this too young and it will become better balanced with age.

Wine on tap?

We don't host dinner parties of the size that would require this...

(Via Gizmodo.)

Ladybug, ladybug, fly away home...

...you're stinking up my wine:

Ladybugs may look pretty but they also have a dark side. In some places, the polka-dotted insects have become a nuisance by invading homes and crops, including some vineyards. To make matters worse, the bugs produce a foul-smelling liquid that, besides irritating homeowners, can be inadvertently processed along with grapes and taint the aroma and flavor of wine.

***

A growing number of winemakers say that their wines have an abnormal aroma and flavor, known as ‘ladybug taint,’ that resembles the bug’s characteristic odor. Winemakers report that there are more ladybugs in vineyards and on the grapes during harvest. Experts believe that the bugs accidentally become mixed into the juice during processing and fermentation, resulting in inferior wine.

Forget about cooking with the good wine

The cheap stuff works fine. Better, in fact, in many cases.

Which is a great relief to us, because we hate pouring a third of a bottle of excellent drinking wine into a boiling pot of something-or-other.

Lindemans South Africa tasting

Ed had the pleasure today of attending the local launch of Lindemans South Africa line of wines, put on at the Willow on Wascana restaurant by Lindemans Canadian representative, Fosters Wine Group Canada.

Lindemans's stated goal in expanding into South Africa is to bring South Africa wines to the attention of a broader swath of the wine-buying public, who are already familiar with Lindeman wines as being well-made, affordable and approachable.

All three terms certainly apply to the wines on tap (well, they weren't literally on tap, being in bottles, not kegs, but you know what we mean) at the Willow this afternoon.

Lindemans South Africa Chardonnay, Shiraz and Cabernet Sauvignon were on display, and Ed liked all three of them. They were also well-matched with appetizers from the Willow.

The Chardonnay is friendly and fruit-forward, not oaky at all, with the usual tropical fruits (Ed particularly picked up on banana) and a nice mouth feel--a bit of that Chardonnay butteriness, but not the almost cloying oiliness of some Chardonnays. The wine was refreshing by itself and just as good with the appetizer, lemon-drop chicken, the lemon taste of the chicken somehow bringing out the matching tartness in the wine.

The Shiraz and Cabernet Sauvignon were both what Ed would typify as "drink-now wines"--fruity, friendly, un-intimidating, but well-made and well-balanced. The Cab had lots of berry flavours (strawberry in particular) and a good varietal nature to it: there was no doubt it was a Cab. It was good to drink on its own and also went well with coffee-roasted boar rib, should you happen to have some lying around.

The Shiraz featured chocolate and licorice flavours, and, again, lots of up-front fruit. It seemed a bit dead on the nose, but Ed still rated it as probably his favorite of the three wines, with the Chardonnay second and the Cabernet third. However, he liked them all and wouldn't hesitate to buy a bottle next time something food-friendly and ready-to-drink is called for, or to order a bottle in a restaurant.

Also on display today were the Pink and Yellow sparkling wines from Yellowglen, which are supposed to be the best-selling sparkling wines in Australia. They're both pleasant and perfectly reasonable $14.97 alternatives to more expensive bubbly, although our favorite sparkler from Australia continues to be the E & E Black Pepper Sparkling Shiraz. We previously tasted them at the opening of the Assiniboia Gallery's new home, and enjoyed them there. Ed thinks he likes the Pink a bit more than the Yellow, possibly, suggested the pourer, because of a hint of pinot noirishness about it.

Not a dud among the lot, today, and all worthy of future purchase.

Two chardonnays, briefly

We had occasion to try two Chardonnays over the weekend, the 2003 Liberty School Chardonnay Central Coast from California and the 2002 Inniskillin Founders' Reserve Chardonnay from the Okanagan. The first had lots of tropical fruit--we particularly noted pineapple--plus vanilla and oak. Very flavourful. However, we actually preferred the latter. We didn't make notes, but we did taste them side by side, and found the Inniskillin lighter--less aggressive, I guess. Which seemed to be what we were looking for.

For some reason we failed to take a picture of the Liberty School label. Oh, well.

Kim Crawford Pinot Grigio 2004

This 2004 Kim Crawford Pinot Grigio was a bit of a disappointment. Steely and minerally, without much fruit, and nothing that really struck us as particularly varietal. It reminded us of...well, of a couple of disappointing California sauvignon blancs (see previous post). They were pretty much interchangeable.

We wouldn't choose it again.

And...we're back: Society for American Wines at Rock Creek Tap and Grill

A long hiatus on this blog, we know, but...well, it's been a busy time.

But we're back, and what better way to start than with some comments about the most recent event of the Society of American Wines?

Tuesday's event was held at a new Regina restaurant out in the booming east end of town. The Rock Creek Tap and Grill isn't particularly Irish in feel or decor, but SAW decided to call the event a St. Patrick's Day winetasting anyway (although of course it wasn't actually held on St. Patrick's Day, either...)

No green wine was served, in any event. Instead we began with two California sauvignon blancs, one from Redwood Creek (we didn't catch the vintage) and one from Sutter Home (2002, in that case).

We didn't, unfortunately, care for either one of them. The Redwood Creek was...well, "simple" is what we wrote down. "Thin" was another word (and one which kept coming up over and over). The Sutter Home was marginally better. We suspect we've been spoiled by drinking too many Marlborough sauvignon blancs from New Zealand ("anything with Bay in the name!" is our motto). These two just weren't up to that standard.

The appetizers were very good, though: sirloin lollipops (skewered steaks covered with a crispy mashed-potato coating) and "tipsy scallop and potato galette with harissa chevre," which must have been good, because Ed ate his helping and helped someone else eat theirs, too.

Dinner itself kicked off with Guinness and Dubliner cheese soup (the most Irish thing on the menu); essentially an onion soup, but with chunks of potato and bread floating in it. The cheese was sufficient without being one of those choke-threatening masses one sometimes sees in onion soups in restaurants.

Accompanying it but not, alas, matching up with it in anyhing more than an adequte fashion was the 2002 Delicato Chardonnay. According to the Delicato website, this wine "has a soft nose of tropical aromas of pineapple, coconut and honeysuckle with hazelnut, oak and spice nuances. With layers of forward fruit on the palate, the wine opens up to flavors of green apples, bananas and hints of nectarine with a creamy texture."

We didn't get all of that, although Ed certainly noted the nice mouth feel and also picked up a lot of green apple in the taste, as advertised. (Bananas, though? Not so much.)

As a palate cleanser, strawberry key lime sorbet hit the spot (though it was perhaps a bit too sweet). Then came the main course, marinated beef rolled with seasoned vegetables over mashed potatoes. The wine was the only red of the evening, the Concannon Vineyards Central Coast Petit Syrah, 1998 vintage.

And there was that word again: "thin." The wine may well have been better when it was first released. But all we got was leather...maybe a little spice...and lots of woodiness. Not enough fruit to make it interesting. And we didn't find that the food improved it.

Actually, our favorite wine of the evening was probably the dessert wine, Quady Essensia 2004 Orange Muscat. Lots of orange flavor (natch), sweet but nicely balanced. It even worked pretty well with the dessert, pistachio mousse with caramel drizzle barnbrack (think bread pudding).

A great evening for food, for wine...not so much. But then, it's just as important to discover the wines you don't really care for as the ones you do, isn't it?