#85- Pinot Auxerrois

I am a proud Canadian so it always gives me a bit of a thrill to find a wine that I love and can't wait to brag about. Plus, I have a cool connection to the winery.

The grape is the Pinot Auxerrois and goes by several names depending on where it's grown. In Alsace for example it's known as Auxerrois Blanc. But in Canada it's known as the former. It's not a grape that is commonly grown in North America. There is one winery that is known for their Pinot Auxerrois and that is Gray Monk in the Okanagan Valley in British Columbia.

Way back in 1996 I lived in Kelowna for my radio practicum. My two classmates- Karen and Leanne and I packed up and moved to the Okanagan Valley for 4 months to work at three separate radio stations for our last semester of college. We were working for free so we figured we'd go someplace warm to do it. So Kelowna was our chosen destination. Just to give a nice point of fact here- Kelowna had one of the coldest and snowiest winters they'd had in 20 years that winter. It's almost as if we brought winter with us! Can't win em all I guess.

In any event, in late April, we got to do a wine tour and the very first stop on our wine tour was Gray Monk Winery. At the time there were very few wineries in the region (not compared to the 200 + now that call BC home) so we became familiar with the local wineries. Gray Monk has always stayed in my memory as one of my favourites.

Back to the grape. The parents of the Pinot Auxerrois is the Gouais Blanc and Pinot Noir. Wine fact- it is a full sibling to the Chardonnay grape as they both have the same parents! (I'm taking a good whiff of it now and I can certainly see how it relates to its sibling. Its character does indeed remind me of a chardonnay on the nose).

But it doesn't taste anything like the chardonnay grape at all. This one is buttery and creamy with great notes of peach and other orchard fruits (in Canada, many of our fruits come from this valley). On the tongue, I capture honey before any of the fruits such as lime and a tinge of apple. It is a very delicious combination. I am very reluctant to keep any for Craig though I bet he'd very much like this wine. It's not very acidic and moderate in alcohol, this is a wine that is great to drink on its own or to pair with white meats. I had barbequed chicken and side vegetables with the wine and found it to be a perfect pairing.

I do recommend this wine and am a huge fan of it for summer barbeques. It's also a reasonably priced wine and you can find it in most stores for under $20.

#72- Dornfelder

Good ol' Dr. Zen Zen. Sometimes the familiar is the best. I picked up a bottle of Dr. Zen Zen the other day from the local Liquor Depot. The bottle wasn't quite $20. The winery itself makes quite a few different wines and you can usually count on them to make a fairly decent product. The wine is German but the Dr. Zen Zen label is often imported under a USA label so if you're looking to pick a bottle up, you may want to check both spots.

Worth it? You betcha! This bottle did not disappoint. I had paired the wine with a lovely dinner that I was pretty proud of- barbequed steak with side salad and fresh corn on the cob. My house has been excrutiatingly hot lately so any excuse not to have to cook indoors suits me fine. The steak was absolutely melt in your mouth and the corn on the cob is especially good this year (maybe it's all the rain we've had...)

In any case, the Dornfelder wine is pretty darn good and my brother Craig has had it before and agrees with me. It was very juicy and aromatic and was sweet enough to go really well with the juicy, bloody steak. It's not very tannic so it's an easy wine to drink and I think most red wine drinkers would find this a pleasant wine.

The Dornfelder grape is of German origin and is a pretty popular grape to grow. It's not the easiest grape to get in these parts but I often find that Canada is lacking in its selection of wines, especially here in Alberta. I wish we'd see more variety- my God how many bottles of Chardonnay and Shiraz can one girl drink? The variety is there- just within the limited grapes we bring in. I find it rather sad. There are so many grape varieties out there, we need to be doing more to encourage importers to broaden our wine palettes a lot more.

Enough of the rant. The wine was great and it would be a great wine to pick up if you're in the mood for an easy drinking red but aren't feeling like your usual Shiraz or Cabernet Sauvignon.

#61- Pinot Blanc

It sucks to write about wine when you're doing a cleanse and can't drink (or eat for that matter). But the blog must go on. I have four blogs to catch up on and hopefully they'll all be done by the time I can drink again (bring on #65!).

Mom provided the meal for this wine- she made a ton of chicken jumbalaya and it was delicious. I know it's not hard to make, I've just never made it. Must do that sometime soon. Anyway, trust me when I say this dish was delicious.

The wine for this week and kicking off the next 20 wines is a white wine from France- the Pinot Blanc. While it sounds like it should be a pretty easy grape to find (just like the Pinot Gris or Pinot Noir) it's not actually that easy to find so I was pretty happy to find it at Liquor Depot in Callingwood for a very reasonable $16.79. The wine is Alsace Willm, the first winery to export its wine to the U.S.

The wine did remind me of a Chardonnay though it's not related to that grape at all. It wasn't at all oaky but it had similar dimensions to the wine as the Chardonnay does. It was straw coloured and I found the wine very much complimented the jumbalaya, especially the chicken and the sausage. With a hint of spiciness to the wine, I think overall it was a great combination. There may have been some fruit flavours in there as well but I couldn't really discern them.

The Pinot Blanc grape  is apparently a genetic mutation of the Pinot Noir grape (basically one vine on the pinot noir vines creates a white grape rather than the black grape-- almost an albino of sorts). Learned something didn't you?

It's often used as the base grape for sparkling wines (it does lend itself well for the crispiness of the wine) as well as Burgandy and Champagne wines.

Overall, I really enjoyed this wine and it's too bad this grape isn't more readily available.

Craig really enjoyed the wine as well describing it as smooth and fruity with a sweet taste.  He tasted hints of grapefruit (good for him as I did not!)

Wine #1- Chardonnay

Well, I didn't hate it. But Chardonnay is still not a favourite of wine nor will I run out anytime soon to buy a bottle. I am still confused as to how Chardonnay is one of the most popular grapes and wines in the world. If you happen to like Chardonnay, please enlighten me as to why when there are so many other good wines to choose from.

The wine we chose to try was a 2008 Chardonnay from the Catena Winery in Argentina. Robert Parker reviewed this wine and gave it 91 points. I purchased this bottle of wine at Vines Riverbend Wine Merchants for $21.95.

My brother came over for dinner and I tried my best to match the food to the wine. I tried a new recipe-- Sicilian Pasta with cauliflower florets. The hope was to serve this dish with seasoned chicken but I managed to screw up the timing on the chicken so we actually ate dinner in two parts.

It didn't really matter. Both Craig and I had similar opinions on the wine. We tolerated it and finished the bottle, but overall, disappointed with the wine. Craig initially found the Chardonnay to have a bold taste and he could really pick out the spices used in the vintage. I didn't so much pick out the spices but the fruitiness of the wine. The oak taste was there but certainly not overpowering like some Chardonnays are.

When we first opened the bottle and began to drink, we both noticed the lingering taste in our mouths, a quite unpleasant feeling. To me, it almost left a burning sensation in my throat.

As the wine warmed up however, the lingering lessened so perhaps I had the wine chilled a little too much. It certainly became easier to drink as the night wore on. The wine complimented both dishes well I thought and Craig, ever the picky eater, finished his meal and actually gave me props for a good meal.


By the way, I am choosing recipes from Lucy Waverman's newest cookbook- A Year in Lucy's Kitchen. Throughout the book, Lucy's husband Bruce offers wine pairing recommendations which has helped me plan my first few weeks tremendously.

Overall, my opinion of Chardonnay hasn't changed much and am still not a fan. I have had worse though and if I absolutely had to drink a Chardonnay again, I'd definitely consider purchasing this bottle again. I appreciated that the wine didn't overpower me with oakiness and I found I could taste just enough of the fruits within the wine to make me want to continue to drink it. Craig changed his opinion on the wine being bold as the temperature of the wine changed and it became a lot more mellow in taste.

I am happy to have this wine tasting out of the way. I'm looking forward to next week already as I get to drink one of my favourite grapes of all time, the grenache grape.

The Grape Tasting Process

For the amount of time I've thought about doing this little project, one would think I have a process in place to analyze the wine.

I don't.

The point of all of this is to try new wines I would normally never consider. I imagine that I will discover wines that I love and there will be some I'm sure I'll never try again.

Tonight, I start with wine #1- the Chardonnay. I've never really met a Chardonnay that I like yet. I guess I'm starting with this very popular grape for two reasons:

a) If I still hate it, it's over and done with
b) If I like it, then this has been a very good start to this little project

I have just over an hour before my brother gets here so I should be getting dinner ready.

In each post, I'll tell you the grape, the name of the wine (sometimes different from the grape), the name of the winery, vintage year, country, the cost of the bottle of wine and where I bought it.

I'll also try to describe the wine and what I'm taking from it. I'm not a wine expert by any stretch of the imagination but I am able to pick out flavours and some of the subtleties that come with each wine.

Plus, I'll cover my butt here and provide information or links to other websites that describe the grape in detail.

I'll also let you know how the food pairing goes. I have a couple of cookbooks that are acting as initial pairing guides. My goal is to better my cooking abilities and if I happen to get a little drunk along the way, well so be it!

Finally, I'll give you my overall opinion of the wine, thumbs up or thumbs down. Anyone who joins me tasting the grape is also welcome to share their opinion as well.

And pictures will be included as well.

If you have suggestions for upcoming grapes to try, please shoot me a comment (and if you have a food suggestion as well, I'm all ears).

Now, off to roast some cauliflower...

And so begins my education...

I haven't always been a fan of wine. In fact, I hated the stuff and would only touch a rose if I absolutely needed to. It wasn't until a friend of mine invited me to the Niagara Wine Festival in 2001 that I really began to appreciate wine.

A couple of years ago I began to do more research on wine. I stumbled across a website that caught my attention and I immediately began to explore the world of wine. The website Wine Century Club opened my eyes to just how large the world of wine is. Wine knows no country boundaries, nor does it limit itself to just the upper class of society. No, wine is much more complicated than that. And I wanted to know more.

I ordered the giant poster that lists 184 different grape varieties from all over the world. The point of the poster (and the Wine Century Club) is to encourage wine lovers to expand their pallette. To try grape varietals they wouldn't normally try. To obtain membership into the Club, one must prove that they have tried different types of wine made from 100 grape varietals.

So that's my goal and then I'm going to go beyond that. My first goal is to gain membership into the Wine Century Club. My second goal is to try all 184 grape varietals listed on the poster.

So, the plan is to try one new wine each week until I've tried all 184. I've already run into some wines whose grape does not appear on the Wine Century Club poster so I'm guessing by the time I've finished, I will be close to trying nearly 200 different grapes. That basically means that I'm going to be drinking wine on a weekly basis for at least the next four years.

I've had harder tasks.

But by no means is this going to be easy. It's not as easy as one would think- just go into a store and purchase some wine. But here in Alberta, not every type of wine and grape varietal is available, or at the very least, easy to obtain. I've already looked into getting a wine made from the pignolo grape and I've come up empty. So, I may have to carefully plan my travels or rely on friends who travel to far away places to bring some wine back for me that I just can't get here in Alberta.

In any case, I've planned the next 13 weeks out so I'm good at least until April 2010. Only 3.75 years to go after that!

I'm also hoping to expand my cooking abilities while I'm at it so I'm planning a weekly meal that works well with each wine I try. I figure I may actually learn how to pair wine and food together! I'm relying on two new cookbooks I purchased to keep me on track. If anything, it gives me an excuse to throw a dinner party each week and hope that someone shows up and keeps me company. And I'll even let them throw in their opinion on the wine!

So tomorrow the wine quest begins. I've invited my brother Craig over for wine, dinner and to play some Wii. Luckily for me, my brother appreciates wine as much as I do and he too hopes to gain membership into the Wine Century Club so this is a great start for both of us.

The wine we are going to try is my least favourite wine to date and that is the Chardonnay. I'm hoping that the pick I've chosen will change my mind about chardonnays. We'll see how it goes.

I'm open to comments and suggestions as well and I hope to have a lot of fun on this wine journey of mine and I'm glad you're here to read about it with me. And if you're near me, here in Edmonton, feel free to join me for a glass of wine. I guarantee you the answer is yes!