#100- Carignan

On the 8th day of Wine-mas my true self gave to me, a bottle of Carignan from la Belle pays de France!

And this isn't just the 8th day, oh no- this blog represents a goal I have been working towards for two years. And tonight, I accomplish it. Tonight is my 100th wine varietal I have tasted!

100!

My goal started New Year's 2010 but I had been planning to write a wine blog months before that when I got my DeLong's Wine Grape Varietal Table in the mail after visiting their home page. I was inspired to become a member of the Wine Century Club and I totally loved their approach to introducing people to new wines.

I hadn't even been a huge wine drinker back then but I did enjoy wine and really wanted to expand my knowledge and my palate. So I took up the challenge- to try all 184 grape varieties on their table. It soon turned into the round number of 200 as I was finding single varietal wines here in Edmonton that weren't listed.

I still plan to try all 184 and then some, it just might not be in single varietal form. I have tried my very best to do single varietals (or those that are basically 95% +) but it does get more and more difficult to find them. We don't have the best access to some wines. In many ways we're very limited compared to other places in the world and having made it to 100 is a feat I wasn't sure was possible.

But I'm glad I'm did it!

I've tried some pretty amazing wines. But I've also tasted some awful ones as well. And I appreciate that. It's the only way to learn what you like and what you don't. I've had some ridiculously unusual wine pairings- some worked, some not so much and I've had some predictable and traditional ones as well.

I've drank many of them with my brother and my mother and my sister and my friends. For two years, I've had the pleasure of analyzing a glass of nectar of the Gods. Not too shabby a research project I must say.

Who knows if I'll reach 200 and when I'll reach it but I will still try to do a wine a week. The good part about blends though is I can knock a few varietals off at a time.

And after tonight, I plan to apply for membership to the Wine Century Club. I was so hoping they would just see the blog and grant me admission but I guess I have to be like any other wino and apply. And so I will.

And now it's time to get on with review #100- Carignan!

I don't mind the wine. It isn't my favourite and compared to the Prieto Picudo I drank last night, this one fell a bit flat. Surprising as I am a huge fan of French wines.

Maybe it's all a dream. Maybe I'm just trying to be cheesy- the wine I'm drinking is called Reve. Borie de Mavrel produces the wine in the Minervois region.

The Carignan grape is not often a single varietal wine and often used in blends and is very popular in the Languedoc region.

The wine itself is very high in alcohol content- 14%. But there is no sweetness on the tongue at all. Actually I've just retasted the wine and now that it's had time to site for a but, it's not so tannic and tight in the mouth. It's much more relaxed and I'd describe the tannins as smooth.

The red fruits are evident- strawberries and raspberries with a slight hint of leather. It is a 2005 so it makes sense. Very meaty like. It is a bold wine. I ate it with a steak and cheese sandwich dripping in sweet onion sauce and packed with vegetables. It was so good. The melted mozzarella cheese and steak were great choices for this full bodied wine.

I'm going to let the rest of the bottle sit overnight and will grab it again tomorrow when I write my review of wines 81-100. Amazing.

#100- you didn't let me down. Now cheers and raise your glass to the next 100!

#79- Falanghina

The next five wines are all from a long weekend camping trip taken last week (the order might be slightly skewed so don't judge if the pics appear out of order).

My brother and I both had 4 days off so we decided to take our five year old nephew Owen camping. It happened to be his 5th birthday on the day we left so the whole trip was a sort of birthday weekend for him. We decided to take him to Jasper and do some hiking.

We couldn't have picked a better weekend. Other than the slightly cold and damp weather to start, the weekend was beautiful and hot from start to finish. Craig was responsible for the food, I was responsible for the wine. I brought six bottles with me (one was the Mencia wine that Craig had yet to try and I went out of my way to and buy another bottle only for us to never crack it the entire weekend. Le sigh.).

Craig did a decent job of getting food though typical of the male species-- white bread, white buns and lots of meat. No mill, no eggs and no fruits or vegetables! Ha! Thank goodness I emptied the fridge of my fruits and vegetables before I left!

We set up camp in the Whistlers campground just after 2pm. It didn't take long for us to set up camp and Owen helped as much as he could. We decided to crack open the bottle of wine while we set up and had a snack. I don't recommend this pairing often but when you're camping, you have to sometimes have a "laissez faire" attitude.

Because it was Owen's birthday, he got to choose the snacks and the dinner. For dinner, we had salad and hot dogs (I upgraded and went with a sausage on a bun). I'm not a fan of hot dogs or sausage but hey- it's not my birthday and I'm a team player.

For the snack, it was Joe Louis all the way! I hadn't had one of these in years so I was happy to indulge. It was just the perfect pick me up for us to put up kitchen tents, unload food and build fire.

Owen has been taking it upon himself lately to pour the wine at any and all gatherings he is it. He even knows to twist the bottle to not waste a drop. He still insists on pouring the wine right to the rim so you get to do the good old bring your lips to the stationary wine glass trick before much else. But he does a good job and he is quick to refill when he sees your wine glass is getting low.

So to the wine. The verdict is unanimous- both Craig and I really liked this wine. Like, really really liked it. So much so there wasn't a drop left to be shared with anyone back home. He and I polished the bottle off pretty quick.

The wine is from Villa Matilde in Italy (the second time I've reviewed one of their wines and the first time I've had a repeat winery). The first thing Craig noted about this wine was the very strong smell of peaches and he was right- it is very strong but extremely pleasant to drink. I couldn't taste much else but the description of the wine sounds wonderful (hints of almonds, grapefruits, sage)- yummy. Trust me, this is a great wine to drink.

It is a middleweight wine, very yellow in colour and more acidic than not. If you like a Pinot Blanc, you should like the Falanghina. I can't wait to try another one that's for sure. The Falanghina wine also goes very well with seafood (it's grown in the Campania region of Italy, around Naples).

And as far as I can remember, it went just perfectly with hot dogs!

Wine #2- Grenache

I was so looking forward to this week as the grenache grape is one of my favourites. And this wine did not let me down!

This week I tried Las Rocas from the San Alejandro vineyard in Spain. The vintage year is 2007 and was purchased for $19.95 from Vines Riverbend Wine Merchants. This wine was given 91 points by Robert Parker.

The grenache grape produces a wine that is very low in acidity and is considered a super heavyweight. In my opinion, the wine is just plain super.

I opened the bottle of wine and let it breathe while I cooked my meal. Tonight's meal was Montreal peppered steak with broccoli florets and jumbo shrimp with cocktail sauce. I had a long week and wasn't really into cooking a big dinner. So simple surf n' turf it was.

Let's put it this way. I had two glasses of wine with the meal and had a third even when dinner was log gone. I can't say enough how much I loved this wine. Often wines can leave an aftertaste in your mouth (such as the Chardonnay) but this one leaves nothing behind making it a very easy wine to drink. It is a dry wine. Its flavours are soft and subtle and this bottle had just enough hints of fruits, such as strawberry to make it a very pleasant drink.

As my brother put it (I kept a glass for him and brought it to him on Saturday), the wine is subtle and creates "the right type of spit" (I have no idea what that means but he assures me it's a good thing!). Not a red wine drinker, he had no problems sipping this wine before heading out to the hot tub.

The red wine paired nicely with the steak and even though seafood is typically a white wine food, I didn't mind at all drinking the wine while chomping down on my shrimp.

The grenache wine is a very enjoyable wine and I would recommend it to anyone who isn't a fan of red wines to try it and see why red wines can be so pleasant to the palette.

I also have another recommendation for a grenache wine. I do put a warning on this wine-- I drank a bottle of it in less than 40 minutes it's that good! Try the Fire Block Dry Grenache Rose (2006). Just make sure you don't have to drive anywhere after!

Next week I'm going to tackle the Riesling.

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!