The Toronto Wine Scene

Vintages : The Classics Collection, May 2008

I must admit that I really don't understand the LCBO. Here we are approaching the end of the first decade of the 21st century and the LCBO is still mailing out Classics catalogues via Canada Post before posting them on the vintages.com website.

I happen to be on vintages.com this morning, barely noticing that that the old January classics is still listed and the March classics is still flashing "NEW". The classics banner still hasn't changed as of 4:30pm. Here it is:

So imagine my surprise to find this in the mail later in the morning…

Apparently, producing a PDF and crafting some HTML (oh ya, I forgot the uploading part of the process) is more complicated and time consuming than traditional printing and manual distribution. Who knew?

Of course, it doesn't really matter because it's not like the early bird gets the worm when it comes to buying wine from the LCBO. Orders in to the lottery (for sought after wines only available in small quantities that is) are accepted up to May 21.

The LCBO has plenty of time to update the website ;)

The stars and wines come out "California Style" to launch promotion at LCBO stores

From the CNW…

TORONTO, April 28 /CNW/ -

WHAT: Hollywood's hottest "stars" will help launch the first-ever
promotion of California wines at LCBO stores during a
Malibu-style party in downtown Toronto, complete with celebrity
look-a-likes.

Visitors can sample wines from Sonoma, Napa Valley and other
popular California destinations while enjoying foods prepared
by celebrity chef Charlie Ayers. Ayers created and
revolutionized the food program at Google which became the most
talked about and envied employee cafe in Silicon Valley.

This free public event which brings a taste of Tinseltown to
T.O., celebrates California Style - a promotion taking place in
602 LCBO stores across Ontario until May 25.

With the strength of the Canadian dollar, let's hope that the selection goes up and the prices go way down!

Vintages - April 26th Release

Vintage Assessments has the PDF for this weekends release available here.

While I have been buying less wine from Vintages locations and more directly from wine agents, the following release has some interesting wines that have piqued my interest…

2006 Chateau Montelena Chardonnay (#701748, $44.95)
From Napa, Chateau Montelena is a very reliable and renowned winery. This chardonnay is famous for having been judged the top white wine in the now famous Judgment of Paris tasting in 1976 beating out some of the best white burgundies available at the time.

2005 Nicolas Potel Meursault Vielles Vignes (#67850, $39.95)
Allen Meadows of Burghound.com fame gives this wine high praise calling it "Outstanding! Top value". It sounds like it is approachable and enjoyable right now.

2006 Perrin Reserve Côtes du Rhone Blanc (#499509, $14.95)
The owners of Chateau de Beaucastel have a very impressive portfolio from throughout the Rhone valley. I haven't tried this wine, but for $15, I'll give it a try. It could prove to be a great summer quaffer for the patio. Rhone wines are typically blends and this is 50% Grenache blanc, 20% Viognier, and the rest Marsanne and Roussanne according to Robert Parker's review.

2005 Chimney Rock Cabernet Sauvignon (#731810, $51.95)
I haven't had anything from Chimney Rock in several years, but it is very good to see this in our market-of-little-choice. Chimney Rock has a beautiful winery off of Silverado Trail in Napa and inspired by Cape Dutch architecture. The wines are bordeaux styled and $51.95 seems like a very good price for this wine as it appears to be more expensive south of the 49th.

2005 Kaiken Malbec (#58339, $14.95)
Argentina has really made Malbec the national grape. The high end offers, big, complex and age worthy wines. The lower end offer up a lot of early drinking enjoyment with wonderful dark fruit.. I've never tried this one, but it received a solid review from The Wine Advocate, especially given the price point. It could be a great BBQ wine this summer. Could Malbec start to wine over the Aussie Shiraz crowd?

2005 Château Le Doyenné (#61739, $25.95)
The 2005 Bordeaux is arriving and this looks like a solid wine designed to offer early drinking pleasure. From what I can tell from Robert Parker's review, it's mostly Merlot (70%) and was considered to be a "sleeper of the vintage".

2005 Clos Saint Jean Châteauneuf du Pape Tradition (#70888, $45.95)
It's a top scoring wine from Châteauneuf du Pape. That's good enough for me ;)

COC Wine Auction at Crush last night

This is just a quick note to mention that the Canadian Opera Company fine wine auction was a fun way to spend a couple of hours last night.

The place was buzzing in the newly renovated Crush Wine Bar and there was plenty of staff and organizers around to efficiently get registered and find something to eat and drink. The silent auction was downstairs and having the actual bottles on display behind the auction sheets was a very nice touch as it allowed you to examine the bottles before bidding.

The crew from the Ritchies Auction house was there, led by Stephen Ranger, who presided over the auction. As always, Stephen was funny and kept things moving nicely, even over the noise from the people that were there purely to socialize ;-)

As for the auction, the selection was quite impressive, but alas, there weren't many deals to be had.

2008 California Wine Fair in Toronto

The 2008 California Wine Fair is coming to the Royal York in Toronto on April 28, 2008.

Tickets are $65 (or $60 if you are a wine club member - I'm not sure what club that is).

I downloaded the participants spreadsheet to see who would be pouring at the event. I'm interested because having lived in California for many years, I'm always eager to find my favourites up here - most of which are rarely offered.

It's a rather large list, but here are the wineries that stick out for me…

Arrowood - Richard (aka Dick) Arrowood is a legend in the story of the the CA wine scene and they continue to fashion exceptional, balanced wines.

Bonny Doon Vineyard - Fun wines with lots of character and a great attitude.

Chateau St.Jean - Another great Sonoma producer. Be sure to call it "Jeeene", not "Jaun" though.

Chimney Rock Winery - Great wines from Stags Leap and if you like Cape Dutch style architecture, be sure to visit the winery!

Etude - A really great supplier of Cabs and their Pinot is quite nice as well. Lots to choose from this quality producer.

Heitz Wine Cellars - Another historic Napa winery. Their wines have become quite expensive though and hard for me to justify.

Newton Vineyard - produces one of the most intense and ageworthy Chardonnays in CA

Rosenblum Cellars - If you like Zinfandel, you cannot miss tasting from Rosenblum!

Tandem Winery - A Central Coast Pinot producer with some excellent vineyards to choose from.

Testarossa Vineyards - another great Central Coast producer with some great Pinots

Vine Cliff Winery - we had a very nice visit at Vine Cliff several years ago and it would be worth checking in to see how their wines have evolved.

The full list is much larger than this of course and I've simply pulled out those wineries that I've had personal experience with. The point of these tastings is to explore and find new favourites of course!

I'm not sure if I'll be going though even though it looks like a very strong event.

Canadian Opera Company - Auction Catalogue Posted

The Canandian Opera Company has posted the auction catalogue for the both the silent and live auction for the upcoming auction.

The catalogue can be found on their main site or click here for the PDF.

Canadian Opera Company - Fine Wine Auction

The Canadian Opera Company's annual fine wine auction is scheduled for Thursday, April 17, 2008 and is being held at Crush Restaurant.

I haven't been to this auction before but ordered my tickets today. Tickets cost $35. Here's a snippet from the COC website.

Whether you are looking for an investment or for pure drinking pleasure, the COC’s Fine Wine Auction has something for everyone. The auction continues to attract wine enthusiasts who are eager to bid on the impressive collection of exquisite and hard-to-find wines from private cellars, in addition to a selection of dinners, trips and more. Sample fine wines, and indulge in an array of delicacies courtesy of The Cheese Boutique, while taking part in the auction.

Details and a link to buy tickets online can be found here. No word on the auction catalogue yet.

Wine Confidential on CBC

Last night, the CBC aired a surprisingly interesting 1 hour special dedicated to fine wine in full HD. The show was called Wine Confidential and featured interviews from Robert Parker (when he was up here last year for the Halpern tastings), Gary Vanderchuck (Wine Library TV), winemakers in France, California and Ontario including Dan Ackryod and The Greedy One (No. 99 wine - sorry, couldn't resist the jab despite the good work that profits from this winery deliver).

I was impressed how much was covered and there was enough interest to keep a couple of wine geeks entertained.

Sean Thackery is quite a character guided by some interesting historic text books.

Ange & pax of iYellow Wine Club fame enjoyed lots of airtime too.

Lots of interesting characters and wonderful HD footage. The industrial production of Two Buck Chuck was a huge gut check for me.

The CBC has posted a stream of the entire episode here.

I found it particularly funny that this morning the morning crew at Q107 was talking up the show and how wine is gaining in roads with the beer drinking guys of the world.

Congrats to the CBC. It's hard to balance the interests of the broad prime time audience with those of wine geeks. They pulled it off.

March Classics Collection

It's been pretty quiet of late, but Vintages has announced the March Classics catalogue…

The much heralded 2005 Vintage of Burgundy features several Faiveley and Jadot selections. Expensive yes, indeed.

It's quite a packed list actually with many interesting options from Northern & Southern Rhone, Alsace, Champagne, Languedoc, Spain, Piedmont, Tuscany, Australia and even South Africa. The Bordeaux and California collection isn't thrilling.

GÉRARD BERTRAND CHÂTEAU L’HOSPITALET 2003 looks very interesting to me. The past bottles I've had from Gérard Bertrand have been fantastic!

The 2005 release of Le Clos Jordanne is listed as well.

UPDATE (May 9, 2008): Just heard from Le Clos Jordanne confirming my order from last year. Sounds like they had significant difficulty with the bureaucracy that our wonderful province puts wineries through.

I'm pretty I was upset with Le Clos Jordanne. Despite attending an invitation only event last year and putting in order requests at the time, there's been no communication about whether I will be offered anything so I have no clue if I'm better to try and get from Vintages. This is a winery that seems to be at the top of their wine making game, but at the very bottom of customer service. Restaurants and the LCBO are clearly a much higher priority to them than building a great, direct relationship with enthusiastic consumers. Oh well, there's always Hidden Bench!

2005 Union Des Grands Crus de Bordeaux

Vintages hosted members of the Union des Grands Crus de Bordeaux for a tasting of the much hyped 2005 vintage. This event was held at the Four Seasons with decent, but far from complete representation from both right and left banks.

I find it very hard to taste such young, tannic block busters so it's no surprise that the Merlot-dominated wines from St. Emillion and Pomerol showed so well. That said, there's no denying that there are some very exceptional wines coming from 2005.

Here's how I grouped the wines that I tasted last night, in the order of my preference - i.e. Angélus is WOTN.

Favourite & Wow Wines 96+ (with potential for perfection in time)
Château Angélus - most velvety, pure, intense, massively constructed
Château Troplong Mondot - amazing fruit intenstity and nice underlying earthiness
Château Pape Clément - lots of red and blue fruits and bit of a spicy kick
Château Pavie-Macquin - very broad shoulders but empeccable - almost chewy
Château Larcis Ducasse - as dark as the Pavie-Macquin and just as delicious

Would love to have in my cellar 93-95
Château Canon-La-Gaffelière
Château Beau-Séjour Bécot
Château Pichon-Longueville
Château Smith Haut-Lafitte
Château Branaire-Ducru

Clearly excellent, harder to evaluate this young 91-93
Château Gruaud Larose
Château Figeac
Château Léoville Barton
Château Léoville Poyferré
Château Talbot
Château Lascombes
Château La Conseillante - slightly off putting raisin notes on the nose
Château Clinet
Château Canon
Clos Fourtet

Quite nice but didn't really stand out
Château La Lagune
Château Lynch-Bages - sigh - another year that LB will not make it to my cellar
Château Petit-Village
Château Clarke
Château de Fieuzal