poppy hill cabernet sauvignon 2005

Without diving too deeply into the political dramatics of the wine industry in British Columbia, our wines are savagely subjected to a 126% tax. This makes it difficult for me to justify the forking over of dollars without the following guilt of doing so thereafter. I use to live my life by sitting in the shallow gut of the gluttonous moment, but now not only does my conscience not allow for such hedonism, but I can’t fathom to financially forfeit my palate to the mercy of our province.

When in New York last fall, I felt a heavy sense of injustice when comparing their prices with ours of the same bottles. I laughed it off and carried on but the feeling of betrayal remained. It’s at least comforting to know that there is a collective group of passionate people in BC who are attempting to motivate change within the system. Our audacious prices certainly don’t mean that I’m brimming my basket with 2L bottles of barely BBQ worthy wine, but have instead altered my behavior by adjusting my budget creatively. My monetary goal is to hover beneath the $25 mark.

Last week, I craved a browbeater and so drove through the rural roads of South Point to visit Liberty, a wine shop on 152nd Street. I was drawn to an ‘05 Poppy Hill Cabernet Sauvignon from Napa Valley, despite the associate describing it as drab by stating it as being solely balanced. I was pleasantly surprised to discover the contrary. I kid you not, I tasted peat. Although I commonly taste smoke in wine, never have I had something that was so reminiscent of scotch. It was full-bodied and also carried charatertistics of chocolate, cassis and hay.

You know what? I loved it. At $24.99, it barely broke even, but it ignited my interest and left me to ponder it for some time thereafter.

apples & americanos

Photo courtesy of Tracy Collins

All the words ever written about New York weigh heavy in humility against the ones written here, but the way that I saw the city was exclusive to the emotions that evolved within it. They are my own.

It was my first visit by way of an invitation that became intimate through a mind free from expectation & in liberation to explore. I arrived at 6am & driven directly to Brooklyn, to a short & sweet love affair with a loft at 66 Water Street in DUMBO. I had made only one request in that my introduction to the city was genuine in discovery of its hidden gems.

Our first destination was The Standard Grill in the Meatpacking District, where we sat at the raw bar & had a buoyant lunch consisting of beefy oysters & crisp, gin cocktails with lime. I left my seat in search of a bathroom, where I discovered several crates of apples stacked against a cornered wall & took two for our walk over to the Highline. The sun was then beginning to sulk & its reflection against the buildings made for an illuminating transition of metallic colors. As the evening evolved, we agreed on The Vinegar Hill House for dinner, which ignited my curiosity after reading Frank Bruni’s review on it in the New York Times. I was sold – both aesthetically through its online presence & by the agrarian foods of which it promised. The wine list inflicted a slight sense of temptation also. & so we went, but departed without dinner or drinks as it was too crowded, too loud & too long of a wait for us to linger. One to reserve for a repeat rendez-vous in the city. The end destination of the evening was ideal: a split medium-rare burger of blue cheese & caramelized onions at Maggie Brown’s.

Saturday was a subtle day with a sun as warm & sweet as one seen in the first week of October. I was lucky. We grabbed two americano’s from The Coffee Box & jumped on the subway for another slew of stops to Brown Café. We ordered baked eggs with tomatoes, asparagus & manchego, & a quiche with roasted peppers, caramelized leeks & gruyere. A nostalgically charming restaurant with gracious service & a gratifying meal – I could not have asked for better out of my brunch. We broke away from the Lower East Side & uptown towards the MoMA for the Bauhaus exhibit. I could not cultivate any chemistry from the first phase of the exhibit, which bore a manifestation of medieval structures & framed textiles hanging from walls. I was done in finally once arriving at the influence of Mies van der Rohe at Bauhaus. I adore him & admire the direction in which he diverted architecture to at that time.

The remainder of the afternoon was draped over time, consenting to its stillness while we lounged shamelessly in Sheep’s Meadow. Yes, it was as sickly sweet as it sounds & I loved every moment of it. We walked over to The Boathouse in Central Park, which boasts a Bostonian feel with its wooden structure, predominantly leather décor & a football game gleaming tactfully in a corner overhead. We sat at the bar & ordered two gin martinis & a dessert plate of cheese, fruit & crisp bread. Forget about the diluted disappointments that I often get in Vancouver & welcome well-made & aggressive martinis that are forceful to the senses. One was always enough, although we didn’t always stop there.

I fell in love with Blanc & Rouge in Brooklyn, where immediately upon entering, felt betrayed by British Columbia both in terms of cost & selection. Intimate & nonchalant with chill & knowledgeable service. Throughout the four days, we bought a 2007 Guidobono Nebbiolo, a 2007 Poppy Pinot Noir from Monterey County & a 2007 Petit Sirah from the North Coast. All different, delicious & under $20 USD. The loft is also blessed with Jacques Torres, & so we would occasionally select a variety of chocolates to attend to with the wine. Life, she is hard. You have to bury yourself in these moments when you get the chance & bury beautifully I did.

The minimal maintenance of calories from the chocolate cultivated cravings for sushi & sake, which lead us to the Blue Ribbon in Brooklyn. We ordered a wooden box of cold Junmai with hints of pear & a scattered selection of sashimi & rolls. It was ignorant of me to believe that Vancouver probably does sushi best next to Japan.

Sunday morning started with the Farmer’s Market in Brooklyn, where we bought two apples & a black Russian rye with raisins & walnuts. Placed perfectly next door was the Brooklyn Flea, where I decided that I need never to shop anywhere else but there. I think I may have actually started skipping. Grand Central Station & the train to Garrison came thereafter. An hour traveling through New York & for what felt like skimming across the Hudson River in the sunset, we arrived & made dinner of a Warm Salmon Salad Niçoise for Stefan Boublil, his wife, Gina & their two adorable kids, Leelo & Zoel. We sipped on Dolcetto & Nebbiolo whilst discussing the various dimensions of life.

It was cold & cloudy on my last day there, which felt appropriate for the occasion. Back at the loft, lunch was simple & shared with silky slices of San Daniele over Petit Sirah & a following americano. En route to the airport, we stopped to have dinner at Luze, where we sat at the bar & shared a trio ceviche, an entraña & our final gin martini together.

I was surprised to have had all my stereotypes shattered so swiftly. I thank my gracious boyfriend for averting me towards an angle of New York that is both raw & intrinsic in its being. New York City is a beautiful beast.

la stella & le vieux pin / 2009

Photos Courtesy of Degan Beley

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La Stella & Le Vieux Pin, the sister wineries to the mother of Enotecca Winery & Resorts, are both situated in the Okanagan region of British Columbia. Through meticulous methods of viticulture, their processes in production have progressed by way of blending both a traditional winemaking style with techniques used in consideration of the region in which their grapes yield to.

Back in August of this year, I had my first taste of La Stella at an open house event held in Yaletown. While sipping away & swaying slightly, I realized suddenly that the weakness in my knees was not the result of intoxication, but rather the culmination of a developing crush for their wines. & with my mood melting in with the music of both the on-site cellist & violinist, it was easy to see how my senses were swayed. In all, my best-loved bottle of the night was the 2006 Maestoso Merlot.

I was invited out to but unfortunately missed the harvest season for both these wineries, but will be staying at La Stella & visiting Le Vieux Pin for New Year’s Eve & until the first few days of January. In the meantime, I received a recap in development details for both La Stella & Le Vieux Pin for 2009 that I wanted to share with you here.

La Stella

• increased the use of larger format barrels (400-500 & 1000 litre puncheons) for the aging of the reds (in accordance with Italian & especially, Tuscan winemaking traditions)

• increased the use of non-French oak barrels. We now have a healthy number of Eastern European, Hungarian & Slovenian oak barrels for aging our reds (again, in accordance with the Tuscan wines)

• first time that we (or anyone in the Okanagan) is doing a Moscato d’Asti style wine from the Moscato Bianco (with small amounts of Ottonel & Orange Muscat). This wine will be slightly frizzante, with a lower alcohol percentage (around 10% or under) & just off-dry

• harvested Sangiovesse (both Grosso & Piccolo clone) from two separate vineyards. Fermentation finished & the resulting wine looks promising

• made an unoaked Chardonnay excusively from the oldest Chardonnay vines planted in the Okanagan, which were planted by a previous grower & has been in the hands of the Olivier Combret family since 1991. We leased the entire lot of the old vine Chardonnay planted on the complex soils of his vineyard in the upper parts of the Golden Mile. Some schist & shale have been noticed in the soil there (exciting soil component that is rare in our region)

• first release of a non-single grape varietal wine from either of our two wineriesto date: 2007 Fortissimo: an Okanagan red blend that is inspired by the super Tuscans. Merlot, Cab, Cab Franc (in future vintages to have Sangiovesse) fermented & aged according to the Tuscan tradition

Le Vieux Pin

• made two styles of Chardonnay exclusively from the oldest Chardonnay vines planted in the Okanagan, which were planted by a previous grower & have been in the hands of the Olivier Combret family since 1991. We bought the entire lot off the old vine Chardonnay planted on the complex soils of his vineyard in the upper parts of the Golden Mile. Some schist & shale have been noticed in the soil there (exciting soil component that is rare in our region). One was picked much earlier & fermented ala Chablis, while the other batch was more southern Côte-d’Or inspired with barrel ferment; malolactic & aging in barrel

• significant & huge news is that in 2009 we did not make any Pinot Noir & made only very small amounts of Merlot that might not even be released as a single varietal & instead, go into a blend of our second label: Petit Le Vieux Pin. We still did thirty cases amount of Cab Franc, but our focus was & probably in the future will be on one grape: Syrah or Shiraz

• we received Syrah from seven different vineyards, fermented & aging separately. This is the first time, we believe, that this has been done in the Okanagan. We have fruit from places like Cawston to various vineyards in Osoyoos, Golden Mile, Black Sage Bench & north of Oliver. We received Syrah from many different clones, soil types, exposures & elevations. All the yields across the line were three tons per acre or less with many of them around or even under one ton an acre. All premium Syrah’s. If all goes well, we’re going to have some high quality wines from this vintage for release

• we harvested & fermented small amounts of Mourvedre from two different vineyards

• we harvested & fermented a healthy batch of Roussanne all by itself and it’s looking very interesting & promising already. Again, we think that no one in the Okanagan has done Roussanne by itself in the past. We know wines that have had Roussanne as part of the blend, but not on its own

• for the first time, we experimented with fermenting in acacia barrels. We find that this wood type gives the wine honey, elder flower & unique, hard to pin point spices. We did two batches in acacia: one Sauvignon Blanc & the other a Viognier

• basically, we are now going to focus more on one or two grape varieties but do an outstanding job at them. We believe the Syrah from the South Okanagan has huge potential but only when it’s planted on the right site & harvested at low yields. It can otherwise make for an inferior & boring wine, unlike grapes like Merlot, which seem to fair well regardless of site & yields

the dirty apron cooking school

Due to Vancouver’s anti-climatic nature, I have nurtured myself to forbid the formation of expectations with newly opened establishments. I do so in hopes of minimizing the depth of my disappointment, but when a local venture unexpectedly blows me away, I can’t help but to be left highly humbled & proud.

I was even wearing my glasses when I walked to Crosstown to take a tour through the open house for The Dirty Apron, a culinary habitat for amateur gastronomers & curious professionals seeking to extend their skills in a space suitable for those with quality in mind. The school is a joint venture between Nico & Karri Schuermans of Chambar & a food stylist & former Sous-Chef of Chambar, David Robertson.

Upon entering, an energy of passionate chaos looped around me while I observed the harmony of the space. Once I collected both myself & my Chardonnay, I swayed from one room to another in admiration. The interior was designed by Kerri, who is the aesthetic brain behind both Chambar & Café Medina. The kitchen exhibits simplicity & is stocked with high-grade equipment & tools by All Clad cookware, Wusthof knives, Wolf ranges & Sub Zero fridges. Brick, beam & custom walnut cabinetry are all a part of the general retail store, which was designed with a 1920’s aristocratic feel & accessorized with culinary antiques. However, it was the dining room that truly stole me away. Victorian-style crystal chandeliers, vintage chairs & unfinished wooden tables charmed the narrow length of the room with intimacy.

There are a total of eleven classes: Knife skills, West Coast, French, Seafood, Italian, Meat, Grilling, Desserts, Chocolate, a Frugal Feast & a recreation of some of Chambar’s most popular dishes. These are all 4-hour, hands on classes, while the 2-hour demonstration classes only include French & West Coast. The majority of these are taught by Robertson & the website promises a “peppering” of local celebrity chefs. Hands-on classes are thereafter paired with wine whilst dining together after class completion.

To start, I’ll be taking the Knife Skills Class & the Contemporary West Coast Class. A further review to follow.

review: luchador shiraz 2006

My sister & I had bought this bottle in the first week on the evening of a balmy July, at the Kitsilano Wine Cellar near my apartment.

The intent of whatever wine we had chosen was to serve not only for taste, but as a dose of mind medicine, while we sat on a desolate side of the beach & dissected our distress. It was one of those nights: two synchronic slits to the heart & the natural feminine need to analyze the logic of act so to simplify its abiding emotions. It never works, but the drinking of the wine certainly plays a fine role of distraction while time lingers a long, promising a result of rejuvination..

So, the wine. It’s 5% Cabarnet Sauvignon, 60% fruit sourced from Barossa Valley & 40% from McLaren Vale. It was made by the R Winery in South Australia & imported here by Grateful Palate Imports. It was also aged for 12 months in seasoned French & American oak. At 15.5% & full-bodied, this wine was set ablaze with taste. The issue with its beefiness was that it was stylized, as if on steroids, & thus throwing it out of sorts.

The color was a heavy & dark blue-violet with a velveteen texture. Although I thought this wine had more brawn than brains, I loved its core of cedar, mocha, lavender & cassis. Its fatness also carried out a bit of black licorice & tar.

if you’re looking to get kicked in the stomach by a kangaroo carrying a pouch full of fruit, then this is most certainly the wine for you. I hold no regrets in purchasing this Shiraz, but don’t necessarily foresee it landing on my list of personal classics.

However, had I given it the chance to decant properly or cool down a slight degree, I may have had a contrastive opinion. Then again, what else should I have expected with the design of its label? Go big, or go home.

Drink now & through 2013.

$34 CDN

innis & gunn – oak aged beer

Every so often, I make it a point at being rebellious by breaking free from the permissible tangles of vines. But it becomes necessary, when something so delicious, so revolutionary & yet so simple surfaces, that there is nothing left to do but crush all your own rules with a hedonistic hammer. Such is the pleasure of Innis & Gunn.

The oak aged process of this beer was made by accidental blessing in 2002, when Dougal Sharp was commissioned by whisky producer, William Grant & Son, to infuse the bourbon barrels with a smooth character to create an ale-finished whisky. Months later, the staff at the distillery began emptying out the barrels & upon “analysis”, were astounded to discover that time between the blend of the beer & oak had entirely reformed the taste of the beer. The metamorphosis was received with delight in its discovery & thus, Innis & Gunn was born.

This first born brew matures in American white oak barrels for 77 days, resulting in a tawny taste of toffee, vanilla & citrus. It tops my list as the most delicious beer ever tasted.

To celebrate Canada Day 2009, the Scottish brewer will be releasing a limited edition of their ‘Canadian Cask’ beer, which was made using antique whisky casks, some as old as 50 years. These beers will be available in eight Canadian provinces, including my own province of British Columbia. Perhaps stereotypically so, but the prominent flavour is said to be maple, with a trace of vanilla & then rye, to give it a raisin like character with a deep, red color.

The complexity of wine, the malty structure of whisky & the classic hops of beer, produce a ménage à trois marriage that could only survive with the beer goggles provided for by this particular brew.

It’s still uncertain of what the Canadian edition beers will go for, but the originals are sold individually for $3.45 at your LDB store.

review: au petit chavignol

Vancouver, being the big, blue-eyed toddler that it still is has remained sadly sparse in its offering of cheese & wine bars. The Salt Tasting Room, which finally opened its doors a couple of years ago, has since had a gradual following with the opening of UVA Wine Bar last year. But just a few months ago I was suddenly teased by a furious buzz of words that left me full of feverish excitement: a 36-seat cheese & wine bar to open in the somewhat stark area of Vancouver at 845 East Hastings Street. &, as if I needed another reason for my heart to suddenly stop beating, I then hear that the restaurant is set to open by Alice and Allison Spurrell, the owners of les Amis du Fromage, alongside with Joe Chaput: the Duke of cheese & salami in the city. oh, Vancouver – just when I instinctively begin to glance outside of our relationship in yearning to fill the void that you constantly leave me with, here you are drawing me back in at the brink of our collapse. You’re beautiful & all, but bless you for finally realizing that I can’t eat your mountains.

A few have criticized Au Petit Chavignol’s location, in saying that the area is gritty & the restaurant displaced. Personally, I’m drawn to the more desolate & disconnected part of the city, where conformity to a district does not yet exist, & the neutrality of its neighborhood provides its visitors with the chance to focus on the food away from the distraction of trends. From layout to lighting, the restaurant is intimate & diffused of pretention. There were booths hugging tight corners of the room but I sat at the bar to subtly spy on the swarm of passionate activity.

Everything is made fresh & in-house on a daily basis. Characteristically, the food menu consists mainly of cheese but also offers home-made terrines, Iberico Ham & Prosciutto di Parma. The pleasant difference between this particular cheese & wine bar & that of any others in the city is that here they also offer soups, salads, fondue & other cheese-infused meals. I ordered a selection of cheeses from the cow (comté de montagne), goat (marcella) & sheep (pecorino brillo). The cheese, fixed in its own presence of flavor ranging from wood to aged chalky saltiness & red wine, bode well with the adequate & diverse selection of wine (by bottle or glass), & was on par with the Riesling; the obvious pet in the room. As per recommendation, I had two glasses of the German Leitz Riesling & found that it was the ideal balance between all the varying flavors on my plate.

I had plans that night already & sadly could not linger, but am already planning on re-visiting again soon. For now I remain comforted with the evidence of effort that my city is displaying & plan on holding steady for.. at least another month.

review: rolf binder hales 2006 shiraz

Oenophiles, detain your disappointment as I proudly admit that I carry a consuming crush on full-bodied, fruit-bomb wines. The types that are so chock-full of complexity that the smell of these ball-busters consolidate my senses solely to the nose immediately after opening. This might have something to do with how I often times substitute dessert for wine & may subconsciously be yearning for a similarity in taste. You see, as much as I love gorgeous pastries & other such sweets, (see: sidebar links – David Lebovitz), I have a ridiculously slow metabolism & am forced to maintain some type of balance, (sometimes). It’s torturous. I have, however, been recently laying the palate-killer grapes to rest & diversifying my selection. Just, not so much with this bottle. Tomorrow, I promise.

Naturally, what I was initially looking for was a fruit-bomb but what I really got was an Australian Shiraz variety that lingered slightly off that path with the addition of Mouvedre & Grenache. That certainly does not exclude it from being tasty & thoroughly enjoyed. It’s quite floral & bodes cayenne-like spice with a citrus edge. What hit me the most above all were jammy, dark & delicious blueberries. Lovely. Finish was long but slightly acidic. Not the best balance for me but the structure may have shifted with an hour or two in the decanter. Something I don’t use often because I’m the most Impatient Person in the World.

It’s not a legendary value-wine, but for $22 CDN at the local LDB store, it’s certainly worth a go.

therapy vineyards / naramata, british columbia

For a girl out of Europe, I have done an embarrassingly meager amount of traveling in the last.. well – undisclosed & embarrassing amount of time. I have, at least, managed to target Wine Country BC as my feature destination over the hotter months of these last two years.

A rich, rolling scenery of grapes, stretching wide across barren cliffs that tower majestically over a long, glistening lake is nothing short of spectacular to me. The drive there, for as short as it is in its five hours away from the city, is a plethora of morphing landscapes; wavering swiftly from gorgeous greenery to thirsty, desert-ridden trees. The winery & guesthouse that I stay at in Naramata, which is located on the east shore of Lake Okanagan, is called Therapy Vineyards. Let me just say first, that I love Naramata. It’s my most adored of all the communities in the Okanagan & for me offers all the isolation & charm necessary for a tranquil refuge. The air there is sultry & the energy of the land harmonious. You could not ask for a more convenient & yet contrasting escape away from the city.

I first came across the Therapy Vineyards label while purchasing their dry, fruit-driven Pink Freud rosé at Marquis Wine Cellar in Vancouver. I was drawn to their canny marketing tactic of tying in the Therapy label by illustrating Sigmund Freud in a facetious manner. Their other, more complex wines, such as the Shiraz, Pinot Noir, Merlot & Chardonnay, all bare psychoanalytical labels, by using the Rorschach Inkblot Test illustrations by asking the consumer, “What do you see in this wine?”. A marketing strategy created by Brandever.

All that aside, their tastiest bottle to touch my lips, would most certainly be the Super Ego, which is a blend of 55% Merlot, 28% Cabernet Sauvignon, 9% Cabernet Franc, 8% Shiraz. Those who know me know I like to torture my taste buds with fruit bombs & big reds. This one did no less harm. It’s sold for about $56 in private wine shops throughout Vancouver, but you can grab it for $37 on the vineyard, when they’re not sold out as they usually are.

Their guesthouse itself is totally serene & sits motionless on a cliff next to the vineyard, over-looking the water & the intertwining boaters below. Breakfast is an array of local cheeses, fruits & freshly made morning pastries. Their hot tub is sublime & I am yet to come by a better scenery to sip wine within.

The Naramata bench is scattered with gorgeous vineyards, but in terms of staying on one, this particular winery truly rephrases what therapy should really be about.

wine labels & the allure of aesthetic design

Judging a wine solely by its label is not exactly the most accurate method of delicious discovery, but I personally find it difficult to steer away from being swayed by a classically radiant, clean or witty label that harbors all the elements necessary to lure such a credulous consumer such as myself.

I’m occasionally guilty in extending the benefit of doubt to the design of a product, & invest belief in that the marriage between the wine & the bottle will balance together in a sensory success. I also generally enjoy a product that appeals to a variety of my senses & feel that it adds benefit to the entirety of the experience.

That being said, I don’t always allow myself to fall prey to the aesthetics of a wine label, but at times surrender to what my eyes first tell me. Perhaps I’m shallow that way, but in the end, I’m still drinking wine.

Frank B | Designed by Talia Cohen 

In-house design | Magnificent Wine Co.

Michael Austin | Designed by Hatch