Tag: Sauvignon Blanc

Quaffing

Dad blinds me on some wine

Posted on by Josh

What does it mean when you’re at a coffee shop, sitting at the window, glancing at the outside world as a lively background to illustrated maps of Italy on your computer, when people walk by and do a double take as they see you? Either I’m particularly handsome today or I’m off my game either today or always. Or I’m radiantly ugly or whatever.

But yes. It’s been a productive day of studying northern and central Italy, mapping out the budding and ripening nuances of the numerous grapes, matching up soil types to regions, and learning about the wines. Dreadful. I love Italy, but it’s basically like untangling a really big bowl of spaghetti. It’s fun, sans the history-laden parts, which – yes – I know are super important, but I’m just tossing those parts aside until later when I really want to fall asleep or something.… read more

WSET Diploma

When life gives you rot, make it noble: Château Coutet Sauternes-Barsac 2000

Posted on by Josh

Château Coutet Sauternes-Barsac 2000[Tasted during WSET Diploma – Unit 3 – Week 3: Bordeaux]

I was in the middle of tasting the first three wines in our second flight when I saw the instructor pouring the first bits of the fourth wine into her own glass. Bordeaux class, so Sauternes, unquestionably.

Yeah, gurl.

How often do you get to try one of the most prized dessert wines of the world? I’m not bragging, because all we get is a wee dram enough for tasting, and God knows I’m poor as fuck from WSET diploma tuition, anyways. This is as close as it gets, except for that time I knocked over my boss’s glass of Château d’Yquem. It shattered all over the floor and in perceived slow motion, I’m sure.… read more

WSET Diploma

Butterscotch, pineapple, and toasted coconut: Château Carbonnieux Blanc Pessac-Léognan 2010

Posted on by Josh

Château Carbonnieux Blanc Pessac-Léognan 2010[Tasted during WSET Diploma – Unit 3 – Week 3: Bordeaux]

White bordeaux lives in the shadow of its red parallels as well as its sweet counterparts: some consumers are unaware that Bordeaux even makes whites, which makes sense given the whole lucrative hubbub of the region for its reds. That being said, what’s in the market for whites can roughly be split into two camps: there are the more honeyed and oaked white Bordeaux where Sauvignon Blanc lays integrated within the tropical butterscotch, and then there are the modern blends dominated with Sauvignon Blanc which seem like responses to the popular gaudy styles from the new world. This wine lays deliciously in the former checkbox.

The wine is most definitely oaked, but without the buttery texture of a white Burgundy – it has upfront butterscotch and toasted coconut notes, but fruit is much more tropical and honeyed, and acidity is still on the high end.… read more

WSET Diploma

The quietest Sancerre that ever was: 2012 Pascal Cotat “Les Monts Damnés” Sancerre

Posted on by Josh

2011 Pascal Cotat "Les Monts Damnés" Sancerre[Tasted during WSET Diploma – Unit 3 – Week 2: Loire Valley]

The previous wine in this flight was a juicy and exuberant Loire Sauvignon Blanc. This second wine was the complete opposite, with super-restrained flavours hiding behind a shield of acid and maybe just a hint of texture. Everyone and I thought this was a Muscadet, which is a Loire wine made from the super-neutral Melon de Bourgogne grape. The grape is moulded into a textured and yeasty wine by processes involving storing the wine over fine lees (dead yeast cells), so all of it made sense, and almost everyone thought this was one of acceptable to good quality – lifeless but satisfactory.

So it turns out this was a 63-dollar wine from a well-reputed producer.… read more

WSET Diploma

Coteaux du who Sancerre what?: 2011 Henri Bourgeois “Terre de Fumée” Coteaux du Giennois

Posted on by Josh

2011 Henri Bourgeois "Terre de Fumée" Coteaux du Giennois

[Tasted during WSET Diploma – Unit 3 – Week 2: Loire Valley]

Second sesh of Unit 3 and we get Sauv Blanc in the first of our flight again, and despite how obvious the grape can seem, I always seem to slip it up. I thought it was some really weird Muscadet at first – which is inherently neutral – but then I went back to this one after smelling the second wine and I shamefully crossed out my first guess.

Coteaux du Giennois is down there with Quincy, Reuilly, and Menetou-Salon as the forgotten hard-to-pronounce children of the Central Vineyards in the Loire, overshadowed by the better-known and much more fashionable Sancerre and Pouilly-Fumé. Coteaux du Giennois is one of those extras you never think you’re gonna come across – so much that I didn’t bother taking notes on this area during my big Loire marathon last week – but hey: it turns out one or two of these wines exist in our market.… read more

WSET Diploma

Untuned Violin: 2011 Château Grand Renom Bordeaux Blanc

Posted on by Josh

2011 Château Grand Renom Bordeaux Blanc[Tasted during WSET Diploma – Unit 3 – Week 1]

Inaugural WSET Diploma Unit 3 wine! In other words, it’s the wine that begins the descent into the most tortuous unit of the whole shindig. The first sip has sealed the deal and I feel like I’ve sold my soul to the devil. What have I done?!

Sauvignon Blanc is such a gettable grape that it almost freaks me out that it didn’t come to me on the first sniff. Simple minerals and citrus, I thought, so this must be a run-of-the-mill white bread Pinot Grigio from Italy. Luckily the two other white wines in the flight were distinct – from the baked apple and oaky glass of the second, to the soft floral lychee of the third – so when I came back to the first wine the typical greenness was a little more evident.… read more

Tasting

Wine Bloggers Conference 2014 – Speed Tasting i.e. Tinder for Wines

Posted on by Josh

Speed tasting. It’s one of the unique events of the Wine Bloggers Conference that’s always explained to you if you’ve never heard of the WBC before, kind of like the warning nod of the hangover to the newly legal. It’s always described as “speed dating but with wine” – though in this case, it’s only a one-way road of looking at your date in disgust. So there’s a plus, and it’s sort of like a Tinder swipe-left-or-right sort of situation.

In the essence of the Live Wine Blogging event, you have 50 minutes to taste through 10 wines. In each 5-minute session, the winery representative pours you wine and gives you a bit of a quick overview before moving on to the next table.… read more

Quaffing

Loras Tyrell, the Knight of Flowers: 2010 Kettle Valley Semillon Sauvignon Blanc

Posted on by Josh

Tasting Note:

Eyes: clear, med lemon, legs
Nose: clean, med+ intensity, youthful, herbal, grassy, floral, ripe grapefruit, citrus rind, hint honey, hint butterscotch, nectarine, lemon
Mouth: dry, full body, med+ acid, med+ alcohol, long length, med+ to pronounced intensity, ripe grapefruit, nectarine, mineral, citrus, lemon, citrus rind, honey, savoury
All in all: Good (to very good) quality: the wine gains points for intensity in flavour and texture, while length is also a plus. The wine lacks a bit of alcoholic balance. Drink now, but has potential for short-term ageing.

2010 Kettle Valley Semillon Sauvignon BlancAn interesting day deserves interesting wine. Or does it, because it’s 10PM on a Saturday and all I want to do is be boring and sleep. I’m an exciting 22-year-old.

I had tried this exact wine for the first time just two days beforehand, and I remember it being fantastic.… read more

Life · Tasting

2014 Vancouver International Wine Festival – Wine Tour de France Seminar

Posted on by Josh

This year’s wine fest kicked off with me doing the blind tasting challenge on the Wednesday – the rest of my day consisted of lunch with colleagues, errands involving heavy lifting, and then seeing the new Lego movie. I didn’t get as much sleep as I wanted, which is an obvious call for trouble: the next day started off with a France-themed tasting at 9:30AM; the big, busy, and irritating trade tasting at 2:30PM; and an exciting Bourgogne-themed tasting at 5PM. A day full of constant mouth stimuli.

Since this was one of the trade tastings (opposed to a consumer one), there were lots of familiar faces. But I shamelessly admit that any human interaction is personally difficult and gruelling before 11AM (or maybe I’m just a naturally horrible human being), and so I sat down on one of the seats, smiled at the 12 glasses in front of me, got my notebook ready, and did my best not to spill anything.… read more

Life · Tasting

I suck at wine: 2014 VIWF Blind Tasting Challenge

Posted on by Josh

My 2014 Vancouver International Wine Festival activities begun on Wednesday! Insert majestic trumpet sounds here.

I was really scared for the Blind Tasting Challenge (at the Pacific Culinary Institute of Arts) on said morning . This mostly meant barely being able to keep my breakfast in my stomach, listening to Glee’s rendition of “Don’t Rain on My Parade” on repeat for high energy (do you hate me yet?), and then thinking that coffee was a bad idea. A classmate saw me looking at the water as I was listening to music and taking refreshing winter breaths of Granville Island air – she was just as nervous as I, but another classmate told us we were more jittery and nervous than we needed to be.… read more