Life · Quaffing · Tasting

24 wines for turning 24

This post serves two purposes: a sincere smile-and-nod to the 23rd year of my life, and a spring cleaning wine dump of, coincidentally, a number of bottles that equals the number of anniversaries since I was pushed out of my mother. Alas. The past prime number of a year has been good to me, and I’m stoked for the next. Beyond this whole becoming-an-adult thing, I’ve done many things including completing the WSET Diploma (i hate to keep mentioning about it – but perhaps the youngest in BC to do so!), changing jobs, travelling to New York, travelling to France, travelling to Spain, and other things that would probably be best not to put on the internet. Heh.

And home. Oh God – connecting to your roots and family – sometimes I dig myself way too deep into wine culture and its countries that I forget where I come from.… read more

Life · Quaffing · Tasting

2015 ends and 2016 trends

I’m a bit late to this #bye2015hello2016 stuff! Anyways, I’ve said it way too many times than you care to read: I’m not big on New Year’s resolutions. But this is the first year where reflecting and looking forward to the next year has felt the least forced. Despite my abrupt and perhaps ephemeral positivity, I won’t be superimposing any fortune cookie pieces of advice onto filtered landscapes anytime soon – March seems to be my I-fucking-hate-everything downfall month anyway, so we’ll see how much my outlook relapses.

joshlikeswine2015

At the beginning of 2015, I made the tongue-in-cheek resolution to be a bit more selfish: to not to be guilt-ridden about having a balanced serving of things that make me happy and to give less of a shit about what other people think.… read more

Life · Tasting

2014 Vancouver International Wine Festival – Wine Tour de France Seminar

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

Quaffing

Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen: 2012 Château d’Aydie “Odé d’Aydie” Blanc Sec

Tasting Note:

Eyes: clear, pale lemon, legs
Nose: clean, med+ intensity, youthful, mineral, apricots, vanilla, spice, citrus, floral, cardamom, hint of pineapple, honeydew, nuttiness, primarily stone fruit with some tropical
Mouth: dry, med+ body, med acid, med+ flavour intensity, high alcohol, mineral, peach, apricot, apricot pith, lemon zest, honeydew, floral, med+ length, savoury finish, savoury spice, gummy bears
All in all: Good quality: though the strong minerality almost overtakes the fruit on the palate, there is a fresh perkiness despite the expected fuller body. The alcohol is slightly hot but the character is intense. Drink now; not suitable for ageing.

2012 Château d'Aydie "Odé d'Aydie" Blanc SecNever have I ever had the pure expressions of the Manseng twins in a bottle of wine, mostly because you can’t find these guys in this market.… read more

Quaffing

2010 Alain Brumont Gros Manseng – Sauvignon Blanc

Tasting Notes:

Eyes: clear, med lemon
Nose: clean, med+ intensity, youthful, mineral, pink grapefruit, citrus, nuances of stone fruit, slight grassiness
Mouth: dry, med+ acid, med bodied, med- length, med alcohol, med+ intensity, tart citrus explosion, mineral
All in all: Good quality; drink now.

Unpopular opinion, but I mostly hate Halloween. I mean, it’s nice to hang out with friends, eat candy, carve pumpkins, and eat pumpkin-flavoured things, but seeing drunk-ass half-dressed teenagers à la Mean Girls gets tiring, annoying, and mind-grating, and all I want to do on Halloween is lock myself in my room and do homework. Of course that all changes when you go on Facebook seeing everyone have fun but you, and you wish you weren’t such a bitter old man stuck in a college-boy’s body.… read more