Tag: White

Tasting

It must have been clove, but it’s over now: Speed Wine Tasting at WBC16

Posted on by Josh

I used to love the hectic clusterfuck of the two Wine Bloggers Conference speed tasting events, each involving twenty or so different tables and winery principals that rotate tables every five minutes for a total of ten sessions. Every micro-meeting involves at least a pour of a wine followed by a spiel, while we each have to: absorb as much information as we can; taste and take notes; desperately yell out questions as if the internet doesn’t exist; take blurry bottle shots; and perhaps come up with a witty tweet.

I’ve mostly given up on giving my 110% on the whole shebang, but hey: I tried. Newcomers to the conference were all “well, this isn’t so bad!” I side-eyed in tacit protest but actually mostly agreed.… read more

Tasting

Rosé? For spring? Groundbreaking.

Posted on by Josh

Seminar led by the Wine Diva, but I’m quoting diva Meryl Streep, obviously. If you didn’t get that reference then why are we even friends? But really: I would wholeheartedly pair The Devil Wears Prada with a Loire wine. You’d need something light – maybe aloof – yet cutting, and dry. Also, that movie turns 10 this year? What?

I’ve once again come a little too underdressed for such an event, but I can’t help it because it’s muggy, sunny, and I like mesh a little too much. Cool off with Loire wines? Probably one of the favourite French areas of from last year’s Europe trip. My wallet cried.

Anyways, I think my main point here is that people need to get excited about weird Chenin Blanc and elegant light reds. … read more

Life · Quaffing · Tasting

24 wines for turning 24

Posted on by Josh

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

Tasting

“1000 Years in Tuscany”: Getting Sangio-crazy with Barone Francesco Ricasoli

Posted on by Josh

I was never really a history buff in high school. What I did, though, was take all of the sciences and maths unnecessarily earlier than I needed to, during, which I hate to admit, the coinciding apogee of the Big Bang Theory. I once took pride in every comparison to Leonard Hofstadter I received in university – which was purely from a fashion standpoint, of course – because I realized how dull I found quantum mechanics. Cringeworthy half-stories aside, I really mean to say that I’ve totally reversed: I’ve started to appreciate history in general as I got deeper into wine, and sometimes it’s such a shame that having serious game plans to taste wines means I have to skip principals and their stories.… read more

Tasting

12 other white Italian grapes for when you’re over Pinot Grigio

Posted on by Josh

It’s clear that we’ve taken a departure from the experimental seminars of 2015’s Australia to the tacit themes of longevity and traditionalism of 2016’s theme of Italy for the Vancouver International Wine Festival. It’s expected that the colossal tasting room is skewed towards the stars of Tuscany, Piedmont, and Veneto, so this leaves the underdogs few and far between. There is not one Dolcetto (yeah I know: who cares) nor one pearl-clutching Franciacorta being poured during the whole festival, nor are there enough Montepulciano for me to make a terrible d’Ab(ruzzo) joke, so last year’s boner for Australian Touriga Nacional would have to be partially satiated by a seminar on all things white and distinctively not Pinot Grigio. I often find the whites of Italy frustratingly subtle – which probably says more about my taste above anything else – but this’ll be a nice opportunity to break things down past this pigeonhole.… read more

Tasting

A bored ho tastes Bordeaux (2013)

Posted on by Josh

bordeaux2013

Bordeaux is in a bit of a tough spot at the moment – which isn’t saying much – but it’s far from being an underdog: Eric Asimov discusses this in a New York Times article in May 2010. The region in question once simultaneously exuded both normalcy and the unattainable; a seemingly conventional gateway wine to all other wines, yet having this aura of hubris and higher social status. But now that so many more wines are available, and with a new generation seeking wines that are anything but normal, it seems that less people are raising their hands for the classic French region. But I mean hey: people still whore out special bottles of Bordeaux for likes on Instagram, and a blog post on the mass-produced Mouton Cadet 2012, for some reason, is quite statistically popular.… read more

Tasting

Evolve Cellars

Posted on by Josh

Three things immediately come to mind when I hear the word “evolve”: Pokemon, Digimon, and evolutionary biology. My childhood aside, let’s add Evolve Cellars to the shortlist for a potential fourth: my favourites among this Summerland quartet are the heftier rosé and red that seem to go against the predictable BC pattern of interchangeable off-dry rosés and the oft-disjointed reds. The red of the vintage prior to the current release won a gold medal at the 2015 BC Wine Awards; the wine’s birth was crafted by Lawrence Buhler, winemaker. Huzzah.

The whites, though, along with the rosé, are part of Evolve’s very first vintage release, the grapes being sourced from the Sundial Vineyard on the Black Sage Bench in Oliver, probably attributing the rounder, denser versions of the grapes.… read more

Life · Quaffing · Tasting

2015 ends and 2016 trends

Posted on by Josh

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

Quaffing

Fetească Albă: the Eastern European grape that means “white young girl”

Posted on by Josh

jidvei…according to Wine Grapes.

Originally, I wanted something slutty and decadently atypical like the strawberry jam that is the Meiomi Pinot Noir. I’m ditching a warm mouth blanket for what could possibly be an angular wine, but really, my motivation is that I want to spend $13 instead of $30. Also: diving into the alcoholic unknown. Yes.

My books tell me that Fetească Albă probably originated in the historic region of Moldavia; that it produces small, thin-skinned berries; and that it produces wines that are soft, with Muscat-like aromas of apricots, peaches, and spice. It’s mostly grown in eastern Europe, producing wines that can lack character. Romania, where this particular wine is from, has two different varieties of Fetească: Albă (e.g.… read more

Life · Quaffing · Tasting · Travel

Barcelona: Cava to end the Saga

Posted on by Josh

Spoiler alert: my few days in Spain were better than my two and a half weeks in France. Sorry, France. I was rooting for you, we were all rooting for you. #BeQuietTiffany

Our hostel was superior to the one in Paris: Erin and I helped cook dinner one night, we met a Canadian from Edmonton, and we made a cab driver go through McDonalds after a hostel-hosted bar-hopping session that eventually ended on a club next to a beach. And then drinking on said beach, which was a reaaaaal big blur. Have you ever drunkenly told someone they look like Ygritte from Game of Thrones way too many times?

There’s a story later that night involving myself ejecting the Devil’s Liquids from my soul, but let’s just summarize here and say that I fucking covered that up better than all of the Desperate Housewives would have, combined.… read more