Favorite wine variety (spam on subject)

[dragon wench]

I think we split a bottle of Rosemont Estates Shiraz when you were here. It has a wonderful blackberry finish without any sort of sweet aftertaste. Since then I have tried some from Wynns Coonawara Estate which is also very good with a light woodsy touch and no bitter or tart bite at all....

I wish I could remember the name of that wine you treated me to when I came up there....it was very good....

Mmm... yes I think that was somewhere in between many drinks of Tequila . It was very good!

Yes.. I wish I could recall the name of it too. It would have been a BC Wine, I'm pretty sure of that, because I know we tried to introduce you to as much BC wine and food as we could.

For the sake of Fable's wine thread though, I'll try to put together a list of some of my favourite BC wines. Over the last ten or so years they've become very good... I'd say they rival those from California

[Moonbiter]

Right now I'm sipping a VERY reasonable Bordeaux. It's a Chateau Saint-André Corbin 2001, and lately it's become sort of a "house wine" for me, which I pull out whenever the fireplace is going, the wind howls around the corners, and no light Italian will do. It's a great wine for big, heavy meat-based dinners, especially game meats. Tonight, fireplace-bbq'd moose fillet is on the menu. The CSAC is also a fine sipping wine for those intimate parties when you just enjoy good company and a good conversation without any distractions. It's hopeless as a "party" wine, and like almost all Bordeaux reds it's a taste experience first and a guilty pleasure later. Up here on The Reef it's in the mid-price range for Bordeaux, so I can't imagine what it would cost in the USA or Canada. Anyway, if you have chance and the cash to spend, you should definetly try it.

[Tricky]

Chardonnay and Pinot. There are some South African wines I like better, but their names are difficult to remember. Truthfully, I like most red wines better than the typical dry whites, but I can't have any or I'll go blind for short periods. They induce a typical kind of painless migraine that makes me lose eye sight.

[fable]

This isn't a thread to point out you prefer beer over wine. As the subject says, it's about wine varieties. What part of "spam on subject" do you have difficulties understanding? Off-topic posts removed.

[captainbrumble]

I basically drink whatever's 10 bucks or thereabouts.

The great news is that my doctor told me my "HDL" level is low and one way to raise it is with red wine. Then when I said "great!" he said "uh not the whole bottle or anything."

I figured a whole bottle would raise that HDL level even faster...

[fable]

Actually, no. I've read a study that suggests 4-8 ounces of red wine per day will provide both the bioflavonoid and HDL cholesterol benefits needed, but that higher quantities essentially negate this. So you're not doing yourself any favors by drinking more on a regular basis--though doing so is entirely up to you, of course.

So as this thread is about wine varieties, can you tell us what varieties of wine you drink?

[dragon wench]

I have a particular fondness for [url="http://www.vsattui.com/wines/"]Sattui[/url] wines.
They are a wonderful vineyard located in St.Helena in the Napa Valley.
In particular, I enjoy their 'older vintage wines.' They have an extremely tasty [url="http://www.vsattui.com/show/xmlsite/xml-standard.xml/xsl-vintage.xsl/start_id-ojcjmdkoicpjhacipjkjgadohmhmpnpblinkjcei"]Old Vine Zinfandel.[/url]

In addition to the quality of the wines, I just really love this place. It is very casual and friendly, with an amazing deli and picnic grounds on the premises. So.. you can go there, select some wine, bread, cheese etc. and then take it all outside. It is pure bliss..drinking wine, and eating baguette and Brie beneath the shade trees *happy sigh*
We actually found this place the first time we drove to Napa. We were students and bombing around in a rather dilapidated Hyundai Pony, needless to say, we felt rather outclassed by the imposing stone structures of Beringer and similar vineyards...
But then, we happened upon Sattui, and it was great We revisited just a couple of years ago, and they are still our favourite vineyard.

The only problem is that if you want to drink their wine you have to either visit them or have a US postal box. *sigh*

[fable]

We faced something of a similar dilemna concerning the Ivan Tamas winery in California, DW. While living in North Carolina, we first encountered their wines, and really liked them. But when we moved up to New Jersey, we were told at a nearby popular liquor store chain with a very large stock that they were unavailable in the state, due to taxes, and that wouldn't be able to find them anywhere. That we should vote to get rid of the tax, if we wanted to get the wine.

Of course, I took that as a challenge. Three stores later, I found one (same chain) whose manager was far more polite, and didn't see any problem in ordering us a case of one particular Ivan Tamas wine. It arrived, and at a cost very close to what we paid in North Carolina. Which just goes to show that some people have their heads in areas that were only meant to be visited by their proctologists.

[dragon wench]

Which just goes to show that some people have their heads in areas that were only meant to be visited by their proctologists.

LMAO!

lol yes! I suspect that said person was probably just too lazy to actually look into the matter for you...

In our case, though, Sattui is a farmgate winery, and they only sell directly to customers. If we lived in the US, we'd have them ship the wine to us, but alas, we don't. However, we have been tempted to set up a US postal box in Point Roberts (that bizarre little finger of US land which is a stone's throw from Vancouver)....
That being said, we do have access to some pretty good wines. The BC Okanagan produces some nice vintages. We just prefer the California wine areas... they are much more civilised. BC wine country is still quite rednecked and squat in the middle of the 'Bible Belt.'


To keep on topic though, if ever you can get them, speaking of BC Wines, I'd highly recommend, [url="http://www.wildgoosewinery.com/"]Wild Goose Vineyards[/url]. Even their Dry Gewurztraminers are good And coming from me, that's saying something because I'm very much a red wine person. In general, I only drink white if it is a hot summer's day, and even then I lean towards a well-oaked Chardonnay.

[Philos]

Received a bottle of Hungarian Merlot as a gift a number of years ago (1996 or 97 IIRC) and my wife & I were astounded. Not because it was Hungarian (I readily admit my ignorance back then about Hungarian wine and didn't realize how good it is), but because it was so different from other Merlots we had tried. It had a wonderful taste and it became our favorite wine. The distributor was only an hour or two away from where we lived then (in Florida). But after moving to our present home we have had a hard time locating someone that has even heard of it much less carry it. Finally found someone a few months back that knew an importer they could order it from. BUT since it was not an item they normally carried I would have to order a whole case. Ok I thought, fair enough. Until he said at 38.50 a bottle. That was about 3 times what it cost in Florida. We like it a lot but over $500 for a case (tax & shipping) was out of my price range. I could afford a bottle or two, but having to get an entire case, sigh, oh well. Still, that's our favorite.