Spicebox Pumpkin Spiced Whisky

Because we were very good and didn't finish all that wine. And this is seasonal, which means it's healthy, right?

This was a Halloween treat  suggestion from my neighbour, and we may or may not have consumed more than one bottle. Lots of it over home-made apple pie. Mmmmmm. How could anything that tastes like butterscotch be bad for you? And the apples were all organic!

Anyway, it smelt like butterscotch, it tasted like butterscotch, and it gave us butterscotch breath. So apparently whiskey labels, like wine labels, tend towards fiction. While a pumpkin may have brushed past the rye that went into this whiskey, it didn't bother making friends.


Spicebox Pumpkin Spiced Whisky
Canada
BC Liquor Stores
$31.40
Over all: Buy - before it is gone for the season!

Masi 2011 Modello delle Venezie Rosso

Our third bottle of the evening, and lest the suspense become unbearable, this was the clear favourite. Wine favourite, that is.

Liam was desperate to get in on the fun, and determined after taking a drip from my finger that it 'tastes like beer!' and the cork 'smells like cardboard!' The wine tasting skills may have skipped a generation, Pop!

It smelt like dried berries, and tasted like walnuts (or maybe even banana bread!) It was smooth and had more legs than the Castaño 2009 Hécula Monastrell.

The label appeared to be of Venetian bilge water, but that's nit picking.

Everyone liked it, and voted that it was one to buy again.


Masi Modello delle Venezie Rosso
Valpolicella (Refosco,  Raboso)
2011 (listed wine was 2009)
Italy
BC Liquor Stores
$12.99
Over all: Buy Again

Oxford Landing 2011 Chardonnay

This is the bottle that Dad was most interested in us trying:

"The Oxford Landing Chardonnay, I bought once and loved it. It was completely without oak and had residual acidity as in the French style of wine making with that grape. I bought it again about a year later and it was a mess. There was a lot of residual sugar and no acidity. I believe they had introduced malolactic fermentation to the wine as well, or perhaps added some of the fake butter taste to it. I haven't tasted it since. Try it for me and let me know what you think. " 

The cheap and tasty wine list suggested a 2010, but the kind girl at the liquor store explained that with wines at this price point, they do not bother noting the years. The 2011 is what they sell now, so that is what we drank.

The dinner had arrived, and it was splendid:

• Daal Amritsari - Yellow lentils cooked to perfection originally made famous outside of the Golden Temple.
• Chana Saag - We have taken the chick peas and mixed it in our spinach sauce.
• Kashmiri Chicken - Chicken cooked with onions, green peppers, garlic, ginger & mango pulp.
• Bloody awesome lamb of some sort 

(from Indian Oven)

It is unfair to ask wine to compete with this, and perhaps we should have been drinking beer. but until I get a cheap and tasty beer list, wine is what we have.

And so for the Oxford Landing. It smelled like things!

• Fermented pineapple
• Meringue

And tasted like things:

• Citrus peel
• Melon rind
• Compost bin!

It really did smell delicious.

The tasting did go a little wonky, one attempt to aerate it led to the conclusion that this wine does not gargle well. 

It was a teensy bit pretentious, as it 'resonated with a palate', and had 'an aura of smugness' (that may have been me, not the wine, hard to tell.) 

We had a great deal of discussion about the label. It had a little peel-off bit that you could take to help you remember the wine - this seems a bit desperate. And it claimed that the wine had notes of resin. We couldn't smell or taste resin, and the wine seemed no more or less sticky than other wine, so were they trying to trick us? But the biggest concern was the note saying 'Suitable for vegetarians.' Right under the sentimental blurb implying that the original wine maker dudes are buried in the vineyard, and stating outright that the wine is full of characters. Does that still strictly qualify as vegetarian?

We didn't notice any of the oak or nasty butter that bothered Daddy, but it wasn't very acidic.

Oxford Landing
Chardonnay
2011
South Australia
BC Liquor Stores
$12.99
Over all: I can't remember!

Castaño 2009 Hécula Monastrell

This was the first wine we opened this evening. And look! Proof, (of a sort,) that we didn't drink it on our own!

We had this while we waiting for the Lentil Man (one of Liam and Mamma's favourite people) to arrive with the dinner.

Because this is a classy sort of establishment, we also nibbled on homemade nuts and bolts. 

So it is almost without irony that I can write that the first comment on this bottle of wine is that is goes very well with shreddies. Unfortunately, once we moved on to sugary nuts, the wine did not fare as well.

We rescued it with a plate of cheddar, and Peter very authoritatively declared that this was a wine that tasted better with cheese.

But the final group judgement was that while this was not a disaster, it was not very interesting. Not worth bothering with again.

We also agreed that if we had made this ourselves, we would be extremely excited about our own skill and cleverness at wine making.

There are two cryptic comments in my wine notes:

•  "Very harsh." Not sure if this applies to the flavour of the wine, or to the critics, because really at this point we were inclined toward kindliness.
•  "Grey Monk bottle recalled." Were they recalled due to some flaw, or did we recollect one? I cannot recall!

Castaño Hécula Monastrell
Monastrell/Mataró/Mourvèdre
2009
Spain
BC Liquor Stores
$15.99
Over all: Don't buy again

Deer Whaz

So I got cocky. "I am not so terrible at this wine drinking thing. And I have a shelf full of wine. So let us have friends for dinner!"

Luckily these friends are splendid enough to not mind being invited for Indian takeaway (again) and arriving to find the flat a disaster, Liam shouting at them down the hallway, and me sporting pool hair and a toilet brush. Because floors and cooking be damned, my toilets will be clean enough to eat from!

We tasted three bottles - we didn't finish them, and although we did discuss spitting the wine out as is apparently the custom, my floors aren't dirty enough to merit such nasty treatment. Also, it is important to try and impress the three year old with grown-up manners at all times.

The dinner was lovely, (Hi, Indian Oven,) and the friends brought fancy and tasty desserts. The conversation was easy, amusing, and did indeed cover the topic of deer whaz.

Luckily I took notes about the wines.

Boutari Naoussa 2008

This is the first bottle that came from the actual list. We opened it while Peter was cooking dinner, and had a few sips then, a few sips during dinner, and finished the glass an hour later.

I thought it smelled like wine cork, the smell of wine corks I remember from my childhood. So I guess it smelt like red wine. The first sip was rough, made my tongue furry, and dried out my mouth. Lots of flavour left after I swallowed it.

It didn't particularly compliment the breaded pork chops and cheese sauce-smothered vegetables, but it wasn't horrible with them. A stronger cheese might be nicer with it.

I enjoyed it much more a little later when I finished it after dinner, especially the lingering taste.

Also, it might be worth noting that I fell asleep during dinner. May or may not be related to wine consumption.

Peter's take: Peter liked it from the first sip, said it was dry, rough, and light. Liked it less and less with each sip, and finally asked if there was a word for 'sucks all the moisture out of your mouth and makes you pucker like a chicken's arse.' Decided it wasn't that great after all.

Boutari Naoussa
Xinomavro
2008
Greece
BC Liquor Stores
$15.99
Over all: Don't buy again

First review not well so received

Me:

Well, we opened the first one this evening, and had a glass with dinner.Then Peter went to yoga and I drank the rest of the bottle. having trouble typing now,afe sdgwsgggWE

Daddy:

Uh, I don't think that is what I meant by letting me know what you think of the wines. Perhaps when your hangover abates, if you remember anything, you can tell me what you thought of it. Otherwise, ask Peter what he thought of it. Rough day, was it? :-)

OK, so not really doing much better than 'They were good.' Daddy suggests looking up how to write a tasting note. From a quick google search, I have decided to follow the advice of Pulling the Cork, because I like the name. 

1. Pop and pour or decant?   Did you pop the cork and drink the wine right away or did you decant it? If you decanted, how long did you let it rest? Did you drink half the bottle one night and half the second night?  If so, how did the wine change in that time? This simple bit of information is a great help to others with the same wine.  If I read that you popped and poured the wine and commented that it got better and better with air then perhaps when I have that wine I will give it a quick decant for an hour or two.

2. With or without a meal?  Did you have the wine with a meal or on its own? If you had it with a meal, what was the main course?  Did the wine work well with the food or was it overpowered by the spice or flavors of the dish?  Knowledge of how the wine works with or without different types of food will help when planning meals in the future and let others know if they are about to pop a nice wine that would get thrashed by a spicy meal. 

3. Use your own words.  The final point I’d like to make goes back to my initial point about describing the nose and flavors of the wine.  Even though you may feel that you don’t have the vocabulary to describe a wine like a professional critic, describing it in simple terms is still helpful.  Just tell it like it is.  Just about anything is better then “This was good”.

(from Pulling the Cork)

Also note the eerie similarity to our task - to write something better than 'They were good!'

P.S. I did not have a hangover, but thank goodness Eoin had just gone to bed with a full tummy. As the midwife said - if I feel tipsy, so will baby! No more drunken mama!