Damn……..that was harsh!!! But totally justified….Really, Pelee Island is not one of the top 40 or even 50 producers in Ontario….they make very aveage wine….they are the Kendal Jackson of ontario……..no lie…
I am going to bring down some wine this weekend for you to do a show on from ssome of the better producers IMO.
When are you getting up here???? Let’s get something set up!!!!
QOTD – Tough question……got to be the 1996 Corton Charlemagne Grand Cru I had a few weeks ago…I really did not know white wine could be that complex, powerful, layered and so damn tasty!!!1

Gary,

“I pretty much clowned his face off”?! Ouch. How much does that hurt?

QOTD: Cusumano Insolia. Aromatic white from Sicily. QPR. Dee-licious.

Thanks for the show, have never had a Canadian wine though I have been saying I want to try one of their ice wines, just haven’t yet.
QOTD: Found a Chateauneuf du Pape that blew my socks off and is trying to get me to convert from Burgandy to Rhone. It was the 2005 Domaine du Grand Tinel Aleacis Establet. Way to young and needed 24 hours decanting but then it was WOW!

QOTD: A Marlborough Pinot Noir. Can’t remember the vineyard but it was an eye-opener on the quality of winemaking there.

Thanks for the show.

QOTD: All I can tell you is that it’s a cab franc. I’ve had CF wines twice before, and I didn’t appreciate the greenness. This was another league…. but you’re gonna have to wait for Wednesday to hear about it!

QOTD: One of my neighbors received a couple bottles of wine for this past Christmas, but she doesn’t drink. She gave them to me, yay! One was a (seemingly) inexpensive wine from Argentina and I loved it. I couldn’t find it in the liquor store at the time and now I forgotten the name of it. It may even have been Chilean now that I think about it. Too bad. It was a good surprise.

Gotta say, I’ve had a hard time with Canadian wines. I spent a couple days tasting around the Niagara region last summer and the only winery which I thought had some pretty good (non-dessert) wines was Jackson-Triggs. A lot of what I tasted bordered on down-right nasty. I’m anxious to track down some Ontario wines GV likes. I want to like Canadian wine and I’ll keep on trying.

Also…. What’s with Pelee Island calling it SHIRAZ? Isn’t that supposed to be just an Aussie name? Hmmm.

QOTD: Two Hands Aerope Granache. I didn’t think I liked Granache all that much before trying this, i thought of it as two candy-ish. Maybe it was the pairing with the unbelievably good house make cotto, but this bottle showed me Granache can have character and depth. Since then I tried a Ridge Granache that was pretty nice too. I still think good ones are hard to find, but I’m open about trying more of this varietal now.

Can’t say I’ve ever sampled any CA wines, but anywhere that still produces a drinkable Gewurtz is automatically OK with me.. Very few aussie wineries still produce them, thus they’re almost unknown to the public at large (in aus, anyway). A lovely wine, that needs more press. Onya Gary 🙂

Man, next time you wanna put Canada on the wine map get something more than 15$ that is a bit more polished. I have not had much Canadian wines myself (because they’re even difficult to find in Quebec) but Inniskillin (Ontario) came as one of the best. I heard that Dirty Laundary (BC) make some rad wines.
QOTD: I always thought that Box wines were crap, but last time my wife got a 4 x 187.5ml pack (~ 8$) of Bistro Mundo non-vintage Spanish varietal wine that she was intending to use for cooking. I went ahead and tried it with a pizza and to my surprise it was pleasant coming across as 87 pts wine.

QOTD:2006, Penfolds, Private Release, Shiraz Cabernet. That was a hazard to me. We ordered this in a restaurant by chance…The awkward SO2 turned me off totally…Although it is the cheapest wine by the BIG name, it hurts its image in my heart. There is a careless attitude on wine making. I don’t accept it.

QOTD: I had VERGE D’OR from Intermiel in Quebec which is a mead. Knowing it was the drink of Vikings I figured… well i don’t actually know what I figured but I was imaging it as something you would drink out of the skulls of your enemies. Turns out it is really quite delicate (not that you can’t drink it out of the sculls of your enemies if you want).

QOTD – Riesling, I was in Germany recently. Realized Kabinett and QmP means greatness. Don’t do Q it needs QmP quality. Kabinett means least sweet of the Rieslings. wow.
OK, this was a great show – proved you are not just hyping any old wine. I will try Canada wines! thanks. I got your secret packs 1 and 2 and have 4 friends coming over to try on April 1st. Don’t you fool me!

DAve

QOTD – Riesling, I was in Germany recently. Realized Kabinett and QmP means greatness. Don’t do Q it needs QmP quality. Kabinett means least sweet of the Rieslings. wow.
OK, this was a great show – proved you are not just hyping any old wine. I will try Canada wines! thanks. I got your secret packs 1 and 2 and have 4 friends coming over to try on April 1st. Don’t you fool me!

DAve

There has not been a new wine that really changed what I thought about a region as I am so new that I have no preconceived notions. I guess the only wine recently that I was very very disapponinted with was a “Frog’s Leap” Sauvingnon Blanc. After talking with a individual I respect, after hearing where the grape was grown (Paso Robles, Calif) said “Way too warm.” I am learning every day, thank you for your passion for teaching.

Awesome……..As for the QOTD, i have no clue…

First you had me chasing Walla Walla wines. Now Canadian wines. What up? Send me someplace good.
QOTD: Montes 2006 Chilean cab. Before opening it, I thought big name Chilean producers could put out a quality cab at a good price where the wine rivals Bordeaux and Napa. After drinking this, my mind has changed. Napa and Bordeaux still rule. Chilean cabs do not. I have had more than 20…perhaps as many as 30. Before I was optimistic; now, not so much.

Good reds can be found in Canada, but most come from the Okanagan Valley in BC. Being from BC I admit to perhaps some bias, but our wineries do consistently win the top awards in Canada, and outside as well. Not that competitions are everything, but a 2005 Merlot from La Frenz Winery on the valley’s Naramata Bench won the award for top red wine at the 2007 Northwest Wine Summit, the biggest competition for BC, Washington, Idaho and Oregon wines.

As for Erik Klumpp’s request for a sake show, Gary did an episode on sake back in November 2007 (episode 355). Look it up at http://tv.winelibrary.com/2007/11/21/sake-tasting-on-wine-library-tv-episode-355.

Dude… Canada is a large country. Concentrate on a speicific viticultural area. If you want to start with the best (biased), do the Okanagan (you did one wine a few weeks back). http://www.okanaganwines.ca/wineries/

QOTD: My wife went tasting and brought home three or four Okanagan Rose from different varietals. In the past, I had panned dry and off/dry Rose, but these have yet to disappoint. 2007 Joie Rose, 2006 Greata Ranch Rose and 2006 Pink Freud Rose… best of all, we’ve learned to cook a few new dishes to pair with the Rose.

Probably the Lachini Willamette Pinot, from Oregon.

Being a stubborn old world guy, with a relatively large cellar that is 80+% Bordeaux (heavy on St. Julien and Pauillac) and Southern Rhone (mainly Chateauneuf-du-Pape but a lot of Gigondas and CDRs), I never really cared for spending too much money (or time) on new world stuff, especially from the US.

My beef was (and maybe still is) with California – I’ve tried dozens and dozens, from Napa Cabernets and Bordeaux blends to Syrah and Rhone Rangers… and never figured out why I should spend $25, $50 or $100 for the over-oaked high-alcohol fruity version if I could buy the original (i.e. French) or other elegant old world alternatives (Piedmont, Tuscany, Sardinia, Sicily, Portugal, Riojas, Riberas…) for the same amount or less. Fortunately, this show convinced me to keep trying and, luckily, in a trip to WL I picked up a few half bottles of Lachini. That first positive experience made me realize that the Northwest had a lot to offer… I think that the fact that I have never been into pinot/Burgundy helped a little, as I didn’t sit there and compared it with its old world cousins (as I did so many times with Calofirnia Cabs and Rhone Rangers). As a result, I’ve now started to look into Washington state and fully agree with Gary that WA and OR will overcome CA as this country’s high-quality regions.

In all honesty, the Pacific NW still hasn’t really moved up my priority list when it comes to buying in volume (i.e. my disposable income still seems to find its way into an expensive 2nd growth, an interesting Sardinian Cannonau or a bargain from the Languedoc) but I have come to respect and appreciate the wines that are being produced and the people who are leading the efforts in those places.

I had a 2001 Aussie shiraz (spaced the maker) last week that makes me think the fruit bombs can settle down to acceptable levels (for my palate at least) after 6~7 years AND decanting.

Gary, you promote a 2 year-old book because you “stumbled” upon it? C’mon now, admit that you’re now mentioning them only because, as you said, they wrote an article on WLTV in the Washington Post. Had the book been that spectacular, you would have promoted them back in 2006, when the book came out, or in 2007. Don’t turn into one of “those” people. Please!! I absolutely love the show when you’re not doing crap like this!!

And, I agree with a previous commenter. A sake show is in order! 🙂

I was really surprised by the Robert Hall – Rhone de Robles.. Grenache, Syrah, Cinsaut, and Conoise…

very good for a Rhone style Cali. wine.

Mushrooms, Moss, and mineral.

Goode stuff,

Terroirist

aka mike in Nebraska

Gary!!…forget Pelee Island and get you and a glass tasting what’s great coming out of B.C.
I love drinking globally but have also started drinking locally(I’m in Vancouver which is about a 4 hour drive from our major wine region in the Okanagan). Great things happening. I recently had my socks blown by a wild fermented Pinot Noir by Quail’s Gate and was impressed with a Bordeaux style blend by Mission Hill called Oculus(Mission Hill won Canada’s Winery of the Year in the Canadian wine awards this year and Michel Rolland consulted on this particular wine).

Strike three on those wines I’m afraid. Seems like the problem is getting the fruit ripe to make the wines, so maybe the problem lies more in how the grapes are grown instead of the winemaking. To be honest have not tried to many Canadian wines, other than an ise wine here and there.
Must say that I was pleasantly surprised by South African Pinotage from a producer called Kanonkop.
Most of the wines that I have tried tasted like paint with hints of banana, this was fleshy and ripe, with earthy tones and I enjoyed it [surprise]

Gary – well done for advertising some different wines from deifferent regions.

Nice one – now I have absolute proof for my girlfriend that you don’t have a vested (commercial) interest in your WLTV blog. Can’t wait for her to see you pouring the wine away on camera!

QOTD: Magnum of Ch du Trignon, Gigondas 1997. I’ve had this since 1999 and opened it at the weekend as part of a tasting to get my friends away from the obvious New World and aware of the treats of Cotes du Rhone – what an etherial treat! I had no idea Gigondas could get so ‘blue-cheesy’ and well developed. Completely changed my previously indifferent view of Trignon, and also the style and potential of Gigondas.