Greg should stick to golf

We had house guests last week and had a small dinner party so they could try some moose steaks. They had stopped by the liquor store earlier that day to pick up some drinks for their vacation up the Dempster, and also got some wines for dinner. We started with a sparkling wine from Spain, the Codornui Cuvee Raventos Brut. $20. Fine for sparkling, but I don't tend to be a huge fan of sparkling wine as they are too dry for my tastes, although I did have a slightly sweeter off-dry sparkling from Ontario once, and I liked it much better(but you can't get it here).

With dinner we had the Greg Norman Limestone Coast Shiraz and also the Cabernet/Merlot from the same line. They were fine, and would have been good for $15-18, however thay cost $29.80 each and really weren't worth it. The shiraz we felt was not very shirazy, and lacked much of the spicy, fruitiness one normally associates with shiraz. It did have some pepper and a bit of dark fruit, spice and mocha flavours, but not much and it was fairly light for a shiraz. It was pretty good with the moose steak, but not for $30. The Cab/Merlot we all detected some licorice flavour in and a bit of fruit, but it was unimpressive and the remains of the bottle are still sitting in our fridge turning to vinegar.

We were a little disapointed with the wines, and our guests seemed to have an appreciation for good wine, so I thought I'd bring out a non-disapointing Syrah (same grape as shiraz) that I picked up on my trip to the Okanagan in April. The Sandhill Syrah is also $30 (although I did buy it in BC so if it was available here it would probably be a few dollars more), but it is 7 trillion times better than the Greg Norman offering. Sandhill is a sister winery to the larger Calona vineyards, and they make some interesting and very tasty wines. Really, really too bad you can't get them here. The syrah is beautiful, with lovely dark fruit, vanilla and spice with some coffee, cedar and smoke mixed in. It really is a wonderful wine. But, like I said, you can't get it here, although you can get it at some VQA stores in BC, or at the winery (they also ship and you can order from their web site).

We had so much fun with that bottle, I thought we should try another one. So John and Dennis and I tromped downstairs to my wine cellar, and had a look. I decided we should try the Adora Estate Maximus, which is a Bordeaux blend of Cab Sauv, Cab Franc and Merlot. Initially it was a bit disapointing after the syrah, and really, we should have had it before the syrah as it was a drier, less fruity and not as robust wine. But it did get a whole lot better after it was open for a while (and not just because we were getting progressively more sloshed). Infact, it was an excellent example of a wine that needed some breathing time before consumption. This is why some wines are decanted an hour or so before serving. The flavours open up and it becomes more pleasant to drink. The Maximus was a bit leafy and tannic, I think it could have used a few more years in the basement as the tannins were still quite agressive, but it had nice oak, some tobacco and I detected a hint of coconut (?!?). I believe it was also about $30, and again, so much higher quality than the Greg Norman Cab/Merlot. So the message of this entry is: go to the Okanagan and buy some $30 reds there. They are much better than these particular $30 reds in the Whitehorse liquor store.

However, since we are usually confined to the local offerings, the Wolf Blass wines (Australia) are pretty good. In particular, I like the Cabernet/Shiraz, the Cabernet/Merlot and the Shiraz from the Wolf Blass line. All pretty good and under $20. I also had the Eaglehawk (another Wolf Blass label) Merlot a few months ago, and I really enjoyed it. It's even cheaper, under $15.