Reviews

VALDEPEÑAS ANCIANO TEMPRANILLO GRAN RESERVA (2001)—Aged, just like my mum

Today my mum said, “Stop mooning around liquor cabinet and make yourself useful.”

I have no idea what that means, my fellow inebriates, do you?

Just look at me: I’m a little 7” bear with a severe alcohol addiction. What possible use is my mother thinking of? I’m not meant to be useful; I am strictly decorative.

She tends to get self-righteous when she’s just put in a solid half-hour’s worth of honest work herself. Then it’s time to eat five chocolate bars, turn the heat up so she doesn’t have to move around, and otherwise reward herself for that massive effort.

Younger, fluffier times

Granted she’s a little stressed out. Today’s the big 43, and neither of us is as fluffy as we once were. Aging is tough, and especially tough when you don’t feel you’ve accomplished enough for your years.

The best thing I can really do for my aging mother is make a yummy wine recommendation: VALDEPEÑAS ANCIANO TEMPRANILLO GRAN RESERVA (2001), barrel-aged for 10 years.

There are plenty of young tempranillos out there, and they can certainly be consumed young, but a tempranillo with ten years’ oak aging under its belt is a spectacular find for $15.99. Whereas it’s difficult to find inexpensive wines of this vintage from most wine-producing countries, Spain is proving itself a trove, with tempranillo enjoying a renaissance among growers with the mettle to coach the finicky black grapes through the growing season.

The grapes are challenging to grow because they require a cool climate to achieve good acidity, but they need heat to reach optimal sugar levels. Like my mother, they are difficult to please, and inclement weather pisses them off. Thus they are used more often as blending grapes than as single varietals.

My parents are basically philistines about wine; that’s why they gravitate to plummy, jammy fruit explosions that satisfy their immature tastes. It’s the reason I’m steering their venerable tastebuds toward the VALDEPEÑAS ANCIANO TEMPRANILLO—they are old enough to handle a more demanding taste experience.

Swirled in the glass, this purply, brick-red Spanish wine gives off a spicy, leathery essence, with vanilla chiming in lightly. Decanting is not a must, but it enhances the wine’s ability to morph its high notes into more subtle, rounded flavors.

If you’re a shiraz or cab fan this tempranillo will surprise your palate, perhaps not positively at first—its opening notes are sharper, pointier—but if you let it linger on your tongue, velvety stone fruits, currants, white pepper and licorice will emerge. This wine is dense with complexity, and if you can manage it, you should drink it undistracted.

So turn off the porn, get out the decanter, and give it a good swirl. And as I told my mum, “You can get away with drinking it slowly—43 isn’t so old that you’ll die before the bottle’s finished.”

And that was when she told me to go and make myself useful.

BROKER’S GIN—Part 5!

Things are looking up at LBHQ—I think. If I weren’t such a dumbass about checking my Twitter account, I would have realized days ago that the lovely Julia Gale, Business Development Manager at Broker’s Gin, had tweeted me:

“Greetings young Liquorstore Bear! Please may I have your contact details?… We’d love to call you.”

Two days late, I scrambled to reply. (Julia had told me previously that Martin and Andy, the owners at Broker’s, would be visiting my home province to rectify the gin situation—i.e., the absence of this elysian gin from our government liquor store shelves.)

For those of you who haven’t been following our correspondence, here’s a recap from November:

JULIA:

Greetings from Broker’s Gin!! Dreadful to hear that you can’t get any of our fine gin at the moment, especially as you’re obviously a fan. I know that Ontario is awash with the stuff at the moment so maybe you’re from another province. If you drop us a line to broker@brokersgin.com with some more information, we’ll try to help!

LB:     

Julia, delighted to hear from you! You’re right; it is dreadful that I can’t find Broker’s Gin at the moment. Ontario is full of hooligans so I wonder why they have it and we don’t here in beautiful British Columbia, where it is mild all year and perfect for making a gin-and-tonic every single day. Of course I also wanted the little hat from on top of the bottle. I thought that after finishing the contents I could wear the little hat and look like you, Andy, and Martin—all so smart and British-looking.  

These pleasantries carried on for a while, with a few solutions being proposed:

  • Cross the border to buy Broker’s in the US
  • Ask Santa for some
  • Chain myself to government liquor store railing to demand reinstatement of Broker’s Gin

What with potential cross-border cavity searches, a disheartening Santa spoiler, and my failure to find a pair of small handcuffs, these ideas weren’t quite doing it for me. Then Julia emailed about Martin and Andy’s visit to BC.

I really wanted to talk to Julia, to hear her lovely English voice (even with the post-flu pornstar/Barry White gruffness she says it’s acquired over the hols). I can’t fathom why she isn’t joining Martin and Andy on their visit. Anyway, my parents would never let me answer the phone—they say I’m a mouth-breather. So I gave Julia my parents’ numbers, and she said Martin might phone. This makes me a little nervous…

  • What if my parents don’t answer the phone? Take my dad, for example, who just yesterday ignored an unknown 604 number. What if that was Martin from Broker’s Gin? OMG!
  • What if we don’t click? I don’t know Martin quite the way I know Julia. He might not enjoy talking to bears the way Julia does.
  • What if he’s very serious? Broker’s Gin has a web page dedicated to humor (“I’ve gone on a gin and tonic diet. I’ve lost two days already!”) but what if Martin turns out to be very stern in person? (Mind you, it’s okay if Julia’s stern, so long as we establish a “safe” word.)
  • What if Martin and I do click, then spend the day getting drunk, betting at the casino and regaling each other with stories—and he’s too hungover to attend his meeting, and fails to get Broker’s Gin back into liquor stores here? OMG!!

So it’s a very anxious day, my fellow inebriates. If only I had some gin to take the edge off.

MONT GRAS SOLEUS Cabernet Sauvignon (2009)—Not art, but that’s okay because I HAVE art

“LB! Wake up, LB!”

It was the six-year-old. I figured she had a frilly dress ready for me—as good a reason as any to yank me out of bed. I had a crashing hangover thanks to my parents’ wine snobbery, but more on that later. I went submissively with Miss P.

She carried me to the kitchen table, on which sat an envelope, addressed to LB (!). And inside….

Yes, yes, YES! A replica of Dan Lacey’s Obama Unicorn Nude Baby Jesus Manger Christmas Card Art Painting, kindly autographed by the artist.

I am so happy.

My joy almost negates the ill-effects of drinking the lion’s share of the Chilean cab we had last night. I was excited when I saw the bottle of MONT GRAS SOLEUS Cabernet Sauvignon (2009)—every Mont Gras product I’ve tried previously has been top-notch for the price point. Organically grown grapes seemed a further plus. The Los Guindos vineyards were planted between 1998 and 1999 about 50km from Santiago and managed organically from the get-go. SOLEUS is made from 100% hand-picked organic grapes and goes for $13.99 at our local booze shop.

A lucky string of excellent sub-$15 red wine finds (reviews to come) over the holidays had perhaps jacked up my expectations, as well as those of my parents. We don’t typically let wine languish in this house, but when the SOLEUS was poured…it sat.

Why?

The color is ruby red and enticing. In the glass the wine sheets, with legs quickly forming. From three feet away it induces salivation.

Three inches’ distance is another matter. Intensely aromatic, SOLEUS has an unfortunate petrol-like topnote with chicken-coop accents. These oddities—fortunately—are caught up in a dried-fruit onslaught, a heavy abundance of ripe red berries with lashings of tobacco and vanilla. The effect is disconcerting and palate-bothering. If you can get past the initial aroma, the front sip is quite acceptable, followed by a confusing mid-palate jockeying of flavors and a borderline-offensive ending.

Which was super for me, because my parents quietly abandoned their glasses, leaving the wine for me to finish. I got freaking wasted, my fellow inebriates. I have no idea what time they carried me to the bed I share with three other bears (who were probably relieved that I was too insensate to grind up against them).

All in all it was an awesome evening. The hangover was par for the course, and it was ameliorated wonderfully today by the contemplation of art.