wine tasting

THE WOLFTRAP VIOGNIER CHENIN BLANC GRENACHE BLANC (2011)—Another one Dad missed out on

My mother and I made twin (fraternal, not identical) realizations this week.

Hers: When we buy gin we drink it all. We mustn’t buy gin.

Mine: When we buy gin we drink it all. We must buy in bulk. We must get more samples. We must take our gin consumption to the next level.

These complementary insights aside, it was a good week for drinking. We moved house, which involved a lot of beer, and my dad went on another golf-tourney-calling-itself-a-business trip, which always means white wine. You see, my fellow inebriates, my dad isn’t a fan of white wine, so whenever he goes away, we buy it. For several reasons:

We deserve it. We are doing all bedtimes, all meals, all playdates, all the time. We need it.

We are afraid. We don’t know yet if Fluffy left his paranormal squatter at the old townhouse or if he moved with us. And since this house, being older, naturally goes bump in the night, we won’t know for a while if Fluffy is still haunted. So we need something at night to take the edge off while Dad’s away.

My dad is useless about white wine. He doesn’t get it at all. So we break it out when he leaves town.

This time we chose THE WOLFTRAP VIOGNIER CHENIN BLANC GRENACHE BLANC (2011). We hadn’t been disappointed by this much-lauded South African winery before, and we had $15 bucks (and not much else) left over after paying the movers, which amounted to a hell yes.

The only downside to drinking white wine are the tall glasses. I have to stand on my toes to get any—you’ll have to believe me because my mum wouldn’t take a picture (she said I was a narcissist). Although we have a set of Reidel stemless red wine glasses, we’ve resisted buying their white counterparts—because why would you want to get your sweaty paws all over your lovely chilled glass? Whether the glass shape makes a perceptible difference…I defer to The Dogs of Beer.

After a long day of unpacking (one of us) and observing the unpacking (the one without thumbs), THE WOLFTRAP was exactly the wine we needed. French oak-matured, this intriguing blend features 57% Viognier, 32% Chenin Blanc, and 11% Grenache Blanc. It wafts scented pear and grapefruit peel with ripe peaches behind—all items bears crave and would root through someone’s garbage for. But unlike my friend Scarybear’s Ideal Lunch, these aromas are zesty and fresh, with satisfying follow-through on the palate. The mouthfeel is generous and layered, almost buttery yet zingy with hints of vanilla and hazelnut, lingering much longer than I had any business expecting.

This intriguing white blend is a find for under $15—well worth having again, even if my dad’s home, which he is now. Did I mention he won a bike at his company’s golf tournament? Not bad, Dad! But he forgot to wear sunblock, so now he looks like a lobster.

BESO DE VINO (2009)—Worth drinking but not saving

Get this, my fellow inebriates: My parents are so disorganized that they actually had to call the movers and ask them to come a day later. Luckily they picked an odd time of month to move, or we’d have been S.O.L.

Why could they not get their shit together in time? What is wrong with them?

In addition to being video-game addicts and procrastinators, over the last six years I’ve come to suspect they possess a gene or gene combination responsible for hoarding behaviour. Tell me, who has 14 non-working stereos? Who hangs on to books that are embarrassing (The Yeast Syndrome, How to Write Erotica)? Who has just been forced to work backwards through four years of unopened mail?

There is indeed a genetic marker associated with hoarding, located on chromosome 14. Hoarding is a subtype of OCD that tends to run in families. But my parents can’t blame any familial line for their propensities, although you don’t have to delve too far into the family tree to find moderate insanity (and—as summer’s open windows bear our conversations aloft—our neighbours probably suspect my mother of another chromosome-14 disorder, Tourette’s).

In all likelihood my parents are just disorganized, which might explain why, without managing to pack all the stuff we’re not using, they’ve packed our few meager alcoholic items along with all the wine glasses. They won’t find that stuff for days, even weeks, which leaves us without glassware to christen the new LBHQ. Hell, it leaves us without glassware when we feel overwhelmed and desperate later today. And it means no one will be buying new wine until we find the glasses—OMG!

In fact, we’re all caught up on wine reviews, except for one bottle.

Wine Advocate gave BESO DE VINO (2009) 90 points, a too-good-to-be-true score for a $13 wine. Not that we haven’t had awesome $13 wines, and for all we know, reviewer Jay Miller was taking into consideration the low price. But this ain’t no 90-point wine.

Antonio the Bull, amorous animal with low-swinging balls, is the frontman for this Spanish Syrah/Garnacha blend. Usually my mum knows better than to purchase wines whose labels feature livestock, but  the pricetag talked her into it—especially since it had a blue-and-black label rather than a yellow-and-red one (avoid!). BESO DE VINO seemed safe, and we’ve been having good luck with Spanish wines lately, so she plunked down the $13.

It’s hard not to like this goofy little bull and his mondo testicles, but you can’t rely on his tasting notes. Sure, the wine is a lush and opaque purple, but it doesn’t serve up the promised aromas of “roasted coffee, baked berry, chocolate covered espresso bean…” It serves up a grape-juice fragrance—pleasant, fruity, and full, but juvenile somehow, even though I couldn’t detect any nuts. Now, maybe we were primed for an impression of immaturity by the bull’s jouncing teabags, but honestly, there isn’t much on the nose.

Does Antonio realize bulls don’t often live past 15 years old?

On the palate BESO DE VINO comes through with full-bodied dark fruit and a generous mouthfeel along with some modest tannins, but it still suggests a kid’s juice box rather than the Reidel glasses we’ve prematurely stowed. Although I could pick out some of the suggested coffee notes, some earthiness, and some spice, BESO DE VINO isn’t much more than a half-decent table wine. It would taste just fine, for instance, with some cheese strings or Lunchables.

Still, you can’t argue with $13, and there’s nothing offensive about BESO DE VINO, except maybe Antonio the Bull’s dangling yarbles. It’s worth drinking once, but not worth hoarding a supply (really, parents).

LAYA GARNACHA TINTORERA MONASTRELL (2010)—The wine I DIDN’T drink last night

Apparently my dad went over to the neighbors’ last night and finished off all their Johnnie Walker Black. The whole family went over actually, leaving me with an empty liquor-store bag. They must have bought wine to take with them before abandoning me to a house full of violent and possibly possessed animals, all without opposable thumbs.

I hope you’ll forgive me, my fellow inebriates—I was a bit angry. I didn’t realize the family was leaving until the last minute—not in time to stow away. I felt lonely and sad. So I decided to recruit Glen Bear to help me smash some bottles open and start our own party.

Polar bears being unpredictable, I wanted to make sure Glen was happy. So I told him about some foul-smelling canned salmon my dad had opened a while ago and forgotten in the fridge. But neither of us, lacking thumbs, could get the damn fridge open.

Photo credit: Miss V

So now my feelings of abandonment were compounded not just by the DTs but by an ornery polar bear romping around the kitchen. Just when I thought Glen might give up on the fridge and eat me instead, we heard a sound from the living room. OMG! Miss V’s scooter had fallen over all by itself.

Of course you know it didn’t fall over by itself. Fluffy had used his freaky evil mind on it. Things at LBHQ were going from bad to worse. Next I expected some officious Strata Council representatives to break into the house just to see if we got their warning letters.

But nothing else happened all evening. I was so freaking bored I started reading my parents’ receipts. And I saw they had indeed bought wine: LAYA GARNACHA TINTORERA MONASTRELL (2010)—a sensible go-to dinner wine from Spain and within the LBHQ price range. I felt partially mollified that they’d chosen a wine I’d had before rather than a new one that I would have wondered about forever. (We tried LAYA a couple of months ago while watching the season finale of Breaking Bad, which riveted all the bears including Glen, even though he didn’t understand it.)

Hailing from the Almansa region 700-1000 meters above sea level, LAYA is a luscious ruby-red combination of 70% Garnacha Tintorera (itself a red-skinned hybrid of Petit Bouschet and Grenache) and 30% Monastrell. Known as a blending grape, Garnacha Tintorera is increasingly appearing as a headliner varietal, although in the case of LAYA its intense fruity depth borrows some complexity and tannic action from the Monastrell grapes.

My favorite aspect of Monastrell grapes is their tendency to amp up the alcohol percentage in a wine. At 14.5%, LAYA doesn’t disappoint. But it goes well beyond being a vehicle for getting pissed.

Monastrell grapes

On the nose LAYA is ripe, expressive, and thankfully free of the barnyard notes that Monastrell can sometimes impart if not matured sufficiently. LAYA hits the tongue with plump, juicy notes, lingering across the back-palate with an elegant finish. While it doesn’t offer tremendous complexity, nor will it enthrall you, it is balanced and easily drinkable—and according to my parents when I interrogated them this morning, a good accompaniment to good food and conversation.

At $13.99 LAYA is a liquor-store gem with excellent value. My parents should bloody well have sprung for two bottles.

Okay, thanks for reading the rant. I know it was my fault I didn’t clue in and jump into my mum’s bag before they left. Then I could have helped my dad polish off the neighbors’ Johnnie Walker and had some LAYA. I am an idiot.