Unfussy Wine Enthusiasts | Wine Reviews & Articles

Not a formal Wine Review tonight as the hour is getting late. But, we decided the pricing was too good to not try the Montalto Nero d'Avola Cabernet blend and at $17.99 CDN for 1.5 Litres it is a steal of a deal. Not sure the availability in all jurisdictions but in the States they are probably giving this stuff away.  For us, this is a while supplies late kind of a deal for the double bottles. The 750ml bottles are around all the time but the big ones are once a year event evidently. Either way, it is a great tasting table red much in the same vein as the wine from Bairrada yesterday. Good weight, tastes fairly well made and is not thin at all.  Adequate fruitiness on the nose with hints of strawberry and a little star anise.  Tasty stuff!  We had it with Pizza and it was a perfect match.  Sicilian wine with Pizza, surprise! (and colour me obvious). After all is said and done with this wine, falls in the same region as the Bairrada so 77.5% overall...

NOTE: the label looks to have been changed This wine is not bad....not bad at all.  We spent exactly $10.49 on this wine ($1 Off) and it really is pretty tasty.  Will it win Wine of the Year?  Probably not, but is it worth drinking....yup.  We have tasted and briefly review the DAO version on the Blog but this is the first time for this wine from Alianca . Cherries on the nose and on the palate make it a nice drinking table wine.  Dry but with some pretty good acidity and a little bit of body.  It is thin overall but still quite drinkable and great with food. It is not an overly complex wine though it does have some flavours that make it taste more than it costs for sure.  For sitting around drinking a bottle of wine for little money, it is a cinch.  The complexity is mainly lacking on the nose where it could use a bit more umph.  The flavour profile is actually pretty good all things considered.  The body in the glass looks t...

As you may or may not remember we tried and reviewed this wine just over a month ago (to refresh your memory click here  - ust click Home when you are done). We were at Bishop's Cellar this weekend and decided a re-try was in order.  As a comparison over the last month we even tried the Org de Rac Shiraz which, while a nice drinking wine (in the low to mid 80 point range), it couldn't even tie the shoes of the Merlot. We won't get into too much detail other than to say that this South African Merlot from Org de Rac  is now the early candidate for our prestigious Wine of the Year.  We know, it is definitely early but we will not lose track of this one and indeed if they do not sell out of this shortly we will be off for yet another bottle (or two) for storage for later in the year.  Seriously, it is that good.  Highlights of the Review: Very dark wine Dark fruit and leather dominate the nose Big, bold flavours of oak and plum, ve...

We are short on time this evening but we wanted to say that we had this wine from Reif Estate Winery and it is delicious.  We had Steak with this wine and it was perfect. This Bordeaux Blend from Niagara is 47% Merlot, 46% Cab Sauv. and 7% Cab Franc. Deep, dark Red wine with notes of oak and blackberries rocks.  At $28 it is over our usual price but it is Open That Bottle Night....so give us a break. :) Awesome wine with an awesome meal.  We'll come back to this one. Happy Open That Bottle Night!! Keep on Drinking! Chris & Shannon

This is a blend of Malbec and Shiraz from Bodegas Santa Ana in Argentina.  It is a typically dark wine from the Malbec and had that inky black look in the glass.  Nice looking wine. We decanted the wine and gave it about 30 minutes before trying.  Right off the top it had a powerful nose, not an alcohol nose just a strong overall scent.  There was a lot of blackberry and cherry in the nose and it had a bit of spice that overlayed the powerful scents.  The flavours of wine were again very big but not exactly in a good way.  It was definitely a tight wine.  It was just....acidic on the finish.  We thought that it would open up, but that process took a good 90 minutes before the nuances of oak and herbs would come through. The wine then moved from what we would consider a 75% towards an 80%.  The opening of the wine made the tannins a lot more round and balanced.  The acidity that was not good before became a nice feature of the wine...

We were honoured by his offer to quote us.  Thanks Sean! --------------------------------------------- Readers vote for low-octane wine The Chronicle Herald - February 23, 2012 When I first sought readers’ opinion regarding excessive alcohol levels some six years ago, responses were somewhat mixed, though more were in favour of lower alcohol than not. This time around, the half dozen people who responded were uniformly — and sometimes vehemently — in favour of lower alcohol levels. I thank all of you who took the time to weigh in, and I offer some samples, edited for reasons of space. Where I was able to obtain permission, I have quoted by name. Others are briefly paraphrased without attribution. A typical view of those who responded was that higher alcohol content was not to their liking. They agreed that it blunts your palate. One woman expressed her pleasure that the subject had been raised as it had been bothering her for some time. With a declining tolera...

One of our amazing followers requested we give this one a try and so this evening we enjoyed a bottle of the Montalto Pinot Grigio from Sicily with some Greek food (those poor beleagured Greeks). This wine is $11.79 for a 750 ml bottle but an amazing $17.89 for 1.5 L. That my friends, is what we might call a good deal. They also have a Nero d’Avola (a main Sicilian grape) in the same price range which is intriguing as well. The wine itself has a little more golden colour to it than we might expect for a Pinot Grigio. It is not Aussie Chardonnay golden but it is absolutely darker than a Sauvignon Blanc. Having not drunk a ton of Pinot Grigio (or Pinot Gris) we were not sure of the tendencies in this grape.   We thought it might have spent some time in oak but the interwebs tell us different and they use the term straw coloured as a descriptor. We’ll buy into that. The nose has some citrusy notes, with what we could best describe as dried apricots (not fresh – dried) and ...

So we open this bottle of South African Mourvèdre from Fairview Wine and Cheese , pour it into the decanter, give it about 15 minutes in there and then start to drink it.  First thing we get on the nose......mothballs.  Seriously, Grandma's attic mothballs.  We are not super familiar with Mourvèdre so we are kinda thrown off. Are we maybe smelling cedar, not mothballs?  Nope it is mothballs.  It is not super unattractive just not usual, so we are trying to understand whether or not it might be corked.  Online research tells us that 'corked' smells like musty cardboard or old clothes so we are not sure if that is what this smells like or not.  Statistics on the percentage of corked wine range from 5% to 13% depending on the source so that means on average we are supposed to be getting a couple a month.  We don't think we get that many corked wines but maybe we just don't know what we should be looking for.  That said, we sti...

Just found this and it is funny.....because it is true!  Give it a watch....from the Boring Wine Guy on YouTube.  Pardon the mild language (including the title) for anyone who might be offended: Keep on drinking! Chris & Shannon

This wine produced by Bodegas Juan Gil from the Jumilla region of Spain is a super fun wine.  Welch's grape juice is the best description for the colour.  It is very dark.  As a visual, you cannot see through it and it sticks to the glass on the swirl.  Good looking wine. The nose is ripe fruit with a little oak but there is a spice undertone.  We can see them mentioning cinnamon which we get but it is more like an allspice scent which makes it smell a lot warmer than the flavour profile. When you taste it you might expect a spice note on the palate but it really is a lot smoother than anything.  The acidity and tannins are in balance and it has a really nice mouthfeel.  Excellent tasting wine.  We really like it and if we could find more Petit Verdot we would certainly drink more if this wine is any indication.  Bit, if this is atypical based upon the Spanish treatment being a spin on the grape then sign us up, because it is great. Plu...

We did decide to have one of the our special wines over the weekend. It was a very special purchase in the Fall of 2004. We had a very memorable experience at this winery and this wine is a great memory of the place and time. It was the end of our first day of tastings in Sonoma, California with our good friends Keith and Susan, and we arrived at White Oak with about 5 minutes before closing.  As we parked and walked towards the entrance one of the tasting room staff was heading to close up shop. We ran to the door and pleaded our case to come in for a quick tasting and promised we would purchase something. She relented and we proceeded to have a great time at the tasting table and the staff was really fun and fantastic considering we kept them late.  We kept our promise and purchased some wine including this bottle ($25 USD at the time) which has since traveled across the US and back up into Canada since that time so we had no idea how this wine might have survived. U...

We have seen brands positioned as low calorie wines move their way onto wine store shelves.  We don't want wine snobbery to play into this per se but there is something not so attractive to us about these products.  It feels (rightly or wrongly) as though these low calorie wines are somehow created differently (and we could be wrong about that), kinda like Diet Coke or Nutrasweet.  The Wine Spectator today had an article about Bethany Frankel's Skinny Girl brand entering the wine market.  This would seem to be an obvious marketing play and there is certainly a segment out there for the products she has helped create. However to us, this whole concept in wine world is not appealing.  We are looking for some purity (to a certain extent) and robust flavour in the product.  We would much rather have an amazing organic wine than a low calorie wine.  Now we understand that much of the wine we drink has been 'manufactured' with chemical additions to help b...

It was a bit of a hectic Valentine's Day so we decided rather than rush through a great bottle of wine we would postpone...maybe until the weekend, not sure. We did, however, open our 2009 Cline Cellars Ancient Vines Zinfandel from Sonoma instead.  This was a good choice with the mushroom ravioli we were having. We didn't formally rate the wine but it was a big and floral red with solid body and balanced tannins.  We really liked it when we tried it at the 2011 Port of Wines Festival in October and that taste memory held up. Great wine but at just over $22 not an everyday drinker.  It was very tight when we first decanted it but the 15% Alcohol dissipated over the next hour or so giving it a more round mouthfeel. On the fly we gave it 16.5/20 (82.5%).  Very nice wine especially for strong dishes like steak. Hopefully the Valentine's Day hangover is not too bad for everyone. Keep on drinking! Chris & Shannon

So we have a few 'special' bottles that we are saving for special occasions.  They are not necessarily expensive nor are they glamorous labels but they are cellar worthy wines that we picked up on a special trip or some other reason that we just have not broken into for whatever reason. They would be what we consider aged (10 years old plus).  We have a 2001 Syrah from White Oak, a 2002 Cab Sauv from De La Montanya, and a 2002 Porter Creek Zinfandel (all from Sonoma), a 2000 Masottina Montesco from Italy, and 1999 Faustino I Rioja.  These bottles are like time capsules almost.  Some may be passed their prime in terms of drinkability but they are still quite special to us.  That said, it is Valentine's Day and as such it is as good an occasion as any to drink nice wine. BUT...is that tonight? We are on the fence.  We have some nice other wines that might suffice but they are not that 'special'.  Do we wait for an anniversary, a special dinner part...

So there is a new documentary film about Malbec from Argentina called Boom Varietal which explores the expansion of Malbec across the globe.  In its honour we decided to enjoy a Malbec this evening.  Our selection was the Norton Barrel Select from Luján de Cuyo, Mendoza ($15). This is a jammy version of Malbec.  It has a very berry nose on it which makes it feel like a Shiraz from Australia but it does not have the same level residual sugar, though this wine certainly is not a bone dry wine. It is dark as we would expect from a Malbec but it is not overly spectacular in the glass. We enjoyed the flavour but it is not as balanced as we would like. The tannins are fairly strong and give it a tartness that is a bit overpowering. Bottom line, it is a nice food wine but on its own it is a little rough around the edges.     Tasting Notes:   Score: Sight (0-5)  Dark Ruby coloured wine. Just an okay looking wine.  3.5 Smell (0-5)  Be...

We decided to get this wine as part of our current fascination with Cabernet Franc.  We figured that the Chilean version from Junta Winery would put its own spin on things and we were right.  This wine is a crazy interesting version of Cab Franc.  It has a very interesting nose and is very dark in the glass.  The taste is much more elegant than a number of versions we have tried. The dark colour is reminiscent of Cab Sauv or Malbec.  It is has a deep colour that has a Welch's quality to it.  There is a little thickness when swirled which holds up with the body of the wine. When you smell it there is a very full bodied aroma to the wine which we really enjoyed.  It is a very bold smelling wine with a lot of vanilla which is evident from the 12 month in oak described on the bottle.  There is a dark fruit and also a little smokiness in the wine. The taste of this wine really is the star of the show as it should be.  This wine has an eleg...

This was a bit of an impulse purchase but at $16 wasn't a stretch to pick up.  We have a 1999 Faustino I in our cellar so we figure why not try the baby brother. We have been fans of Spanish wine and the Spanish flavour profile/wine style for a few years now.  Rioja wines based on Tempranillo, Mencia from Bierzo have all been fantastic tasting journeys within a country of so many different wines. This Rioja is a blend of Tempranillo and Mazuelo (a grape which we are not too familiar with).  In the glass, it is not that spectacular looking.  Slightly watery and thin, it looks as though it would be a lighter red.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  This wine has a power-packed nose.  It is oaky with strong notes of leather, tobacco, and chocolate covered cherries.  It smells fantastic....so complex and robust.  It makes you want to drink it.  Once you do however, the taste does not quite live up to the nose BUT it is a very nice...

So, first off, let us just say that we honestly and truly thought that this was an Aussie Chardonnay when we bought it from Harvest Wines .  It was an oversight on our part and potentially a wrong bottle pull from the shelf.  That said, we got it home, opened it, didn't read the label and started tasting it.  Imagine our surprise when we actually looked at the bottle only to realize that it was indeed Canadian Chardonnay from the Okanagan Valley in British Columbia. Minds officially blown. This wine was really nice and certainly reminiscent of some Aussie Chard's we have had in the past.  Though as an unoaked version a lot of the fruit holds up more than the normal vanilla/toast/butter you might get from an oaked Chardonnay. Overall, the wine looked more like a Sauv Blanc, with a paleness to it that did not make it stand out (especially as a Chard) and there was a very slight sparkle.  There was a lot of peach and pear on the nose and it certainly could ha...

For Red Wine there is the argument as to whether decanting wine has an effect on the flavour or taste when drinking.  Some say, decanting is only really effective for wines of a certain price range or age.  Some people say you get the same effect by swirling the wine in your glass so why bother with the extra apparatus. Currently our household has two traditional decanters, two wine carafes, and two Aerators including the Metrokane Rabbit.  From what we have tasted and tried, we certainly feel like there is a need to decant Red Wine and by that we mean ALL Red Wine.  It doesn't matter if it is $5 or $500 dollars, it is at minimum aerated and normally decanted.  What we have noticed over time is that all wine needs that time to breathe.  For some wines, it is a marginal improvement, if at all, and for others it is a magical transformation of a wine that may start as not so enjoyable suddenly blooms into a tasty little specimen.  That ...

Thanks for this one Joanne! Goodness knows we need to be up-to-date on our wine life saving skills because you just never know....

This wine was our second Dry Riesling for the week.  This time the maker was Wolf Blass from Australia. So again, as earlier in the week, the use of the term 'Dry' Riesling is a bit of a misnomer.  It is definitely drier than regular old Riesling but it certainly is not a dry wine.  It is more in the 3.0 range on the sweetness scale rather than a normal Riesling would be in the 3.5 to 4.0 range.  So, because we are newbies to Dry Riesling we are putting two and two together to say that it is only going to be marginally drier.  That is, unless we can be pointed to an example that is more on the dry side.  Love to try some others. In any event, it is a nice wine that we got for a sweet deal, down to $16 from $24.  The wine itself lives up to the billing on the label, floral and citrus.  We absolutely got both.  The citrus is a lemony - grapefruity combination with honey-suckle on the nose and honey on the palate.  The citrus on the pa...

There are those wines out there that are just made for Pizza night.  So what makes for a good Pizza wine?  They are usually not too pricey, are flavourful enough to stand up to tomato sauce and cheese, and are normally kind of 'meh', take it or leave it kind of stuff.  Generally speaking we are not busting out the good stuff for Pizza Hut (or Papa John's - Gawd do we miss Papa John's up here in Nova Scotia).  Tonight we had the 2009 Feudo Badala Negroamaro from Puglia, Italy.  This varietal only recently came on our radar and has been pretty good.  This wine was on sale for $12 at Cristall & Luckett Wine Merchants locally. Overall, it had enough tannin in it to enhance the Pizza but wasn't overly powerful.  It is a tad on the thin side but still is a nice drinking wine.  We think this typifies what makes a good Pizza wine.  Tannins that let you know your drinking something that can cut through the greasiness of a cheesy Pizza ...

So we happened to see this one on a sale table at the NSLC in Mill Cove, Bedford. It has a pretty remarkable discount on it being down from $28 to $19. So, we felt like this made it into our pricing wheelhouse and a purchase was made. The d'Arenberg Winery in Australia just turned 100 years old and so we felt it fitting to drinking this wine on almost the exact centenary. When we smelled the wine, it definitely had a smell that indicated something closer to the original price. It was a fuller nose and we did decant this for a few minutes before drinking but it did open up a lot more after 30 minutes. The visuals on the wine were unremarkable which is to say, it looked like a medium bodied red which it turned out to be. As we mentioned the nose had a layer of complexity we like with a lot of dark fruit and smoky undertones. It smelled like a $28 bottle of wine. That sensibility carried over to the taste where there was that layer of complexity associated with the nose...