Unfussy Wine Enthusiasts | Wine Reviews & Articles

Happy New Year!! So, it has been a pretty dry 2013 overall in the Unfussy Wine household with baby arriving but we are hoping that 2014 will bring a new commitment to wine enjoyment and solid food for little Morgan. :) We will be spending a very quiet New Year's Eve (NYE) as a family and we may make it to midnight and then again we may not.  There is also no guarantee that wine of any kind will be consumed....but ya never know. So, for all those who will be enjoying the transition to 2014 in style we thought we would put in front of you our Ten Ten Wines to go with you tonight as you enjoy your celebrations.  PLUS, if you are attending at a residence that is not yours it is always polite to bring something with you and yes we are talking to you twenty-somethings.  Be a good party guest and don't just BYOB.  So, without further adieu, the list starting at 10: 10. Aussie Shiraz - this is a great starter red for those white wine drinkers in the house and very...

This is another wine that we were provided from Hardys that retails for $20 locally.  It is a blend of Riesling and Gewurztraminer that has an Aussie style to it which is to say thicker and a bit more tropical in the nose. We had this wine with sushi which was a pretty good pairing.  The crisp acidity and sugar in the wine helped balance some of the soya sauce and wasabi.  Overall, it was a good choice. The wine looked like a brighter version of most Rieslings we have tried.  We would call it pale golden.  Less golden than the picture on the left portrays.  As we mentioned it was also a thick wine that stuck to the glass, though the alcohol comes in at 11.0% which is our minds is fine. The nose was somewhat floral but definitely leaned towards the tropical notes of passion fruit and gooseberry.  There was a nice balance of fruit and sweetness on the nose and really it smells pretty nice. The flavours were predominately peach with a lemon-l...

We started drinking wine as a couple in the late nineties and at that time we had, what we consider to be, a fairly unsophisticated palate (some might say we still do).  Back then we tended to enjoy the more typically popular wines.  However, beyond that we had an innate curiosity about what else was out there and we definitely went outside the popular selections.  That got us started down the road of enjoying wine...all wine and making us want to see what that next wine tasted like.  As we have always said, preference absolutely plays a role in your selections once you are in the aisles of the wine shop or liquor store and we were and are no different.  What IS different is what we preferred or gravitated toward when we hit the stores. Our earliest preferences revolved around oaky and buttery Australian Chardonnay, powerful Cabernet Sauvignon, and bold Shiraz also from Australia (price being a main contributing factor when you are young and broke - that is ...

Label Slightly Different This wine was a bit of an unknown but one we have wanted to try for a while.  Let's rephrase that....we have wanted to try a Gewurztraminer for a while and this one from P.J. Valckenberg just happened to fit the bill at $18.50 locally. As far as Gewurztraminer goes, the wine is in the same ballpark as Riesling and they do have one thing in common which is residual sugar, but the Gewurz tends to be a floral with notes of spice and this one was no different.  The floral though was of a Peach orchard.  This wine was peachy in every sense.  It really smelled like a someone poured booze on a can of peaches.  This is not a bad thing by any means but the monerality and crisp acidity in a lot of German Riesling is replaced by mild tartness and what was described as cloves to us, really smells like Chinese Five Spice (so that kind of makes sense). In the glass it is a little more golden than we expected but it looks really nice.  Ov...

We shall as good Irish descendants might, imbibe some on St. Paddy's Day. This may consist of Irish Coffee, Guinness, or even Wine. But, if we do decide to have wine....what should it be. We will most likely be having something Irish cuisine related. So what would you recommend to have with Boxty or Irish Stew or Colcannon? We were thinking something along the lines of Shiraz like a Katnook Shiraz or maybe a Grenache-Syrah-Mourvedre like Lavau Vacqueyras . If you were leaning towards the White wine end of things...it is heavier food those Irish love so you need something with balance and some acidity to cut through the fat, so maybe a Valckenberg Gewurztraminer . You'll note that all these are found at Bishop's Cellar ( @BishopsCellar ) which is just close enough to drag ourselves to after our early morning Irish Breakfast.  Whatever your choice, enjoy your St. Paddy's Day as responsibly as possible. Slainte! Keep on drinking! Chris & Shannon