Question: I just read your article on BC wines and wondered if they are exporting any of them to the US. In the past I’ve found it very difficult to get any of their wines. I like their Pinot Noirs the best.

Answer: Yes until recently the BC wines have been in very limited production and that supply has been taken up by the local markets especially the Vancouver restaurants. Some wineries are now looking to broaden their horizons and are exporting to the US and other countries. A good list of wines to buy online directly from several Canadian wineries is available in the USA at www.winevip.com. Also look for them in an increasing number of US restaurants. For example the outstanding Foxtrot Vineyards (www.foxtrotwine.com) pinot noir is on the wine list of the top restaurant Cuistot in Palm Desert California. Meyer Family Vineyards (www.mfvwines.com) specializes in pinot noir & chardonnay and is focusing on increasing their export market with already 7 countries on board. Seek them out.

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Imagine the ultimate relaxing meal served outdoors with clean air in an idyllic setting in a flowery meadow under a high azure blue sunny sky at a classy very long table. This is the reality at the annual Araxi Longtable held this year in Vancouver on August 3 and in Pemberton outside Whistler on September 5. This ambitious dining series by Araxi (@araxirestaurant) Executive Chef James Walt, Director Neil Henderson, Sommelier Samantha Rahn (@samantharahnGC) and their whole brigade is so compelling and so well orchestrated. The ultimate Slow Food experience. Striking scene last weekend at North Arm Farm (@northarmfarm) with a record 272 guests seated at one very long table. Some had travelled from Miami, Chicago and New York for this specific event. The excellent menu features local ingredients harvested at the peak of the season in a true farm-to-table scenario. This 60 acre Sturdy family working organic farm grows amazing seasonal mixed vegetables and fruits. Jordan Sturdy gave us an informative insightful tour of the farm. Great story about how the black bears used to enjoy the open smorgasbord especially of corn and pumpkins until he spent $20,000 on a special fence around the property to keep them out.

The amazing menu:

Reception Canapes: Foie Gras Gougeres with Fresh Okanagan Peaches; Chilled Prawns with Sundried Tomato Sauce;  and English Pea & Duck Egg Pasta Ravioli. Le Vieux Pin Vaila Rose 2014 or Pemberton Distillery Gin Cocktail.

Seared BC Albacore Tuna, Grilled Corn Salsa & Local Apple Gel, Braised Salsify & Shiso Leaf; LaStella Vivace Pinot Grigio 2014.

Dungeness Crab Stuffed Squash Blossoms, Fresh Crab Blended with Salt Spring Island Cheese, Baby Multi-coloured Tomatoes & Burrata; Le Vieux Pin “Ava” 2013. My “wine of the day” is so outstanding! Combines 50% Viognier, 41% Rousanne, and 9% Marsanne so effectively. Shows some of that Northern Rhone richness and texture but it is brought in at only 12.9 alcohol so is very vibrant & refreshing as well. A real winner and a superb wine matching for this most delicious course!

Pemberton Meadows to Cache Creek Organic Beef, Aged Sirloin with Red Wine & Herb Braised Cheeks, Pressed Potatoes, with Yellow Carrots; LaStella Fortissimo 2013: Bordeaux styling blend with 16% Sangiovese, and Le Vieux Pin Cuvee Violette Syrah 2013: Peppery with only 2.84 Tons/acre co-fermented with a couple percent Rousanne and aged 14 months in aged French oak (none new). This must have been some sort of record for dry aged beef on the bone totalling 62 days and just trimmed for cooking the day before. In any event so sweet tender and flavourful. What a treasured recipe!

North Arm Farm Berries, Chocolate Coated Strawberry Ice Cream Bars, Sweet Lemon Tart with Raspberries; Quails’ Gate Botrytis Optima 2014. Also assorted handmade Petit Fours including fruit jellies by Pastry Chef Aaron Heath.

Highly recommend the quality and breathtaking experience of this memorable dining event and encourage everyone to put it on their bucket list!

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By Joseph Temple

“From the Golden Slope of Burgundy to the chateaux of Bordeaux, 1959 will be remembered not as the year of De Gaulle and Algeria but as the year of the Great Wine,” declared Time magazine. “A boon to the grapes, and not only has it been a great year in quality, but in quantity as year,” wrote the influential humorist Art Buchwald. With an exceptional summer, it appeared that nineteen fifty-nine was turning into something truly remarkable across the vineyards of Bordeaux. And brilliantly capitalizing on all of this free publicity, French winemakers ceremoniously dubbed it “The Vintage of the Century,” a title that unleashed a wine renaissance throughout the United States.

For the Bordelais, the good news couldn’t have come at a better time. The previous year had produced a small harvest and the year before was so bad that France was actually forced to import wine. In terms of quality, the vintages of the late 1950s were so awful that many in the newly created Fifth Republic chose beer instead of wine when visiting the local watering hole. Back in America, a young enthusiast named Robert M. Parker Jr. concurred when tasting a bottle of 1957 Château Lafite-Rothschild. Remarking it “tastes like cat piss,” Parker learned that with no rating system, first-growth Bordeaux’s like Lafite could easily coast on their reputation despite having such a subpar product.

But with news about the vintage of the century spreading like wildfire, American wine drinkers finally decided to enter the marketplace in a big way. During the 1950s, as oenophile culture started to gain steam on the east coast, the train of thought was that French wine was the undisputed gold standard. And with a devaluation of the franc ordered by Charles De Gaulle, U.S. dollars could now snatch up a sizable chunk of Bordeaux’s exports, which for seven and a half centuries had been dominated by the British.

For those who took advantage of the situation, they would not be disappointed. Michael Broadbent described the 1959 Château Lafite as “one of the best-ever Lafites … mammoth. And superb” while calling the Château Latour: “Glorious … perfect enough to keep on maturing for another quarter century.” According to Parker, “The wines do display the effects of having been made in a class, hot, dry year, with just enough rain to keep the vineyards from being stressed. They are full bodied, extremely alcoholic, and opulent, with high degrees of tannin and extract.”

So long before terms like ‘vintage of the century’ had been used ad nauseam, the marketing slogan proved to be a resounding success in places like New York and Washington D.C. By 1961, the price of first-growths had more than quadrupled with Americans for the first time becoming the principal buyers. Adding to these soaring prices was a futures market—something that would have been unheard of in the United States a decade before—making many British customers irate. Describing the mood in England during this time, author Elin McCoy writes, “The international market was now being built on these high prices, and if the Americans dropped out it would surely crash. Who else but the Americans would pay so much money for wine?”

Looking back at the craze over the vintage of the century, many wine writers believe that 1959 didn’t live up to its hype, especially when compared to 1961. However, no one can deny the impact that this vintage had on buying habits in the United States, signaling a seismic shift in the export market for French wines that is still felt to this day.

Sources:

Broadbent, Michael. Michael Broadbent’s Pocket Vintage Wine Companion. London: Anova Books, 2007.
Buchwald, Art. (1959, Oct 7). Buchwald, The Boor of Bordeaux Learns How To Swish And Spit. The Miami News. Retrieved from http://news.google.com.
Harding, Julia. The Oxford Companion to Wine. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.
London Observer Service. (1959, Oct 9). 1959 – Century’s Best Vintage.
McCoy, Elin. The Emperor of Wine: The Rise of Robert M. Parker Jr., and the Reign of American Taste. New York: HarperCollins, 2005.
Parker, Robert M. Bordeaux: A Consumer’s Guide to the World’s Finest Wines. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2013.
Robards, Terry. (1982, July 11). Wine; A Vintage of the Century Revisited. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://nytimes.com.
Unknown Author. (1959, Oct 19). Business: A Votre Sant. Time Magazine. Retrieved from http://content.time.com.

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“Madeira Wine” by y kawahara – originally posted to Flickr as Madeira Wine. Licensed under CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

Question: What are the main factors that make Madeira so unique from other wines?

Answer: Two main ones – the estufado system of heat maturation + the specific terroir of the volcanic soil on which the grapes are grown.

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Photos Credit: Vision Events Photography

As regular readers of this Blog already know the British Columbia wines have improved by leaps and bounds in the last few years. Helped somewhat by global warming, winemaking experience and other vineyard factors there are current releases that are outstanding. The recognition of some unique key factors has contributed to this excellence and the distinct terroir that is evolving: good levels of natural acidity and tannins for the intense pure fruit flavours (including complex sage, tree fruits, herbs, earth) from long sunlight hours with dramatic swings between warm days and cool nights. Though far north at 49-50 degrees latitude many vineyards enjoy the benefits of this unusual hot dry desert short growing season which is so conducive to sustainable farming.

Therefore the timing was appropriate to test this theory on the visit this August for a week to the Okanagan Valley & Vancouver by world recognized wine expert Steven Spurrier consulting editor of Decanter and chair of their World Wine Awards with a “Judgment of BC” tasting. It also celebrated the 25th anniversary of BC VQA (Vintner’s Quality Alliance) a guarantee that the wine is made from 100% BC grown grapes. They now are promoting this with “BC VQA. Or You Could Call it BC DNA”. Back in 1976 Steven organized the historic “Judgment of Paris” comparing California wines against French. Seventeen acknowledged wine “pros” who know BC wines including your scribe accepted the invitation to rank blind 12 chardonnay and 12 syrah in separate flights each containing 6 from BC and 6 International benchmarks. Wine educator DJ Kearney (@djwines) the curator of this event together with Wines of British Columbia (www.winebc.com; @WineBCdotcom) did an outstanding orchestration of this tasting using the best wine glasses, serving at perfect wine temperatures, white table mats, natural light, adequate time to study the wine in the glass etc. Well done.

CHARDONNAY: A controversial choice because nearly every wine region is making international chardonnay but some regions are delivering a very special recognizable terroir. BC has some high quality examples but not enough distinct unique style to differentiate it from most other chardonnay around the world. Would prefer showing the success of Riesling (plantings from 1978), Chenin Blanc (plantings from 1968), Rhone blends (Viognier, Rousanne, Marsanne) or even the most planted variety Pinot Gris – which sometimes can be a little boring.  The results with no BC chardonnay in the top 5 was not a surprise to me.

SYRAH: A very good choice because certainly syrah is impressive from BC. Magically combines both characteristics of rich ripe intense fruit from warmer climate regions together with fresher, black pepper, gamey, floral, and the more balanced style of cooler regions. Not unexpected to me with the results ranking first, fourth & fifth and showing clearly that BC Syrah is world class among its peers. Cabernet Franc, Pinot Noir, Gamay Noir, or even the most planted variety Merlot would be good choices for hopefully the second edition of this event. Steven tried many pinot noir wines during his Okanagan Valley visit and was impressed with “the elegance and the true Burgundian style of this variety”.  Yes Foxtrot Vineyards 2012 and others are really singing. He also noted ” For me wine is the three “P’s”: the Place, the People, and the Product. British Columbia ticks all these boxes with exuberance, elegance and conviction”. BC Bottle Shock? Perhaps. For some yes. For me no. The results of both blind tastings are as follows:

CHARDONNAY RANKINGS:

1. Soumah Single Vineyard 2013 Yarra Valley Victoria $27 – 12.7 degrees alcohol Bottled November 2013 Poured 4th
2. Kumeu River Hunting Hill 2012 Auckland New Zealand $35 – 13.5 Poured 12th
3. Hamilton Russell 2014 Hemel-en-Aarde South Africa $40 – 13. Poured 10th
4. Jean-Marc Brocard Chablis 1er Cru Montmains 2012 France $45 – 13. Poured 1st
5. Bouchard Pere Meursault 1er Cru Genevrieres 2011 France $86 – 13.5 Poured 5th
6. Blue Mountain Reserve 2012 Okanagan Valley BC $30 – 13.5 Poured 2nd
7. Tantalus 2012 $24 – 14. Poured 6th
8. Robert Mondavi Reserve 2012 Carneros California $44 – 13.5 Poured 8th
9. Mission Hill Perpetua 2012 Okanagan Valley BC $50 Poured 9th
10. (Tie for 9th) Quails’ Gate Rosemary’s Block 2013 Okanagan Valley BC $30 – 13. Poured 11th
11. Meyer Family Micro Cuvee 2012 Okanagan Valley BC $65 -13.5 Poured 3rd
12. Haywire Canyonview 2013 $25 – 14. Poured 7th

SYRAH RANKING:

1. CC Jentsch 2013 Okanagan Valley BC $30 – 13.8  Also just won Platinum at National Wine Awards 2015 Poured 5th
2. Langmeil Orphan Bank 2012 Barossa South Australia $68 – 14.5 Vines 70 years old Poured 4th
3. Domaine Vincent Paris Cornas Granit 60 2013 Rhone France $66 – 13. Poured 6th
4. Nichol Okanagan Valley BC $40 – 12.8 Poured 1st
5. Le Vieux Pin Cuvee Classique 2013 Okanagan Valley BC $50 14.1 Poured 11th
6. Ojai 2011 Santa Barbara California $30 Poured 3rd
7. Jackson-Triggs Sunrock 2010 Okanagan Valley BC $30 – 13.5 Poured 7th
8. Orofino Scout Vineyard 2012 Similkameen Valley BC $29 – 14.7 Poured 12th
9. JL Chave Crozes-Hermitage Silene 2012 Rhone France $40 – 13. Poured 2nd
10. Tyrrell Vat 9 2011 Hunter Valley New South Wales $49 – 12.9 Poured 10th
11. Laughing Stock 2013 Okanagan Valley BC $38 – 14.2 Poured 8th
12. K Vintners The Beautiful 2012 Walla Walla Washington $70 – 14.5 Poured 9th

(L-R) Sid Cross, Steven Spurrier, Barb Philip MW, David Scholefield.

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