Chateau Montelena, Zinfandel, Calistoga Napa Valley, 2007

 

Chateau Montelena is one of those epic Californian houses, best known for helping to put Napa Valley on the world wine map when they beat four top Burgundian Chardonnays in a 1976 blind tastings with their 73 Chardonnay. Check out Bottle Shock. Great wine film. There's a scene where all the young Montelena interns are trying to win some money for some reason on their vintage-deduction prowess. I like that Six Feet Under guy, but I think he makes a better undertaker. I applaud his enthusiastic mouth-work, but I'm not buying his show. It must be a great skill to have though - to be able to dazzle with your varietal knowledge on the spot like that, with so much adrenaline churning about the roadhouse. Things could have got ugly. I want Matt Damon to make Good Will Hunting Part 2, but this time he's a sommelier - asking everyone at a wine tasting how they like his apples. By the way, don't steal my script ideas. Speaking adrenaline pumps, I've got to get back to my souffle. I'm matching a dry zinfandel with a chocolate one of those.

Nyarai Cellars, Veritas, 2007, Niagara Peninsula VQA

Conventional wisdom states that Niagara is home to serious emerging wines - Rieslings, Sauvignon Blancs, Pinot Noirs, sparkling and ice wines. Mainly those varietals that thrive in Northern France. Canada has many good things. Its weather is not one of them. Following this logic, if you swear by California Cabernet Sauvignon or Australian Shiraz you should probably veer away from Ontario Bordeaux blends or, god help you, shiraz or cab franc blends. Green and tannic come to mind. But what do you expect? There isn't enough sunshine or a long enough growing season to produce big lush wines in the new-world style. You can't squeeze deep, full-bodied reds from five month snow-drifts. Well, that's not necessarily true. An exceptional wine maker in an exceptionally warm year can shatter conventional wisdom with well placed rabbit-punches.

Prieure de Montezargues, Rosé, 2009, Tavel, Rhone

Rosé. For a long time, North Americans dismissed pink wines as little more than a change of pace beverage for ladies who chug their white wine with ice cubes and debate the sexual currency of leopard pattern versus fluorescent green miniskirts. This slander is connected to white zinfandel. Sweet, sloppy and fractions from a California Cooler, white zinfandel is pretty traumatic if you enjoy dry, well-built wines.

D'Arenberg High Trellis, Cabernet Sauvignon, 2007, McLaren Vale

If you're in the mood for a big south Australian red, you can rarely do better than D'Arenberg. Well, perhaps you can do better, but this producer is so consistently good and well-priced, that you rarely have to wonder if you've picked up a shallow wine. Tough to screw this up. It's always solid. At under $20, the High Trellis is one of my go-tos.

Rocca delle Macie, Chianti Riserva, 2006, Tuscany, D.O.C.G

Italy is a demanding wine region. As a modern nation-state, Italy is just a bit older than Canada. It's an incredibly diverse, complex and slightly illogical cobbling together of micro-regions with distinct idiomatic dialects, cuisines, hand gesturing, blood vendettas, hairstyles, virgins and wine-making styles. Schiopettino. Uva de Troia. Nuragus. Ribolla Gialla. Pignolo. These are neither diseases nor dead Emperors. These are grapes. Varietals that dominate pockets of the country. Having said that, Tuscany is what most people picture when the word Italy is lobbed into a conversation - villas, hilltop monasteries, cyprus trees and those cool straw-cased bottles that you can find in the basement kitchens that Italian mothers cook in so as to avoid wearing out the nice main-floor kitchen.