{"id":2847,"date":"2016-07-22T03:22:37","date_gmt":"2016-07-22T03:22:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.michaelpinkuswinereview.com\/index.php\/2016\/07\/22\/an-evening-chez-sue-ontario-argentina-australia-south-africa-california\/"},"modified":"2016-07-22T03:22:37","modified_gmt":"2016-07-22T03:22:37","slug":"an-evening-chez-sue-ontario-argentina-australia-south-africa-california","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.michaelpinkuswinereview.com\/index.php\/2016\/07\/22\/an-evening-chez-sue-ontario-argentina-australia-south-africa-california\/","title":{"rendered":"An Evening Chez Sue (Ontario \/ Argentina\/ Australia \/ South Africa \/ California)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/span><\/p>\n

(November 20, 2015) …<\/strong> I am often asked why I write countries in my titles, yet California ( a US state ) gets its own mention – it’s because California is a world unto itself … what else can I say?<\/p>\n

This was an evening where I packed my wine bags and headed off to our friend’s house (let’s call her Sue) for dinner; I packed a lot of things in my bags tonight, 8 wines in total, with a real (for lack of a better term) mixed bag of results.<\/p>\n

Kicked things off with a little Organized Crime 2008 Gewürztraminer<\/strong><\/span>, surprising how well this wine has stood the test of time: nose is floral, melon, tangerine, pear, and lychee – incredibly still fresh and lively and the palate confirmed that: subtle floral, orange peel and good acidity. Finished on a real high note: spiced with subtle white pepper and the delight of green pear.<\/p>\n

That Gewürztraminer was a real bright spot for the white wines tonight – the one I thought would hit the high notes proved to be a real lemon, Pondview 2009 Bella Terra Chardonnay<\/span><\/strong> – with the pedigree of 2009 this should have been a stand out, but alas the nose (which may have been this wine’s best feature): almond, hazelnut, and marzipan while the palate was a dreadful oxidized mess that barely held on to the praline, spice, and mushroom flavours – finish was awful and the dark golden colour of the wine should have been our bellwether as to how this was going to taste … I thought it might be the bottle, so I went home and two days later opened my other bottle of this wine – and it was even worse. I can only speculate as to what went wrong here.<\/p>\n

I would have to say the rest of my bottles turned out to be winners, and were a real world tour of wine starting with a bottle of Goulart 2007 Clasico \"\"<\/span>Malbec<\/span><\/strong> from Argentina. I bought this wine in the States years ago and it is holding up nicely though the aromas might be a little on the funky side: spicy, leafy, and herbal; but the palate showed a better side:  dried cassis and dried blueberry all dashed with a dose of black pepper.<\/p>\n

The Australian contribution was a Nepenthe 2003 The Rogue<\/span><\/strong>, it too had a rather herbal aroma that wouldn’t give up, but once it was open for a bit (20 minutes) lovely flavours of blackberry, mocha, licorice, and cherry emerged … for a 12 year old bottle I was rightly impressed with this wine.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/span>I have quite a few older bottles of South African wines in the cellar, though I will admit over the years I have curbed my South African wine buying … this Thelema 2006 Shiraz<\/strong><\/span> proved to be meaty on the nose with a nice hint of cassis, but there was also a bit of a rubber hose aroma that began to emerge – on the palate Shiraz was the furthest thing from my mind as sour cherry, tarry, smoky, and oaky showed up and stuck it out – I said all my bottles following the Chardonnay were winners, but I guess I meant comparatively, which is an even bigger slap in the face of that Chardonnay.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/span>The last bottle of the evening didn’t disappoint, nor did I think it would: Michael David 2006 Zinfandel, 7 Deadly Zins<\/span><\/strong> – Nose loaded with plum, spice, vanilla, with a sweet meatiness hanging about; palate was also pleasant as hell: plum, vanilla, and smoked-mocha cherries … yet another reason to like Zinfandel and to age a bottle or two.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Other wines tasted tonight (click name for full review):  <\/em><\/strong>
Hair of the Dog 2015 Gamay <\/a>
Huff 2013 Pinot Gris<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(November 20, 2015) … I am often asked why I write countries in my titles, yet California ( a US state ) gets its own mention – it’s because California is a world unto itself … what else can I say? This was an evening where I packed my wine bags and headed off to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-what-im-drinking-tonight"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.michaelpinkuswinereview.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2847","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.michaelpinkuswinereview.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.michaelpinkuswinereview.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.michaelpinkuswinereview.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.michaelpinkuswinereview.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2847"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wp.michaelpinkuswinereview.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2847\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.michaelpinkuswinereview.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.michaelpinkuswinereview.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.michaelpinkuswinereview.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}