I’m disappointed with the amount of wine I’ve been drinking lately. Interesting and thought provoking wine anyways. In an attempt to amend this, I spent a good chunk of time pacing the isles of Marquis yesterday, chatting about some cool and locally unobtainable producers with a French employee named Marie. She seemed defeated by BC’s access to wine and thrilled to talk to someone who knew people like Bellivière, Breton, Overnoy, and Occhipinti existed. She pointed me towards a couple intriguing bottles, including an old vines Aligoté from Alice and Olivier de Moor and a Bierzo from Domino de Tares. In the land of lifeless wine shop selections, Marquis continues to impress me a little more each visit.
Here are a few of the better wines I’ve tried this week:
Domaine Richard Rottiers ‘08 Moulin à Vent
Anyone who still thinks Beaujolais is bubble gum and candy should give Richard Rottiers‘ Moulin à Vent a whirl. This is serious Gamay from Rottiers’ 3 hectares of old vines and has plenty of Pinot Noir qualities. Dark fruit - black cherry and cola, with a light embrace of tannin. The aromatics improved the longer it sat in our glasses and the wine would probably be happy with another year or so in the bottle. Good Cru Beaujolais for $30 at Marquis.
Azienda Agricola Palari ‘05 “Rosso del Soprano”
The Rosso del Soprano is one of two labels from the producer Palari and winemaker Salvatore Geraci. He works from within one of Italy’s smallest DOC’s, Faro, tucked in the northeastern corner of Sicily and overlooking the strait towards the mainland. The grape blend is dominated by Nerello Mascalese, Nocera, and Nerello Cappuccio. The nose is a beautiful blend of ripe berry fruits which are carried through on the palate with licorice and a malty character. Medium weight, soft and stunning. We all need to drink more good wine from Sicily. I picked this bottle up in San Francisco where it runs $37-$45 retail. It’s available at a couple K&L stores.
Alice and Olivier de Moor ‘06 Old Vines Aligoté
I had my first brush with a de Moor Aligoté at Terroir in San Francisco, and did a double take when I spotted the natural producer on the shelf at Marquis in Vancouver. This label comes from vines planted in 1902 and unlike their regular bottling of Aligoté, spends some of its life in barrel. The nose was honeyed with grapefruit and some petrol. The mouth was concentrated, a touch waxy and much richer that I expected - apple and caramel with a dry chalky finish. Interesting and definitely a different take on Aligoté, but I yearned for some of that searing acidity synonymous with the grape. I suggest giving the regular label a try for $25, a crisp and citrusy wine that could cleanse your palate of anything. The old vines runs for $30. Check out more from Alice and Olivier de Moor on Wine Terroirs.
More good stuff to come…
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6 Responses:
February 26th, 2010 at 12:58 pm
I can relate to Marie’s exasperation, but probably not quite as much as someone who has lived with access to a plethora of great small producers. I shall try to Rottiers, but the Rosso del Soprano sounds wonderful. I wish I could get something of that ilk here.
So, how do you find California’s selection - is it dominated by local wines? I found the CA wine industry was a pretty massive influence on retaurant wine lists (which is understandable) - but I did spend most of my time seeking out the gems in CA while down there (not an easy task to be honest).
February 27th, 2010 at 2:38 pm
A lot of the places I’ve frequented in San Francisco weren’t dominated by California selections. Sommeliers there seem to struggle with wanting to offer the good local stuff, but also are exposed to tons of great value (and often better value) wines from Europe. It’s not uncommon to find a decent and interesting wine from Burgundy on a list for $50-$100. Something that’s unheard of in BC. It’s often an easy decision between that and local wine for the same price. That being said, there are plenty of great California producers doing great things, whose wines definitely don’t make it up to Canada in any quantities and the best restaurants highlight these. Nopa is a great example, although not more than 50%, a good chunk of Chris’ list in the Chard, Pinot, Rhone varietal, and Bord. varietal categories are local. http://nopasf.com/menu/wine_list/
From what I’ve witnessed, consumer demand for California wines is still significant.
March 1st, 2010 at 11:31 am
Yes, interesting. I didn’t explore much international wine down there, instead trying to search out all the unique small Californian producers.
March 4th, 2010 at 11:13 pm
I’ve expressed my discontent to you about the abysmal selection here in B.C. but I am starting to see why after a talk with a wine salesman at Marquis (I was looking for some Gropello to blind somene) told me about their big buy of small region Italian wines that sat in the store unsold for 2 years. It seems the problem in B.C. is equal parts government hinderance on importing small amounts of cool juice, and a lack of interest on the consumers behalf. The ladder I take it is what you and Kurtis are helping motivate with your blog. To be sure Vancouver’s selection is shit but bravo for the people who will make it better. I tip my hat to you both.
March 5th, 2010 at 5:55 pm
Cheers Miguel.
The contrast between wine buying habits in Vancouver and San Francisco completely shocks me. I’m sure you’ve seen it in New York too. Yes, the shops have much more obscure selections down there, and for every great wine shop (Arlequin, Terroir, K&L, Biondivino, Kermit Lynch, etc.), there are 20 corner stores and Safeways with abysmal selections, but people seem a lot more confident walking into the shop and buying a bottle of JP Thevenet Morgon or Clos Roche Blanche Touraine. Bigger populations to buy the stock? A bigger community of people pushing and talking about cool wines, including mainstream mag/newspaper wine writers = a more interested public? National importers like Joe Dressner and Kermit Lynch who have built a reputation and branding that people trust to buy? I’m not sure, but you’re right that flooding the BC market with obscure bottles and expecting people to buy them isn’t the way to go.
-Jake
March 28th, 2010 at 2:04 pm
[...] cru of Morgon and recently have loved the few bottles I’ve had from Moulin-à-Vent (Rottiers and Janin ‘Clos du Tremblay’ specifically), but I feel there’s plenty of [...]