Willow Springs 2005 Testa Limited Reserve Cabernet Franc - Bottle 2

Click here to read the original review from January 2007 

or the previous re-taste post from September 2012

(Re-Tasted September 2012) ... If you thought I was pissed in my last post you haven't seen or read anything yet, it is going to seem that I am picking on this particular producer, but I am talking to all of you half-wits and no-brains who decided to use plastic cork back in the early to mid-2000's and those that STILL insist on using this crappy closure today ... STOP RIGHT NOW.  I have read the labels on this bottle backwards and forwards, front to back, and nowhere does it say that it is sealed with an inferior closure - nor does it say that it is closed with a plastic cork.  I did read the bottom line of the back label that says, "Enjoy now with family and friends", but when you call your wine a "Limited Reserve" you have to expect that some folks are going to lie this wine down for an extended stay in their cellar - especially because 2005 was such a good year for reds, and thus ageing wine.  This wine is a nasty mess (and that's three bottles worth - see below), as the picture to the right shows, the cork on this second bottle isn't in as bad a shape as the previous bottle, but it is still leaking up the side and rimming the cork with gooey dried wine.  The colour was a sickly brown and the taste was bitter and, yes, I'll say it again, NASTY.

Plastic corks are the bane of my existence.  As a person who cellars his wine and looks forward to opening the bottle in the future, there is nothing worse than seeing a plastic cork under the capsule.  As I posted last night on Facebook:  "I'd have been happier with a corked bottle because I would know they at least tried for a quality closure." ... but putting a plastic cork on a good bottle is like giving up - you aren't even giving the wine a chance to get better, you're saying "today is the best this bottle of wine is ever going to be" - you're also saying, "I don't give a flying f--k about my customer", especially when you don't put anything on the back label (or front label) about the wine being sealed with this type of closure.  Shame on Willow Springs and shame on any producer still using this type of seal on a bottle (and I know in Ontario there's still at least one, hello Lakeview) without putting a warning on the label to customers that they should drink the wine within a year, or less.

As for my last bottle of this Testa 2005 Cabernet Franc mess ... it's in the exact same condition the other bottles are in:  The capsule is seemingly glued to the bottle.  Wine is seeping up the side of the cork. The smell is atrocious and the wine is brown and dingy with an off-puting nose and even worse taste.  What a complete waste of money this was, I take solace in the fact I paid a mere $13.95 per, but had Willow Springs added a buck or two more to the price, just so they could use a better closure, I would have been happy to pay it.  Right now I'm just royally pissed - as any customer would be - and that's not the lasting impression you wanna leave on the people helping to pay your bills. 

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Willow Springs 2005 Testa Limited Reserve Cabernet Franc - Bottle 1

Click here to read the original review from January 2007 

(Re-Tasted September 2012) ... Earlier this week I posted about tasting a horrible Cabernet Franc, and for those of you who follow me on Twitter and Facebook, here it is.  This was just a nasty piece of business, but I can't blame the wine or the wine making, in fact, when I read my review from back in January 2007 this wine should have been made for the long-haul.  Alas some %R*%&**& decided to close this wine with a plastic cork - and if you follow my wine reviews and re-taste notes you know what I think of plastic.  You'll know that I think a plastic cork isn't good at the best of times, but what made this wine even more exciting was that it had a leaky plastic cork - well that's even better, or worse, depending on how you look at it.  I really have nothing else to say about this wine ... if the producer doesn't care enough about their premium reserve wine to seal it with a proper closure, then I guess I reserve the right not to write anymore about the wine.  If you have some of this in your cellar all I can say is good luck.  Picture of the offending cork and wine label appears to the right.

Maybe I'm being a little hard on this wine ... seems I have another 2 bottles of this, that's the confidence I had in this wine.  I'll try it again over the next week to see if I just got a very faulty bottle ... instead of just a faulty bottle.  Stay tuned.

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Willow Springs Winery 2003 Vidal

Found July 2010

Lazy (and hot) Sunday afternoon ... the call for lunch is a tuna sandwich ... now I have to find a white wine (too heavy for red with all this heat, besides dinner is a steak so red is already forecasted for later).  I find this Vidal in one of my wine fridges, for all I remember it may have been there since 2003.  Nose is slightly honeyed with some peach and apple puree.  Teeth-chillingly cold, so for now it is okay, it tastes like booze in white wine; we'll have to give it some time to warm up and develop some flavours.

20 minutes have passed and now we are starting to see what was under that cold exterior ... and in truth this is not bad at all.  There is some slightly oxidized apple here, with a hint of pear, a drop of lemon and enough acidity left to hold it all together.  It's a wine I keep sipping on wondering when the other shoe is going to drop and I won't want to drink it anymore, but I keep on sipping away.  There's even a nice mid-length finish of apple peel.  I can't complain too much about this wine, it is doing its job on a hot July afternoon, plus it has me taking more and more sips trying to figure it out - what more can I want.  I am prepare to make the call on this Willow Springs 2003 Vidal.  Lost & Found Rating:  Treasure

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Willow Springs Testa 2002 Meritage

Found August 2008

The Testa label is the designation that Willow Springs gives to their Reserve line of wines that are only produced in “good years”. 2002 was one of those years, and I remember liking this wine so much that I put my name on a waiting list for the second bottling. My original personal note said: “Lots of fruit ... smooth and easy to drink - ready now but could do with a few years of lying down.” I was not far off on this perception.

Now 6 years from Vintage date I was ready to give this wine another try in the hopes that it had aged well … my answer to those with a few bottles (more or less) is yes and no. The nose on the wine is dried fruit, pleasant and definitely approachable. The taste is a bit on the oaky side, with black cherry, cinnamon and sweet raisins on the tongue, there is also a pleasant black licorice finish. But after the first hour things change drastically. The wine tired and lost any semblance of wine and had become very woodsy and unappealing, both on the nose and taste. My recommendation is to drink this one up quickly. Please note: mine just lasted that long because I was alone, otherwise it would have been gone within the first hour. Good luck and enjoy. Lost & Found rating: Treasure -.

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Willow Springs 2003 Vidal

(Found – January 2008)

The lowly Vidal grape … the only good thing that has come to it is the invention of icewine, right? Not so fast folks. Someone once commented to me that they never see the Vidal grape outside of icewine. Vidal, believe it or not, shows up in quite a few wines, but they are mostly house blends or house wines and are more often than not off dry. I located a couple of bottles of this Willow Springs offering and wondered how it has fared over the past few years. Vidal is rarely if ever oaked so from vine to bottle there is probably a 6-month gap (if that) – so this wine would have been bottled in early 2004 … still that’s four years on. What I found in my glass was surprising – the colour had darkened and the smells were melon, lemon and a bit of sweet tangerine … the palate showed a decent amount of sweetness along with hits of cantaloup flesh and honeydew melon rind. In the mouth it felt rounded and still had a bit of acidity, while the finish lingered on the cheeks with some lemony-zing. Surprised? Maybe a little, though I had tried a 2004 Vidal a few months ago that was holding up pretty well too … good to see the lowly Vidal holding its own – this would be something nice to sip on come the summer. Lost and Found rating: MINOR TREASURE.

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Willow Springs 2002 Cabernet

Click here to read the original review from November 2005

(Re-Tasted November 2007) … When I originally tried this wine I gave it rave reviews - I loved it, and the fact that it was made at a little known winery just north of Toronto, Stouffville, made it even more impressive. A few years later, well …as they say at NASA “Houston, we have a problem here.” First, we have the plastic cork closure, I have my opinions about these stoppers and they are not good. Many of the wines I've tasted that have aged 4 years or more under this closure have some funky flavors to them. Unfortunately, this one is no different. It has developed medicinal and over-ripe fruit funkyness on the nose - the taste lacks any kind of fruit characteristics whatsoever and instead delivers nothing but wood. This wine was much better young. If you've held it in the hopes of greater rewards, you've waited too long.

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