Pillitteri Estates 2007 Exclamation Reserve Merlot

Found February 2013

This is a disappointing bottle of wine and for so many reasons.  The year was one of the best Ontario had seen to date and the grapes would have been perfect for making a great bottle of Merlot - but there was just something very off and very funky about this bottle.  The best thing I can say about it is that there is some (stress on the word some) fruit in here and it's sweet and dried ... but other than that look out.  There is volatile acidity running rampant (that's a smell of nail polish remover) and it never seems to let up.  The packaging on this wine is quite striking, with it's metal plate front label and silver back label, but that's the only thing that is striking about this bottle - except maybe the fact that it strikes out ... only 6 years old and the fruit has faded and every seems over oaked, oxidized and, well, not very good.  I expected so much more from this bottle and it let me down.  If you have some let me know your thoughts but my bottle just didn't stand up.  Lost & Found Rating:  Trash

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Mountain Road Wine Company 2004 Botrytis Affected Riesling

Click here to read the original Taste it Again review

(Re-Tasted January 2012) ... This is the second time I have re-tasted this wine - and now the last, because I am out of bottles.  This was a wine I was planning to take to the Wine Writers' Circle of Canada's dinner party that was held in late January ... unfortunately weather forced me to miss the dinner so I decided to take it to a meeting of the same organization instead a few days later.  I was a little scared because after taking the capsule off I noticed my old nemesis - plastic cork - but I carried on anyway.  Seems that sweet and good acidity can beat out plastic cork ... though I still believe this was further oxidized because of the closure - or at least prematurely so.  But when you get a bunch of wine writers into a room to taste a bottle, no matter how funky you think it is, someone is bound to like it.  And so was the case, as descriptors like marmalade, candied green apple and Madeira-like were thrown out ... the wine was also a very rich golden yellow colour.  If you have any in your cellar you might not be a fan of this any longer - though I do know one person who could drink it everyday and twice on Sunday.

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Tawse 2004 Chardonnay (Beamsville Bench)

Found January 2013

Here's a wine I was glad to have lost in my cellar, but the truth is I didn't really lose it I was waiting on it ... but finally, last night the waiting gave in to "gotta try it".  I was suppose to be joining some fellow writers for dinner, but alas the weather did me no favours and I had to beg off - so I decided to open one of the bottles I had planned to open with them, and it just so happened to be this bottle of 2004 Chardonnay from Tawse.  This is kind of a historical bottle, as it is one of the first Chardonnay's that was made chez Tawse, and if you are lucky enough to have one kicking around your cellar I would tell you that it might be the time to drink it.  The nose started off very oaky and buttery, then turned a little funky with tomato stalk and asparagus notes - there was also the hint of tinned creamed corn.  The palate followed up on some of what was on the nose, like the creamed corn, adding vanilla, butter, oak, hints of the stalky-vegginess (on occasion) - but for the most part the wine was creamy on the palate and well worth drinking.  Lost & Found Rating: Treasure

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Angels Gate 2005 Old Vines Chardonnay

Click here to read the original review from July 2007

(Re-Tasted January 2013) ... I definitely don't want to get off on my usual tangent about not being a big Chardonnay fan here, so I promise I won't, instead I'm here to tell you what a 7 year old bottle of old vines Chardonnay tasted like (or at least this bottle of 7-year-old Chardonnay tastes like) ... The nose was a powerful mix of butterscotch and vanilla - fruit did not seem to play a part in the olfactories, dried or otherwise.  On the palate there was a hint of some fruit, namely lime pith, but once again vanilla, butterscotch-toffee were prevalent in the mouth - the real surprise here was that there was still a healthy dose of acidity.  This wine has aged quite well for those who like barrel notes rather than fruit in their older Chardonnay ... if you are looking for fruit, focus your attention to wines that are younger.

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Fielding 2005 Reserve Riesling

Click here to read the original review from August 2007

(Re-Tasted December 2012) ... August 2007 doesn't seem that far away to me, not sure why, but in truth it was over 5 years ago that I tried this wine, loved it then - was pleasantly surprised by it now.  Most of the 2005 Rieslings I have tried years later have been loaded with petrol - as if I were drinking them right next to the autobahn - this was and is because 2005 was a hot year and the Riesling grape does not like weather like that.  So when I opened this bottle I was expecting lots of gas ... and the truth of the matter is that it did have plenty of petrol notes, but they were just that, notes, hints if you will, it is what carried the nose but the palate was much different.  Palate was lightly petrol-ed with a whack of green apple on the mid-palate.  There was also a lovely hint of sweetness on the lingering finish and the more you tasted the wine it seemed that delicious apple and pear puree emerge from the light smear of petrol that coated everything.  The petrol note did continue on the nose but it diminished with some time while the palate seemed to get sweeter with delicious apple dominating more than any other flavour.  Very impressive and very delicious.  Not sure I would hold this much longer but it might have a few more years left in it.

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13th Street 2004 Riesling

Found December 2012

Not sure how a bottle of 13th Street Riesling got lost in the cellar, let alone a bottle of 2004, but it did and now I find myself popping the cork on a snowy Saturday in late December.  Not exactly the wine you would associate with pizza for dinner - but as it turns out the wine was picked before dinner was fully established ... as it turned out we decided to make a pizza delivery guy work (and drive in the snow) than moving ourselves to the kitchen and doing some work ourselves.  As for the wine:  I have to admit I was a little leery of the bottle because it had a super-saturated cork (at least three-quarters of the way up and was leaking - or at least the foil capsule was tough to pry off the top of the bottle.  We deemed it okay to drink and then the fun started.  There were hints of petrol on the nose and the finish was quite dry - even though the bottle declared it to be a semi-dry wine.  The flavours were the most telling with citrus, in the form of lime, poached pears, honeyed peaches and apricots which all make an appearance on the mid-palate before the sweet and sour sensation of bruised green apple took over the finish.  This was a lovely wine and showed great longevity (8 years) - especially for a wine with a leaky cork.   Lost & Found Rating: Treasure

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Jackson-Triggs 2002 Proprietors' Grand Reserve Meritage

Found November 2012

Every so often I come across a bottle that I am sure I have tasted before, but as I go through my website and notes I find that I have never put pen to paper about a specific bottle and I wonder what I did with the original notes.  Most wines that end up in my wine cellar (especially if they are of Canadian origin) I have tasted before and thought they would be good candidates to lie down for a spell.  But some do slip between the cracks ... This must have been one of those.  But in truth I'm glad I "lost" this one because it made for an interesting tasting.  This Meritage is from the hot 2002 vintage, which was a good one for reds here in Ontario.  The blend, according to the back label is Merlot dominant at 42% - with the Cabernets: Sauvignon and Franc clocking in at 38 and 20 respectively.  I also admit to aiding this one a little by using my VinOair aerator ... the result was a wine that exhibited cedar and earthy tones from the get go, but as one dove deeper into the wine we found that underneath its cedary-earthy exterior lay dried cherry and blackberry.  Now, with some time in glass (about 45 minutes) the fruit that started off as dry had now proven to come alive with some cassis and black cherry notes.  I also found some smoky bits that played on both the nose and palate, and then as more time passed cedar began to reassert itself back into the picture - but there was a certain sweet spot to this wine that came at about the one-hour mark and lasted for about an hour where everything was just right in the world with it ... by the end of the evening the wine showed its slow steady decline to the realm from whence it came: earthy and cedary ... but in the interim it had that period where it really showed its beauty.  Now I can't wait to break int the 2005 version of the same wine, which seems to have reared it's head in the same place as the 2002 - which is why I figure this bottle got lost, it thought it was a 2005 (it can't be my fault after all.    Lost & Found Rating:  Treasure

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