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Posts with category ‘New Zealand’

NZ Sauvignon Blanc, First Pinks, Carmen of Chile

Posted on May 23, 2006

New Zealand sauvignon blanc has joined the mainstream. This we know because a customer walked into an LCBO store in Kingston recently and asked the Product Consultant, “Have you got that stuff called Cat Piss on a Hot Tin Roof?" Of course, the befuddled shopper was really after Coopers Creek Cat Pee on a Gooseberry Bush, the presumably much tastier $14.00 NZ sauvignon named for two of this grape’s more common descriptors.

Value Wines, Calgary Dining, Portuguese Whites

Posted on June 26, 2006

Howdy, from the Hotel Arts in Calgary—site of the first International Value Wine Awards. There are 800 wines entered from 18 countries, all available somewhere in Canada for less than $25. As far as I know, this is the world’s first international judging for less-expensive wines, and I suspect there will be big world wide interest in this process. Results will determine a best red and best white under $25, then provide “top ten values” in each major varietal category—for example, the ten best shiraz in Canada under $25. They will also break out winners regionally or by country. By rough count, about 300 of the wines entered are found on Ontario’s general list or as Vintages Essentials, wines that I will be reviewing in the Toronto Life Eating and Drinking Guide this fall. The competition is being held in Calgary because Alberta, with a privatized market and over 700 stores, has the largest number of brands on store shelves of any province in Canada, over 10,000 at any one time compared to about 4,000 in Ontario.

King of Gewürz, Bang for Buck Reds

Posted on October 16, 2006

One of the great joys of this profession is finding individuals who are involved with wine beyond what makes apparent sense. Enter Nick Nobilo, the new king of gewürztraminer. Nobilo is one of the most recognizable names in New Zealand wine circles. But since Nick’s family sold the 40-year-old business to Hardys of Australia in 2000, Nick has marched to his own drummer into the warm, humid Gisborne region to found a winery called Vinoptima. It makes only one wine—gewürztraminer—that sells for about $50 per bottle. “It is the most underrated of the classic vinifera whites,” he said. “It is capable of great complexity and depth. As the wine market matures, aromatic whites are coming on, and gewürztraminer will be at the pinnacle of that movement."

Gretzky, Brazil and New Zealand

Posted on September 18, 2007

Wine of the Week
Wayne Gretzky Estates 2006 No. 99 Unoaked Chardonnay, Ontario ($13.95, 83 points, 63826)
Celebrity, not quality, demands this wine be Wine of the Week, especially as it was just released Monday at the LCBO. I have always admired Wayne Gretzky as a quality hockey player and human being, and I still do, but I don’t admire the wine bearing his name and team sweater number. As always, my job is to assess what’s in the bottle and this is a mediocre, coarse, resinous, dry white. Like others in the growing family of Ontario celebrity wines (Dan Aykroyd, Mike Weir) there is no glaring fault except for a lack of joy (and fruit). The companion merlot released yesterday is just as mediocre—green and lean—definitely not as “lush and rounded” as back label claims. I hope Wayne brings his sense of class to bear when he begins to produce wines from his own winery, which is purportedly on the drawing board. For now, the wine is made at Willow Heights.

California Greening

Posted on March 28, 2008

My column in the May issue of Toronto Life (on newsstands April 10) examines the burgeoning “green” wine movement, with observations and reviews based on tastings at the international Return to Terroir event in February, and Vintages’ organics release on March 29. Since then, I have compiled even more notes on the wine world’s most pressing trend. Much of the information and inspiration has come out of California, where “green” is becoming an industry-wide mantra. Grape growers are taking the lead in environmental practices and turning the heads of those in other sectors of California’s massive agricultural industry. Two insiders have told me that a stunning 55 per cent of Californian wine producers have now registered for a new program that allows for self-assessment of sustainable agriculture practices.

David Lawrason

David Lawrason

David Lawrason has worked full time as one of Canada's leading, independent wine writers and educators for over 20 years. He was the founder of Wine Access magazine and Globe and Mail wine columnist for 13 years before becoming resident wine guy at Toronto Life, where he pens a monthly column and writes an exhaustive review of LCBO general listings for the annual Food and Wine Guide. As a wine educator he has taught sommelier programs at George Brown, Humber and Niagara Colleges, and has run popular public courses in Toronto since 1988. He has visited every major wine major producing country in the world, while focusing recently on the booming Canadian wine scene, as founder of the Canadian Wine Awards program, and Canadian wine columnist for Wine Access.

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