A superb Carménère with loads of raspberry, cassis, plum, mint, vanilla, violets and smoke. There is a fruit-driven personality with some warmth and plummy tannins. Full-bodied with lingering flavours.
The much-ballyhooed 2009 Bordeaux wines should be arriving in stores in just a couple of months. Some say it the best vintage in 30 years in Bordeaux, and if this First Growth is any indication, that just may end up being true. The wine is visually stunning with opaque, inky, purple hues. The aromas come rushing at you — sweet currants, blackberry, cocoa, oak, layers of stony minerality, and spice. It is enthralling on the palate with a powerful frame, highly extracted black fruits, layered, textured and built on pure power. A monumental wine that can cellar for 50 plus years. Made to go with beef, lamb or duck.
Cherry red. Not very expressive on the nose, but it shows finesse in its floral scent and kirsch notes. Elegant, it has an intense, ripe fruity taste that seems almost sweet. Delicate tannins. Finish is nicely balanced.
Initially top-fermented (like an ale) then cold-aged lager-style, this shows a slightly hazy appearance. Pleasant malty and fresh citrus aromas play out on the palate, with citrus fruitiness and generous malty flavours, finishing with a good hit of refreshing hoppy bitterness.
Not your normally priced rosé. Salmon pink in colour with an earthy, reductive nose of red berries with spicy notes; medium-bodied and dry, it has strawberry and pink grapefruit flavours with a struck-flint note.
Dense garnet colour. Nose is of sour cherries and toasty oak. The very definition of balanced, the red berries play beautifully off vibrant acidity and nice soft tannins, with a long finish. Beats the pants off most similarly priced Bordeaux. Perfect now but will last a few more years.
Pop the cork off this Champagne-sized bottle and serve in your red wine glasses to help the nose of this spicy, citrusy Belgian-style saison really pop. Made from a blend of beer batches — some aged in oak casks deliberately inoculated with wild yeasts, others fresh from the fermenter — gives the naturally fermented ale a slightly wild, barnyard-like acidity and funk. But the sparkling ale drinks more like a fine, complex Champagne with white pepper, bright citrus, and orange-peel notes alongside a hit of rice-crispie-square sweetness. Elegant and super food-friendly — pair with just about anything from Thai to Mexican to a grilled peppercorn steak.