Dark purple. Inviting nose of black fruits, ripe with just enough oak. Good freshness with chewy, generous tannins and lots of fruity taste. Very tight finish. Excellent stuff.
In a blind tasting, I would call this wine a top St-Émilion, what with all its chocolate-covered coffee bean, plum, cinnamon, violets, anise, black cherry and smoke. Encapsulating the tannins is the fabulous richness. This beauty will reach its peak around 2016 and drink well until 2022. It is a steal for the price.
Fragrant bouquet of raspberry, red liquorice and root beer. More red-toned fruits on the medium-bodied palate, plus bright acidity, fine tannins and elegant mouthfeel add up to a quaffable and food-friendly sipper. Strawberry, cherry cola and vanilla linger. Pair with bacon-wrapped pork tenderloin.
Sourced entirely from the North Vineyard at Rosehall and picked early to maintain acidity. It’s 100% barrel-fermented and aged in 500-litre French oak puncheons using 75% new oak. This is the best wine that I have tasted from Rosehall. It starts with extraordinary aromatics of poached pear, butter cream, ripe apple, elegant oak stylings, gunflint and a subtle note of caramel emerging. It’s rich, complex and textured on the palate and built on a lovely foundation of flinty-smoky mineral richness that melds gorgeously with ripe pear, spice, undercurrent of lemon-lime citrus, and all lifted by a fair bit of acidity.
Almost in the same class as this winery’s Shiraz. Deep ruby in colour with a cedary, blueberry nose supported by deftly-handled spicy oak. Medium- to full-bodied on the palate; dry, firmly structured and elegant.
A blend of regional varieties — Friulano, Malvasia Istriana and Ribolla Gialla — offering attractively scented floral honey and green fruit with supple stone-fruit flavours, delicately balanced acidity and a lick of mineral on the finish.
One of the best Chardonnays I’ve tasted from BC. Straw coloured with a spicy, minerally, green pineapple and lemon nose, medium to full bodied, Burgundian style. Rich and mouth-filling with a touch of vanilla oak (beautifully balanced) and a long, fresh acidic finish.