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2008 Best Value Wines
Congratulations, the days are finally stating to get longer. I started trying to sort through the thousands of tasting notes made in 2008 in order to find my top wines. It didn’t take long for me to realize what an incredibly daunting task this is. How do I designate a “top” wine. Is it the highest score; the best value; the one I simply personally liked the most (regardless of score); the best of its type; etc.? While I realize that there are just too many top wines to just designate a single one as “the” best, I decided to make a stab at it.
In case your local LCBO outlet doesn’t have it, then search out the almost as delicious Weingut Willi Opitz 2006 Cuvée Beernauslese (71274). This is now a real bargain - it has recently fallen in price from $21.95 to just $17.00 per half bottle. It has a very high rating and was released August 16, 2008. Here is my tasting note: Very light yellow colour. Spicy, sweet, complex, Seville orange marmalade nose. Very sweet, well balanced, honeyed, ripe apricot jam and Seville orange marmalade flavours with a lingering finish. Both are terrific alternatives to icewine. My definition of sweet table wine excludes fortified wines, such as Sherry, Madeira, Port, etc. It includes Sauternes, Icewine, all sweet “table” wines from Germany, Austria, Italy (including Moscato d'Asti), etc. It seems that a "dessert" wine is determined by national traditions and regulations. It varies by country. One might think that dessert wines (nicknamed pudding wines in the UK and stickies in Australia) are all sweet wines typically served with dessert. Despite the name, these wines are often best appreciated alone, sometimes with cheese, fruit or bakery sweets. There appears to be no simple definition of a dessert wine. In the UK, a dessert wine is considered to be any sweet wine drunk with a meal, as opposed to the white fortified wines (Fino and Amontillado Sherry) drunk before the meal, and the red fortified wines (Port and Madeira) drunk afterwards. Thus, most fortified wines are regarded as distinct from dessert wines, but some, such as Muscat de Beaumes-de-Venise, are regarded as honorary dessert wines. In the United States, a dessert wine is legally defined as any wine over 14% alcohol by volume, which includes all fortified wines - and are taxed more highly as a result. This dates back to a time when the US wine industry only made dessert wines by fortification, but this classification is outdated now that modern yeast and viticulture can produce dry wines over 15% without fortification (sweet German dessert wines can contain half that amount of alcohol). While the LCBO database provides a short list of dessert wines, there is no such listing for sweet table wines. Our searchable FBTI database indicates that there were 130 such releases in 2008. With respect to sparkling wines, there were 58 sparkling releases in Vintages this year. The top buy was the zesty ripe melon flavoured Codorniu Reserva Raventós Cava Brut (521773 • V) a steal at $14.95. Made in the Méthode Traditionnelle, the 300 cases of this tasty Spanish sparkler released on August 2nd disappeared almost immediately. On Friday, December 19th the LCBO made the choice for my 2008 Best Value Sparkling easy by reducing the price of my best buy pick of the 2008 Vintages Gift Catalogue. The ever-reliable sparkling duo from Spain – Codorniu Cava Gift Pack Pinot Noir Brut & Raventos Reserva Brut (6379 • V), which is now only $24.95 (previously priced at $33.95) is The latter has a light pink colour with dry, well-balanced, gently plummy flavours with fine effervescence. The latter is dry, crisp and light bodied with ripe lemon finish. It is available in some 100 Vintages outlets.
A personal favourite from Portugal’s Ribatejo is the somewhat idiosyncratic Quinta da Alorna 2006 Reserve White (81505 • V) at $17.95, which initially scored and recently updated to at a subsequent tasting. This terrific blend of tank fermented Arinto and barrel fermented in new French oak (on its lees for three months) has a light yellow colour. The bouquet is complex, slightly spicy and rather toasty with lots of ripe lemon-melon notes. It’s dry, harmonious and well structured with ample ripe pear-lemon-melon flavours followed up by a lingering, slightly toasty finish. A total of 150 cases were released on November 8th and it’s still available in about 30 Vintages outlets.
LCBO Friday, December 19th Sale Wine Awards Canada Our compilation of awards from all four competitions is now complete: 20 from Cuvée (gold awards only), 72 from the Ontario Wine Awards, 73 from the All Canadian Wine Championship and 112 recently announced awards (representing 44% of the total) from the Canadian Wine Awards. Awards were down and totaled 300 awards, which translates into 272 award-winners with only 27 items or 10% receiving multiple awards. This year only one wine Pelee Island 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon received a medal in three of the four competitions: a gold, a silver and a bronze. Only two wines Niagara College 2006 Barrel Fermented Chardonnay and Jackson-Triggs Proprietor’s Grand Reserve White Meritage received two golds. What is always surprising is the lack of consensus. Unfortunately, many of the better wines were not entered because producers feared receiving low scores - ie. a bronze medal for their highly priced, icon brands. Also, keep in mind that most of the best award winners are no longer available. Obviously, there is no point entering a wine if it will no longer available when the results are published many months later. Also, as these competitions tend to be expensive and can be tied in with requisite advertising, some well-known producers refuse to participate. To help readers, I will be publishing some of my own recent tasting award winners next week. You can be assured that these wines are available and that the awards come from a reliable, consistent palate as opposed to the diverse palates of a mystery panel. To see last year’s feature on the 2007 awards Click HereMerry Christmas
Quest for Value
Life is sometimes stranger than fiction. I don’t remember how many wine fans have commented about the light, sometimes watery, character of some brands of Italian Pinot Grigio. It’s extremely popular, one brand happens to be the #1 selling white wine in Vintages! Carrying the torch was a gift pack blue magnum of D’Aquino Pinot Grigio delle Venezie (49650) at $28.95. It appears on page 10 of the LCBO 2008 Holiday Gift Guide. We were supposed to be tasted in the LCBO lab on October 10th but it didn’t show up.
Germany
Ontario Best Buys
Chilean Bargain
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When it comes to the Best Value Sweet Table Wine
for 2008, the choice was relatively easy. Of the 130
sweet table wines (
In terms of fortified wines, of the 23 Sherries appearing in Vintages in 2008, my 2008 Best Value Sherry is the extremely sweet 
When it comes to Port, it’s a bit more challenging. After reviewing the 43 Vintages listings priced from $14.95 to $89.95, my 2008 Best Value Port actually turned out to come from the LCBO General List. 
Table wines are another matter. Dealing with whites first, I had 117 best buy whites (to see the list 
Moving to red wines, I had 143 best buy reds (to see the list 
Earlier this week, the 
Moving on the my continuing quest to find great seasonal values, let me shine the light on Germany, which produces easy-to-drink, user-friendly wines perfect for the festive season. For connoisseurs, from the Pfalz comes a 
Proving that German wines don’t have to be expensive to be tasty is a very pleasant, everyday white that goes for only $10.50 - 
While 2007 is acclaimed by some critics as being the “greatest ever”, Riesling was a bit problematic because of extreme heat resulting in an occasional lack of phenolic ripeness. In general, have preferred the 2006 vintage. The least expensive 
Another destination white is the just-released estate bottles black label 
The gold medal winning 
I
recently sat down and blind tasted