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Weekly Wine & Spirits Columnist - Michael Vaughan

Party's over, time for some bargains

(Copy for Friday, December 31st, 1999)
Appeared (in part) Saturday, January 1st, 2000 National Post Toronto Section

Forget about Y2K, an even worse scenario is the prospect of your midnight Champagne not popping or tasting strange.  Yes, you may have bought a bad bottle of bubbly. In fact, odds are almost 1 in 20 that you will be toasting the millennium with something that has been tainted by a poor cork!  Fortunately, most revelers are not likely to notice the difference. But if you’re blessed with a sensitive palate, then do yourself a favour - buy a second bottle.  Keep the LCBO bill because you can return either the off-first-bottle or unopened reserve to the LCBO for full refund in the new year.

Another survival tip - the Champagne stopper.  The idea of having to polish off your bottle of bubbly immediately is another myth.  Assuming that it isn’t shaken prior to popping, you can gently ease the cork out of the bottle and pour slowly to reduce the loss of effervescence.  By closing the bottle immediately after pouring, you can keep your chilled sparkler in very good condition for at least several days after opening! Of course you need a stopper.  A wide variety exists. You can blow up to $50 for a fancy Germany one or 95 cents for an unreliable plastic cheapo.  I recommend the levered soda water bottle stopper available at the Compleat Kitchen at 87 Hazelton for $4.50 or perhaps the longer lasting, chrome-plated winged variety for $9.50.

Moving on, I was tempted to list "the best" of 1999.  But then, what’s more boring, and even downright frustrating, than reading about a slew of tasty products you can’t buy anymore.  So, instead, here’s my list of inexpensive best buys.  After all, the budget has been blown and it’s time get down to basics.  I checked out the LCBO to see what stock remained!  Unfortunately, new shipments or vintages have displaced most of this year’s crop of best buys!  Here are some General List recommendations.

After calling around, I was able to come up with a delicious bottle of the Toronto Wine & Cheese Show’s "best value white wine of the year" – Ontario’s 1997 Reif Estate Chardonnay at only $9.95. Avoid the disastrous 1996, but Reif’s 1998 is exceedingly pleasant with fresh, gently honeyed, toasty-lemon flavours.

Almost cheap and certainly cheerful are two new 1998 Beaujolais.  Fresh, bright, light and crisp is the strawberry flavoured Herni de Villamont 1998 La Gousseute Beaujolais at $10.45 (today only, jumping to $10.95 next Sunday).  Slightly more expensive at  $11.95 is the somewhat fuller, plummy 1998 Chauvenet Grand Pavois Beaujolais.  Try either slightly chilled.

A truly excellent millennium destination for great red wine buys is South Africa.  The spicy, easy-to-quaff, cherry-raspberry flavoured 1998 Capeland’s Merlot with a whopping 14.5% alcohol is a mere $9.45 (increasing to $9.95 next week).  The rounded, wonderful raspberry fruit leaps out of the glass of the 1998 Paarl Pinotage which at $10.95 will bring a smile to almost anyone’s lips.  Somewhat drier with fine, faintly herbal, smoky notes is the well-structured, vanilla tinged 1997 Paarl Roodeberg – an incredible cab-shiraz-merlot blend at only $11.95.  Superb with steak.

Other sources of fine buys are Ontario’s independent wine agents who import special wines privately.  Some are exceptional and are only available in limited quantities.  They have to be ordered in advance, or may be currently available at the LCBO Consignment warehouse. Toronto-based Barrel Select have done yeoman’s work to launch some fine, expensive California wines.  They also represent Kermit Lynch whose delightful, grapefruit-driven white 1998 Chateau Les Gravilles (approximately $16.50 a bottle) typifies dry Bordeaux at its best with a wink of crisp herbaceousness.