Time for summer Reds.

With the sun finally shining in Vancouver and the forecast calling for temperatures in the 30's for the next few days, it's time to think refreshing. Finding a red wine for this heat can be a bit of a challenge because it would be too much to drink something heavily tannic and full bodied when it's so hot that you barely want to move away from the lawn chair or in my case, the beach. So what to do? Well, lucky for us, wines come in many different styles and there's a wine out there for every occasion.
One wine I would definitely recommend in this heat is the hobnob Pinot Noir from southern France (reviewed a couple months ago). While fruity, it's not cloying and the mouth feel is so delicate as to make it refreshing, on it's own or with light foods.

Another wine worth trying on a summer's eve would be the Rolling Hills Shiraz from Australia. This wine is so light that when I first tried it at the store, I wasn't sure it could hold up to much in terms of food and I must say, the tannins also had a weird feel when tried on it's own. My manager suggested that it might surprise us with food especially because of it's fairly simple fruit taste and apparent tannins. So I tried an experiment; I paired this wine with a medley of foods and had my friend comment on how things meshed together. We had everything from mozzarella and tomato salad with balsamic vinegar and olive oil to seared ahi tuna in a Thai ginger sesame marinade. All kinds of different taste profiles and textures were available to see how this wine held up when faced with food.
I was pleasantly surprised when this wine retained it's pleasant yet simple fruit with so many of the different food items available. In fact, the only item it didn't go with was the tomatoes, but even then it wasn't bad. It went best with my steamed asparagus and prosciutto dish. It remained simple and refreshing and sometimes that's all you need to make your evening that much better.

Available at various specialty wine stores across Vancouver for under $20, as well as at a few BC liquor stores for $17. Unfortunately for those readers from Ontario, this wine isn't available to you.

Overall a very satisfactory wine great for certain occasions.

Malbec! and I like it. (#7)

Malbec has got to be one of my all time favorite wine varietals. It's hard to mess this one up folks. Hit the store and pick any one of those gazillion bottles of Argentinian Malbec on the shelf and you'll likely find yourself lovingly caressing the bottle after the first glass. I decided to splurge a little and went for a slightly higher end Malbec this time around. I paid $16.99 at my local BC liquor store for a bottle of the Gascon 1884 Reserva 2008 Malbec. But a warning, it doesn't say Gascon anywhere on the label. It's identifiable only by it's bold 1884 Reservado label and listed attributes below. While seemingly widely available in BC, it sadly doesn't seem to be available in Ontario. You're missing out guys. But it was in Ontario that I discovered my love for Malbecs so I'm sure you'll be able to find something if you visit the Argentina section of your local LCBO store!

The Escorihuela Gascon winery apparently still functions on traditional principles and while I hope that's why I enjoy this wine so much, I'm currently reading a book that puts all of these "wine making traditions" into question. It looks at how many winemakers today use science to alter their wines (either for better or for worse depending on the critic) to better fit the market. If you're interested enough to read more, this book will bring you on an adventurous journey to find out how the world has diverged from this idea of traditional wine. The book is titled The Battle for Wine and Love or How I saved the world from Parkerization and it's by wine writer Alice Feiring. Either way, I'm enjoying this wine so I'm just gonna continue drinking it regardless of whether it's fully traditional or not.

This vibrantly coloured wine is perfect for just about any occasion. With it's black cherry, dark plum, slight cooking spice scents and flavours and soft, easy to drink medium tannins there's a wide array of food that it will go well with this wine. I'm just drinking it as is. No food, no messing around. Just this wine and me and my laptop will make this night wonderful. A word for those about to enjoy this wine, it opens up very nicely after a few minutes. This is usually the case with red wines, even cheap ones. A few minutes of exposure to the air will bring out a new dimension to the wine.

Enjoy!