Timely wine advice

Usually we taste a wine, take notes, and then two months later, when there are no bottles left anywhere close to anyone, we post about it here on Mock. (Well, you get what you pay for…) Here’s a wine that was released just yesterday, and should be readily available pretty much everywhere: Trimbach Pinot Griscontinue reading

Good whites

We drink these wines, and then I wait for a random period before I post about them, so the reviews may not be very useful. But a few white wine notes: Tiefenbrunner Pinot Grigio 2009. DOC Alto Aldige. 13.5%/$16.95. Generous nose with ripe bosc pear [not “bosc bear” as I originally typed], hint of minerality,continue reading

Drinking up Niagara, redux

We have been making our way through my Niagara wine purchases from two weeks’ ago with amazing efficiency. Sort of. We haven’t uncorked any of the reds yet, but we’ve entirely finished our Niagara whites, including a 13th Street Riesling I bought from the LCBO here in Toronto. I am still scratching my head wonderingcontinue reading

Too weird

I should have taken the hint from the description of the wine as a red wine that has a profile resembling “a deep purple version of gewürztraminer” (Szabo). It’s an interesting curiosity, and well done as an example of what it is, but the bottle I bought of Giusti Piergiovanni Lacrima Di Morro D’alba 2008continue reading

A few good wines

It’s been a while since we’ve done any wine blogging. Here are a few highlights from our wine notes. All Vintages, current availability unknown. (Not to harp on it or anything, but one of the nice features of WineAlign is that it automagically does an inventory search of stores near you for any wine incontinue reading

Align your wines!

There is a thriving niche market in providing wine advice to the however many million Ontarians who are effectively captive to the Ontario LCBO wine monopoly. Tony Aspler has been doing this for some years on his TonyAspler.com web site. I’ve been subscribing to his reviews for a few years, most recently renewing my subscriptioncontinue reading

At the AGO

We renewed our membership at the AGO this year. I’m not sure J. was entirely convinced, but I kind of like the idea of supporting at least one local museum and you never know what interesting thing may show up to justify a visit to McCaul and Dundas. We paid a visit to the AGOcontinue reading

Reds

A few random notes on recent red experiences: 2006 Farina Valpolicella Classico Superiore Ripasso “Le Pezze” ($14.95, 13.5%). This is currently available at Vintages though stocks in Toronto Central are starting to get low. A good value on a $15 red, with a very fruity red berry nose with a hint of sandalwood and spice.continue reading

Ontario VQA 2008

2008 was a rather cool summer in Ontario (though not as bad as 2009), and I was curious how the wines would turn out. The answer so far, interestingly, is pretty well, at least as far as the whites are concerned. The great bargain of the Ontario wine world, as far as I’m concerned, continuescontinue reading

Boston

The obvious solution to a garbage strike is to leave town. Well, actually we had our trip to Boston planned for at least two months. J. read in the NYT about a once-in-a-lifetime exhibition coming to Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts (MFA), and we realized we had a bit of time in late June, and,continue reading