Just because I started a website called OntarioWineReview.com doesn't mean it's All-Ontario-All-the-Time. When I kick back at night my mood (and sometimes my curiosity) decides my wine of choice. And the title should read, "Uncorked and Un-Screwed Tonight" ... but that just sounds wrong.
(May 20, 2016) ... I'm catching a wine at its peak here, and I am super thrilled: nose is minty, blackberry and white pepper, and while the taste keeps the mint and blackberry it adds an element of spice before turning smooth on the mid-palate with just a touch of gritty tannins and piquant-spice on the finish. Another year or two and it would still be fine, but this was a shear delight.
(May 18, 2016) ... This was a little bit of a fun day. As summer was approaching I was invited out to sit with my neighbour in the waning sunshine of spring. I brought along a bottle of E Guigal 2005 Cote du Rhone which did not disappoint in the least: leathery, smoky, mocha and dried herbs (and that's just for starters), it got better with each sip; at 11 years old I don't think I was expecting anything this good - but in actual fact I finished the whole bottle. Which prompted me to do the next thing.
My aforementioned neighbour is Italian, and remembers drinking at home with his parents, not from fancy crystal stemware, but from a juice-style glass. I found this funny because when I first took up the wine habit, Italian wine was (and still is) a big love of mine. I remember those old movies when the Italians had wine they were drinking out of juice-style glasses, which prompted me to head to Ikea to buy something of that nature to drink Italian wine from. Today I rarely if ever use them for wine, but tonight a bottle of Ruffino 2001 Chianti came out of my cellar and we used those very juice glasses to guzzle this bottle (it was gone within half-an-hour); this wine might very well have been mildly corked, but in our glassware of choice who could tell. Long live the juice glass-Italian wine experience.
