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[Cross-posted at www.popandpour.ca]

For Part I of this mammoth tasting write-up, click here.

After the first half-dozen wines of Bin 905′s Chateau de Beaucastel vertical tasting, spanning six vastly different bottles from 1989 to 1999, we took a 15 minute break to chew on some cheese and cleanse our palates.  After the first 1700 words of my tasting review covering those six bottles, I took a 7 day break to get mentally prepared to delve into another topsy-turvy whirlwind of a decade of Beaucastels.  The second half of the tasting covered six wines from the 2000s and included one of my least favourite wines of the tasting…but also my wine of the night.  First up, tasked with trying to make me forget about the likely-corked 1999, was the Chateau de Beaucastel Chateauneuf-de-Pape from 2000.

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[Cross-posted at www.popandpour.ca]

I had fully intended that this monthly post would showcase a different player in the Calgary wine scene every month, highlighting the incredible depth of industry talent we have at our disposal locally.  And yet here I am, in CIA post #4, writing about another tasting put on by Bin 905, hosts of the Jim Barry Armagh tasting I covered back in February.  I know we have a remarkable array of wine stores out there, and I know many of them are doing great things with their event schedules, but I can’t say that I feel bad about the Bin 905 duplication because the tasting I went to on Saturday was just that cool.  Held at Divino restaurant’s Stone Cellar, it was a 12-bottle vertical tasting of one of the best and most historic producers of the famed Chateauneuf-de-Pape region in France’s Southern Rhone Valley, Chateau de Beaucastel.  A vertical tasting provides a unique opportunity to track the progress of a wine as it ages and lets you see the impact that a given year has on the style and flavour of a bottle, since you taste the same producer’s wine over a number of vintages; in this case, we tried Beaucastels from the mid-90s through the late-oos (whatever you call that decade), as well as one particularly special bottle from the tremendous vintage of 1989.  The initial tasting program featured far fewer bottles, but Bin 905 had the ingenious idea of offering people a free seat at the tasting if they brought a bottle of Beaucastel from a year that wasn’t yet in the lineup.  Thanks to a number of philanthropic volunteers, we all got treated to the most complete vertical tasting I’ve ever been a part of…which isn’t saying much, since I’ve only been a part of two, but it was still impressive.

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[Cross-posted at popandpour.ca]

Brian Greenslade isn’t much for titles.  Though he has full command over the ordering and inventory direction of the Ferocious Grape, a prestigious position for which others may have taken the label “Wine Director” or “Sommelier”, FG’s website simply anoints him as their resident “Wine Lover”.  Brian’s business card is even more nondescript; below his name, where most people broadcast their employment station, it simply reads “[Insert Title Here]“.  If I had to name one thing that separates the Ferocious Grape from the rest of the pack of Calgary wine boutiques, it would be this kind of laid-back, utterly pretension-free attitude, an approach that remembers that wine is just a drink to be shared among friends, not one that should make you feel like you have to keep an eye on your credentials.

My experience with Ferocious Grape goes back almost to its opening in 2008.  I used to live in the Beltline, a few blocks from FG’s storefront at 8th Street and 10th Avenue SW, so they ended up becoming my friendly neighbourhood wine shop.  I was just starting to get interested in wine at that point, yearning to know more but still totally uncomfortable at the thought of venturing alone into a wine store and being peppered with questions to which I had no answers by some wine-snob-in-training.  Upon noticing this brand new shop a stone’s throw away from my place, however, I couldn’t help but stop in, and I was amazed to walk into a funky, relaxed, pressure-free atmosphere where there was always a full glass waiting for me and never any intimidation factor associated with the products being sold. Read more

[Cross-posted at popandpour.ca]

Nothing improves a good bottle of wine more than a good accompanying back-story, and I ended up at the Jim Barry Armagh tasting at Bin 905 in Mission on Friday night due to one of the best wine tales in my recent memory.  The Armagh Shiraz, one of Australia’s rarest, priciest and highest quality bottles, was named after the hamlet of Armagh adjoining the Clare Valley wine region in South Australia, a small village that was initially established by Irish settlers and named after the county of Armagh in Ireland…which in turn is where my friend Fiona was born.  Upon walking into Bin 905 and seeing a sign advertising an “Armagh” wine tasting, Fiona immediately grabbed a ticket for it and also ordered a bottle, not knowing that it cost around $250 and not caring when she found out.  Not one to turn down a chance to drink ludicrously expensive wine for a less-than-ludicrous price, and not being likely ever to come across a wine named after my homeland (the Jim Barry “Edmonton”?), I jumped at the chance to come along to the event.

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[Cross-posted at popandpour.ca]

I am truly excited to kick into gear what I hope will be a long and, well, awesome collaboration with site-around-town extraordinaire Calgary Is Awesome.  For those regular CIA visitors who don’t know me, I’ve been writing local wine blog popandpour.ca for almost a year now, a site that contains reviews of a number of bottles available in town and other thoughts and musings aimed at demystifying (and glorifying) the incredible world of wine.  One of the things that I’ve wanted to do with Pop & Pour, but that I couldn’t really figure out how to approach, was to highlight the remarkable people and places that illuminate Calgary’s local wine scene, which remains almost criminally underrated.  Well, CIA has given me that chance.  My monthly posts for Calgary Is Awesome will focus on YYC wine shops, events, personalities and other home-based vinous topics of interest that will hopefully showcase the amazing depth of talent and energy that our fair city has directed towards my favourite beverage.  If you want to know how lucky you are to be a Calgarian who likes wine, read on.

I used to live in Altadore three places and five years ago, and even back then I thought that the area needed a specialty wine store…Liquor Depot wasn’t quite cutting it.  Now that land in my old neighbourhood costs more than my soul and Marda has become THE inner-city-but-not living destination for many Calgarians, this need has only amplified, and in December 2010 it was finally addressed when Highlander Wine & Spirits opened a massive new store in the heart of the Loop (2112 – 33rd Avenue SW).  As soon as you walk in, you can immediately tell that the shop was designed to be a temple of wine.  The large, open-profile modern space is lined with dark-wood-rack after dark-wood-rack of bottles, organized by country and region; there’s a huge tasting table in the back of the store, right beside cupboards full of wine glasses and an Enomatic machine that keeps a dozen or so open sample bottles free of invading air; it’s an oenophile’s dream.  Of course, there’s still plenty of beer and spirits available for sale, but if you were to walk in the front door and take a look around, you would definitely say:  ”This is a wine store.”  This focus on fine wine is completely intentional.

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