Medium golden-yellow. Nose is a wonderful deep floral-honey. Medium body and quite sweet; great balance of acidity, honey, pears and grapefruit. This is the nectar! 13.9% alcohol. $28.30 at Crosstown. Recommended. See Farmstead Wines.
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My first Ontario Riesling, recommended by James Cluer Selects.
Pale green-gold appearance, light honey-apricot mineral nose. Off-dry with low-medium acidity; straightforward stone fruit flavours and a good finish. Very drinkable and compares well with the better BC Rieslings. 11% alcohol. Recommended. See Cave Spring Cellars.
I have always enjoyed Washington State Rieslings; I have tried a few at The Tasting Room in Seattle. But they seem to be relatively hard to find in BC.
This one is a clear medium green-gold with a light citrus nose. Just off-dry with a hint of honey and good acidity balanced by a slightly unusual lime-ish quality; a nice long finish. Recommended. 12.5% alcohol. $28.90 at Crosstown. See Charles Smith Wines.
Medium green-gold appearance. Citrus-stone fruit nose with hints of petrol and slate. Medium body, muted acidity, fruit and mineral notes, a trace of sweetness. I don’t like this quite as much as does James Cluer, who recommended it in his monthly mailing, but it’s very nice; I’ll have to try more French Rieslings. 12% alcohol. $31.30 at Crosstown.
Medium gold appearance. Straightforward stone fruit-petrol nose. Nice body, apricot honey slate, medium-dry, with understated acidity. They just don’t make them like this anywhere else (outside of Mosel); my kind of wine. 10.5% alcohol. Recommended. See Markus Molitor. $27.10 at Crosstown.
Medium gold-green colour. Nose is grassy citrus-grapefruit, a little unusual but pleasant. Dry with low-medium acidity, medium body, apple and a hint of stone fruit but no significant sweetness. Nice but probably not as good as their 2007 Riesling. Still, a good drink. 12.8% alcohol. $23.85 at Crosstown. See Road 13 Winery + Vineyards.
I was walking around Canada Place the other night; it’s finally getting warm enough to be be pretty comfortable in the evenings. I got into a conversation with an unemployed fellow who was riding his bike around the area looking for money and odd jobs. He told me he worked in the trades and things were pretty slow; he was from back east and renting a place out in Burnaby. His landlord had given him a break on his rent.
He seemed like a pretty normal, decent guy. I didn’t have any money with me, but we talked a bit about the cost of living in Vancouver, among other things.
A security guard approached: not a so-called “Downtown Ambassador,” but someone without a uniform, as I recall; I assume he was employed by Canada Place. He started giving the fellow a hard time about panhandling. I don’t know whether Canada Place is considered a public space; it seems wide open to the public, and I assume that people are allowed to talk to one another in such places, but I am not familiar with the legal fine points.
What struck me was that the security guard, or whoever he was, seemed genuinely stressed by the situation, his adrenaline obviously racing. I don’t think he could have been talking to two less threatening people. I told him that there was no problem, that I was just chatting to the fellow. Mr. Security then said something like, “He is always friendly with people. And then…”
He broke off and left us—stormed off, actually. But I wondered: and then what? He stabs you? Or—gasp—he asks you for money? Are people in need not supposed to be friendly before requesting help? Perhaps they should be obnoxious. Do we live in such a polite society that we feel uncomfortable saying “no” (as I did) if someone asks you nicely? Is the implication that friendliness in this situation is somehow dishonest?
Kalala produced one of my favourite BC Rieslings in 2008 (I wrote about it on my old blog; will taste it again soon and report back here).
This is a pale-to-medium straw colour with a very light fruity nose. Dry light-to-medium bodied wine with green apple and grapefruit notes; the apple dominates with a bit of a dull quality but the acidity kicks in to rescue the overall impression with a good length but a lingering leather-ish quality. Enjoyable, but overall not up to the quality I recall from their Riesling. Perhaps it’s partly that I don’t drink much of this varietal. 13.3% alcohol. $20.45 at Crosstown.
