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CORKAGE: On Bond’s Quella ’07, A Lot Of Spitting And Keith Nicholson’s Hard Nipples

Amorita Bastaja is a manager at Legacy Liquor Store, the largest liquor store in British Columbia (located in the Athlete’s Village), and the Wine Editor of Scout. Her love of imbibing steered her through courses from the International Sommelier Guild and the Wine & Spirits Education Trust, and has taken her to many wine regions, including Washington State, Napa and Sonoma, Piemonte, Veneto, Tuscany, Abruzzo, Provence and all over the Okanagan Valley. This is the first edition of her weekly column, Corkage, which covers a bottle of note, something overheard and many words read…

BOTTLE: Napa Valley’s Bond Estates brought their wines to Vancouver last week and it was an ethereal experience. Early Wednesday morning I sat down with Paul Roberts, Estate Director for Bond, to taste through the five single vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon-based wines that Bond creates: Melbury, Quella, St. Eden, Vecina and Pluribus. The first flight was their current 2007 vintage, the second flight was back vintages ranging from 2001 to 2006. My personal favourite was the Quella 2007: very tactile on the palate, with a creamy mouth feel and soft tannins. A feminine wine with woodsy top notes and minerality on the palate. At approximately $400 a bottle, it was the most expensive breakfast buffet I’ve ever had.

OVERHEARD: I tried the Felton Road 2009 Pinot Noir from Central Otego, New Zealand this week. A sexy and intoxicating wine; all cherry cola and earthiness in the glass, silky tannins and long lingering finish. ($80 approx, worth every single penny). When asked what he “got” out of the wine, Keith Nicholson (of Bearfoot and Le Croc fame, and now with Liquid Art Wine Importers), replied “hard nipples”.

READ: The 9th annual Tofino Food and Wine Festival takes place June 2nd to 5th, culminating Saturday afternoon with Grazing in the Garden, a showcase of local talent and culinary creativity paired with great BC wines. Click here to purchase tickets…ABLE BC has released their quarterly publication The Publican, with latest beverage alcohol sales data – the BC Government Liquor Stores now command less than half the market share in sales of beer, wines and spirits…SpierHead Winery has now opened its cellar doors in East Kelowna. It’s the new home of veteran winemaker Tom DiBello, formerly of CedarCreek…Terry David Mulligan, host of local radio show The Tasting Room, crossed the border into Alberta with BC wine without being arrested on Friday. Thanks to outdated liquor laws going back to Prohibition, that bottle you pack when heading east could still land you in the clinker…Have $4.7 million in cash lying around? Then perhaps you, too, can afford a hobby winery, like the one recently purchased by a Southern Californian couple looking for a fun lifestyle change…Decanter Magazine announced the number of entries they received for this year’s Decanter World Wine Awards, a whopping 12,252! That’s a lot of spitting…the International Wine Challenge released its winners with Australian wines being front-runners. The biggest upset was an English rosé winning the only gold medal of all 367 rosés submitted.

There are 3 comments

  1. Another good reason to waste a small part of my day on this site. Well done, commentary about wine from someone, intelligent, well travelled, and insightful.

  2. Amorita… let us know when you are heading to Spain to enjoy some in depth, first hand Spanish wine/fool experiences and we will hook you up: )