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Tight Wad Oenophile - Frugal Finds

Posted on February 7, 2019

by Dave

As we enter a new year and work our pocketbooks through the holiday season hangover, there is nothing better than finding delicious wines that fit a budget. It happens to us all: we have a fantastic and very busy Christmas, Hanukkah, New Years, or just time of the year where it seems like everything is and festive and celebratory. There are so many reasons to spend more money over the time, so it is fair that when January comes around all you want to do is tighten your wallet a bit but still enjoy the pleasures of life! That is what these tastings are all about. Finding wines that speak to you and don't beat up your bank account. We try to find value-driven wines that are still well-made and delicious.

Going into this tasting I faced some of the dilemmas that I always seem to fight, which wines should I pour? I want to make sure that they are something that will be enjoyable for everyone, something different that we have never tried before, as well as things that are interesting. We are spoiled for options in the store so trying to decide what would work best is definitely something that takes some planning and creative decision-making. In the end, I was able to come up with a fun line-up and paired with some of the best cheese and charcuterie around from our neighbour's Peasant Cheese.



Villa Marchesi Prosecco $15.99
I love bubbles and can't think of a better way to start a tasting than with a clean, delicious, crisp sparkling wine. Prosecco is a fantastic inexpensive way to enjoy some delicious bubbles. There are other great options out there as well but hard to go wrong with something this yummy at this price point.

A floral and vibrant style of prosecco. Expect notes of white blossom, grape, citrus and apple. To be paired with soft cheese, salad, chicken and even pork. The Cabert vineyards are a panorama of sun-kissed lands, covered with prized vineyards since ancient times. Cabert, established in 1960 in Bertiolo, is located in the famous “Grave del Friuli” plain. Fruili is now one of the most renowned grape-growing zones of Italy’s Controlled Origin Denomination. Cabert’s distinction lies in its owners, belonging to one of the oldest and most acclaimed families of the region. Centuries of passion, hard work and keen attention to the vine have developed a rich cultural heritage handed down from generation to generation.

Lakeview Cellars Sauvignon Blanc 2016 $18.99
Sauvignon is definitely a fun grape to start a tasting off with, just because it can be so crisp and refreshing. This was one that did not disappoint. From the Niagara region, this is from Lakeview Cellars, which is actually the third largest wine producer from Ontario.
This Lakeview Cellars white wine shows traditional notes of tropical fruits, gooseberry and melon, which is also present on the palate along with intense citrus flavours. P...

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Silky Sultry Stouts

Posted on February 1, 2019

by Shawn
It’s time, it’s time! My annual tradition of balling out on stouts to kick off a new year of beer tastings! Typically this is one of my most popular tastings, though this year there was a slight slump in attendance. That’s okay though, because those that passed up the opportunity may regret it after seeing what was poured. They will rue the day! Next to mixed fermented and barrel fermented sour beers, stouts and porters are among the most expensive and thoughtful beers available. These sorts of tastings allow us to open the beers you may normally shy away from and share them among friends. On top of that, Peasant cheese puts together boards full of delicious snacks to go with our beverages. It’s a lot of value packed into a couple of hours!
It’s always fun to tweak these tastings to make something new and keep them fresh. Normally I would run the gamut of thick dark beers, and take you on a tour of porters, Baltic porters, Stouts, imperials and all the like. This time, however, I wanted to showcase modern beer making because with beer being at the absolute height of its popularity, it’s forcing the crowded brewing market to push creativity and boundaries. So there are a lot of flavours flying around, a lot of non-traditional ingredients and even new sub-styles (or maybe even sub-sub-styles?) being utilized and created. As much as I love a good ol’ classic stout, some of the world’s best brewers are incorporating some very special things into beer and creating things of true beauty. Strap yourself in and read on!

Rorschach Chocolate Milk Stout by Annex Ales:  This medium-to-full bodied stout has a decent hit of sweetness behind the toasty breads and generous cacao nib chocolatiness. Not too roasty, so the chocolate shines alone with a noticeable flavour of lactose. ($16.99 for a 4-pack of tall cans, or grab a growler of it from our growler bar before it gets tapped out!)
Ghost Train Oatmeal Stout by Hells Basement: Cocoa and hints of coffee and breakfast breads on a medium-weight body with a decently silky feel. Hefty roasty notes with hints of more bitter dark chocolate and slight herbal hop qualities. A super tasty oatmeal stout! ($17.19 for a 6-pack of cans)
Origins of Darkness By Collective Arts and Forbidden Roots: This is one of 6 different stout collaborations with different brewers and food producers. This one is made with Radish honey (which is delicate and somewhat leafy and takes on flavours nicely), and guajillo chiles that enhance the chocolatey notes and give a hit of herbaceousness. Out of the 6 different stouts, this one was the most satisfying to me. ($13.39 for a 500mL bottle)
Skeleton Key by Bellwoods: This imperial stout brewed with spices and vanilla is then aged in rum barrels. The outcome is a lovely and complex beer with warming spice and creamy vanilla left and right. The rum barrel enhances the sweetness n...

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Cab is King!

Posted on January 30, 2019

by Abigail

Calgary can be a cold, cold place during these dark winter months. It's a time of year where we want to cozy up as much as possible, with us cooking hearty meals, wearing as many layers as we can, and finding any excuse to cuddle up with a blanket and a good book. Given this time of year, there are very few people reaching for a cold, light, and crisp glass of wine after venturing out in -20 and -30-degree weather, so it is only fitting for us to focus on something bolder.

In this tasting, we are focusing on the most popular of all reds, Cabernet Sauvignon. Cabernet Sauvignon is the most planted varietal on the planet, producing some of the world's most sought after wines, According to my co-worker Bryan, we probably have some growing on the moon already. But what is it that makes Cabernet Sauvignon so popular? Why don't we delve through the grape's history and find out?



Let’s take you back to seventeenth-century France. Bordeaux had just started to really hit its stride, getting inter-European acclaim and exporting more and more of their product than ever before. It was here that one foolish action led to the interbreeding of Cabernet Franc and Sauvignon Blanc, but who knew how earth-shattering this incident would be.

Cabernet Sauvignon is a hearty grape, being able to grow almost anywhere and its ability to show a variety of different personalities, It is diverse and can stand the test of time, so it’s only suiting that people became obsessed with it not just in Bordeaux, but the world over.

In order to showcase the diverse nature of Cabernet Sauvignon for this tasting, I decided to pour from some of the world’s most renowned Cabernet Sauvignon Regions, but also a couple for some ‘newer’ areas.

To start this tasting, we had to go to Bordeaux. It is the homeland of Cabernet Sauvignon, thriving in the gravel soil of the Left Bank, where it produces a wine with heavy with the earthier nuances of the grape, and producing some of the most age-worthy expressions of Cabernet Sauvignon. However, due to the viticultural history going back centuries within Bordeaux, it is rare to find single-varietal wines, and so Cabernet Sauvignon is traditionally blended with Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot and/or Malbec.

I decided to start off with the Chateau Lanessan 2014 Bordeaux Blend, which consists of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Cabernet Franc. It’s full of luscious aromas of black fruit and sweet spice, hints of licorice and red fruit compote, and is silky and fleshy on the palate with a chewy finish. It was the perfect wine to start of the tasting, with its fruit-centric approachability, and soft character.

For the next wine of the evening, I decided to pour something from an area that wasn't traditionally known for Cabernet Sauvignon. During the 1970’s in Tus...

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Raking Bourbon Great Again!

Posted on January 20, 2019

by Evan



Our Kensington Wine Market Bourbon tastings have been very popular over the past year, selling out quickly every time we host one. The upside of this beyond getting to open up new bottles of Bourbon and American Whiskey, is that each tasting gives us a new opportunity to poke fun at Trump. When we heard him saying that he did about preventing forest fires in California by raking the forest floor of all of that incredibly flammable material - something he apparently learned from those crafty Fins, the name of this Bourbon tasting pretty much wrote itself.

Enough about everybody's favourite horrendous leader of the free world though - let's talk about the good things in life - such as whiskey!

It was an opportune time to have a Bourbon tasting, as quite a few new bottles of American Whiskey have come into the market in the past month. I wanted to try them all, so I stacked the lineup with these mysterious treasures. This was purely selfish on my part: I was looking forward to the tasting so that I could try them myself just as much as it gave me a reason to share them with everyone else. In this eight bottle lineup, I had only tried one of them before - The Four Roses Bourbon.  It had been a few years since I had tasted it. In that time the distillery had undergone a change in Master Distiller, so I was excited to give it a revisit as well.

Here is the lineup we tasted our way through:



Four Roses Bourbon
Four Roses Bourbon is finally back in Alberta - at least in its most basic form. This Kentucky Straight Bourbon utilizes all ten Bourbon recipes used at Four Roses Distillery from a combination of two different mash bills and five different yeast strains, it is bottled at 40% ABV.

This used be known as the Four Roses Yellow Label. The label is no longer yellow, and another recent change is the signature on the front. For years every bottle had legendary Master Distiller Jim Rutledge’s name on the front, but he left the distillery in 2015 and his protege Brent Elliott took over. Brent’s signature graces every bottle produced since then. $40

Wild Turkey Longbranch
Longbranch is a Bourbon made by Wild Turkey Distillery of Lawrenceburg, Kentucky. It is aged for eight years in virgin oak barrels before being filtered through White Oak charcoal, then again through Texas Mesquite charcoal before being finished in barrels with extra charred White Oak staves and then Texas Mesquite staves added (edit: found out I the charcoal part wrong). It is then cut to 43% ABV and bottled.

Famed Oscar-winning actor and naked bongo drummer Matthew McConaughey joined the Wild Turkey brand as Creative director in 2016. In the two years since he has been the center of much of their advertising and commercials. In 2018 he left even more of a mark on the distillery and brand by ...

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Fortified Wine: Port and More

Posted on January 13, 2019

by Abigail

Oh, it's that time of year again where winter is now in full swing. The holidays are over, it's getting colder (again), and now is the time to put on even more layers of winter clothing.

Even though we spend a lot of time complaining about the winter season here, there is still something quite endearing about it. We have an excuse to stay at home and cozy by the fireplace or spend as much time (and money) on the slopes, eat hearty meals (because a salad will not do when it's -20 outside) and it's the time of year when port is most enjoyable to consume.

There is a lot to enjoy with port, but what if we expand our horizons, and explore more fortified wines that are just as good as warming us up in the winter, and even some that will quench your thirst during the summer!

What is a fortified wine?
Fortified wine is a style of wine in which fermentation is stopped by the addition of a neutral wine based spirit (typically brandy or eau de vie). They can range from dry to sweet, depending on the style. In order to create the desired sweetness, the winemaker chooses when to add the spirit to the fermenting wine; If the winemaker is aiming to create a sweeter wine, they'll add the spirit early on in the fermentation process, for a dryer style, they'll add the spirit later.

[caption id="attachment_8148" align="aligncenter" width="640" caption="The Tasting Lineup: All Fortified - All The TIme."][/caption]

Styles of Fortified Wine
Most people will know Port and Sherry, but there are a few more additions to make. Madeira, Marsala (which unfortunately we will not be tasting this evening), Pineau de Charentes, Macvin and Vermouth all fall within the Fortified category, with each style bringing a unique character to the equation.

Port
Let’s start with the one everyone is familiar with. Port is a style of fortified wine that was famous because of the quarreling relationship between the French and the British. “In 1667 Colbert, the first minister of Louis XIV embarked on a series of measures to restrict the import of English goods into France. This provoked Charles II of England into increasing the duty on French wines and later forbidding their import altogether, obliging the English wine trade to seek alternative sources of supply.” (Fladgate) The English ended up in Oporto, a port city based in the Douro Valley. Even though the British were not keen on the light, fresh wines of the coast, they were very much fans of the heavy, bolder reds coming from the Douro Valley. It is believed that the wines were not created to sustain time at sea, and thus the addition of brandy became a preserving agent for the wines and creating what we know as port.

Port is a highly regulated item, with there only selected areas of the Douro Valley are permitted in the production of port, and with only select grapes ...

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