December 17, 2015
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| Tyson looking very dapper in his Christmas Bow Tie |
We celebrated this Champagne Thursday with a quite lovely bottle of Trius Brut Rosé. This snappy rosé had a sweet raw dough scent, a little yeasty. This was the first time that Tyson has ever tried to actually eat the cork. I probably shouldn't be telling you this, but I'll admit that he even succeeded a bit before I noticed. Yes, I know, I'm a terrible mom.
The first few sips tasted mostly of sour raspberry candy. Like the gummy candy, you know? We figured once we got used to it, we'd notice other flavours come forward... this was not the case. In my notebook I have at the bottom of the page, and I quote "Seriously. Just sour raspberry candy."
Don't get me wrong, I could drink a bucket of this stuff. It was awesome, but not the typical champagne-y flavours. I grew up on sour candies, I'd eat them until my mouth went white (betcha didn't know that would happen if you ate too much sour candy). And Shane and I are both big raspberry fans. He got a raspberry pie for Christmas from a colleague... I think he shared about 3 pieces, and wasn't happy about it.
So, yes, it was delicious, but if you're looking for a traditional champagne or wine taste, this probably isn't it. But we would get it again, although maybe not for Champagne Thursday.
December 24, 2015
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| I swear, he loves his Christmas Pyjamas. On the bum there's a patch that says "I party with Santa!" |
*sigh* I love Christmas so much, but one of my favourite parts is Christmas Eve. We have usually over-extended ourselves throughout the week prior, I think it's my optimism setting in that we'll totally be done and ready this year so I make plans with friends to do things, and then we end up scrambling to get gifts bought and wrapped between the events and get-togethers that were booked... oops. Next year will be different... she said ominously. Yeah right, he said realistically. Anyways, so when Christmas Eve rolls around, we have our little traditions. Usually we are freed from work early, around noon. So we have the afternoon to finish last minute wrapping, tidying or whatnot, and then we get Shane's kids and bring them out to Shane's dad's for a visit. There's usually a few visitors, and munchies and a drink or two (for me, not Shane, he's driving), and then when it's all over, we drop the kids off at their mom's and we go home. We put the presents under the tree, and sit down to enjoy a bottle of wine. We turn the TV to the fireplace channel on the TV, and listen to Stuart McLean (Vinyl Cafe) tell us a Christmas story. We start with the "Dave Cooks the Turkey" story, and then we move on to something new.
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| We are an Ugly Christmas Sweater type family. Aren't they lovely? |
So this year, instead of wine we popped a bottle of bubbly, it was Thursday after all. We broke out a very special bottle that we bought on one of our honeymoon day-trips right after the wedding. We got this bottle from Hinterland Estates, we have had one of their bottles before, and we quite enjoyed it. This week it was the Rosé, it was quite lovely. When we popped the top we noticed a strong blackberry scent.
Turns out, this is the perfect Christmas Eve champagne. It has flavours of tart berries which we associated with cranberries. It was delicious, and festive, and perfect for the evening. The colour was pretty, a lovely pale pink. It wasn't super dry (in our opinions), but it also didn't come across as sweet. It was interesting though how it differed from the previous Hinterland we had tried (Whitecap). We found that one a touch on the minerally side, because of the area that the grapes were grown. This one though didn't have a hint of it. Which is great, as often the idea of licking a rock can turn me right off a wine. It was really good.
We'd definitely get this one again.
December 31, 2015
Enter New Years Eve. A little crazy, a little relaxy, a lot of food, and a lot of drinks... So a couple days before, we noticed that Tyson's electric fence was beeping, which meant that the wire had broken somewhere. Unfortunately, we had an inkling of an idea of where it might be... under water. We have a (normally) little creek that runs along the back of the property. However, with the unseasonably warm weather, and the ridiculous amounts of rain we've had, it is less of a "little creek" and more of a "fast moving, high water, river wannabe". Anyways, we found the break in the wire the day before (or at least one end of it), and enlisted the help of my dad and mom on NYE to use an old canoe that washed up in our yard after the spring flooding in 2014 (no idea if it was going to be sea-worthy, btw) to get across the creek to find the other end of the wire and fix it. No paddles. Just a very long stick (that Tyson thought should be his and kept trying to take). There was a hole in the canoe, but my dad and Shane ended up finding the wire and fixing it.
We celebrated the fix with a truckload of Chinese food. Yum.
And then we celebrated the New Year with a bottle of Cuvée Catharine by Henry of Pelham. On popping the top Shane immediately got a strong "raw sugar cookie dough" scent, later simplified to sweet dough. I simply got dry. It smelled tart and dry.
On tasting, it was did leave a dry taste in our mouths. It's a nice crisp, dry white wine. The bubbles are lovely. The other weird description that Shane came up with (that I totally agreed with) is that it tasted like swallowed orange juice... I know, how can we possibly agree on that?? But picture it: you've just swallowed your orange juice, there is a kind of OJ aftertaste that lingers, a kind of funky acidic taste. That's it! That's the taste! Which, as strange as it sounds as a description, wasn't too bad!
We quite liked this one too. (We've had good luck lately!)
Thanks for your patience!!
~S&S
Dec 17/15:
- Brand: Truis Brut Rosé
- Type of Grape: Pinot Noir
- Sweetness: 9g/L
- Price: $29.95 (I think we must have gotten it on sale... I don't remember spending that much on it...)
- Tasting Notes: Sour Raspberry Candy. Would be nice with popcorn, or salty chips.
Dec 14/15:
- Brand: Hinterland
- Type of Grape: unsure, it's not on their website anymore
- Sweetness: not sure
- Price: I believe we got it around $39?
- Tasting Notes: Festive holiday flavours, cranberries and tart, not minerally. Would go nicely with turkey.
Dec 31/15:
- Brand: Henry of Pelham
- Type of Grape: Not listed
- Sweetness: 8g/L
- Price: $29.95 (I do remember this, it was NYE after all, special night.)
- Tasting Notes: Nicely balanced acid, sweet dough scent, dry sparkling wine.
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