"First" Post of 2016

I've got the "first" in quotes because we all know it's not really the "first" post of 2016... It SHOULD have been the first post, but since I finally got around to finishing the previous post (extra long, I might add), they are both going up in 2016. Oops. I'm afraid my timing is going to get worse before it gets better... Maybe this week's post will be on time, but next week's won't be. Shane and I are going away of a family vacation and so... well, you know the drill. 

Shane and I had a relatively quiet week, really. My parents came over for a planning meeting for the ski week (organizing meals and whatnot) and we used Shane's new meat grinder to make them fresh hamburgers. 

January 7, 2016

This week we picked out a bottle from Chile. Cordillera by Miguel Torres. Shane was a bit secretive with this one when he popped the cork. He said he smelled something right away, but didn't want to influence my take on it. It smelled dry to me, and hints of tart granny smith apples. Turns out, he smelled stale vitamins. Once he said it, I did understand where he got it from, but it didn't ruin it for me (thank goodness!). 

It was a lovely pale straw colour, with great bubbles. It came across as very dry, drier than the Sidonio from a couple weeks ago. It was nice enough. Not much more than wine flavour came through though. It turned out to be quite a burpy bubbly though... 

Shane had a bit of a break through while we were drinking it though. A hilarious one at that. We were watching Prison Break on Netflix, talking about how it's already several years old. He then says "We are watching TV over a thing called the INTERNET!". He was feeling a bit old, I guess, remembering a time when it wouldn't have been possible, making the sound effects from dial up internet (which was quite accurate, btw). I don't think this should be a reflection of the bubbly though... Just his silliness. 

Verdict: Probably wouldn't get this one again. There's better bang for our buck out there. 

~S

• Brand: Miguel Torres
• Type of Grape: Pinot Noir
• Sweetness: 8g/L
• Price: $21.75
• Tasting Notes: Smells of minerals, and granny smith apples. Would pair nicely with a rich meal, like a heavy afredo pasta.

3 for the Price of 1!

Well, well, well. The holidays kicked my ass, blog-wise. It's just been so crazy in this Morvenian household, with days off work, and vacations and Christmases that I've slipped from grace. Okay, maybe not just slipped... more like plunged from grace. Not that I was overly graceful to begin with, I've had issues with blog timings from the get-go... I'll keep this quick, and skip all the pleasantries since there's three (THREE?!?!) bottles to discuss. 

December 17, 2015

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

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. 

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.

A low key weekend and a low key bottle...

This post might actually be on time for once! Hurray for us! Last weekend we had the kids, and so it was relatively quiet, which was a nice change. Although the past couple weekends have been low key, they have still been busy with to-do lists and running around. 

This week has been filled with Christmas luncheons with work (maybe not "filled", but two), some Christmas shopping and general getting ready for the holidays. Unfortunately, it still doesn't LOOK like Christmas around here; dreary, muddy, warm and rainy weather has made it feel more like spring than the middle of December. Oh well, hopefully Mother Nature wakes up soon and realizes which season it's supposed to be. 

December 10, 2015

This week our Champagne Guy sent us home with a bottle from New Zealand, Oyster Bay's Sparkling Cuvée Rosé. We have had the Brut by Oyster Bay before, and it was quite lovely, so we decided to give this one a go as suggested. 

After a lengthy struggle, we finally got the cork out of this one. Not sure why it was so stuck, but there was a bit of a battle going on between Shane and the bottle as to who got to keep it. We won. Well, I suppose Tyson eventually won as he proceeded to chew it to bits (See how happy he is in the picture? That's because a cork is coming his way!).

On the nose it's yeasty, smelling a lot like "dry wine". Strange, eh? In the first couple sips, we got a kind of berry essence. We weren't able to identify it any further though because the essence vanishes before the bubble burn is over (yes, that's the technical term for the quasi-pain that soda pops and sparkling wines gives your mouth when all the little bubbles are busy popping away: bubble burn). The Bubble Burn on this one is quite nice as there are lots and lots of little bubbles. 

This is a fine bubbly, but we probably wouldn't get it again. Not because it's bad, just because it's boring, very Plain Jane. We agree that there are better, more interesting and complex sparkling wines out there with a similar price point. That being said, it is a nice, dry very bubbly sparkling wine. 

~S

• Brand: Oyster Bay
• Type of grape: Pinot Noir & Chardonnay
• Sweetness: 11g/L
• Price: $21.95
• Tasting Notes: Nicely dry sparkling wine, hints of berries. Would pair nicely with a creamy pasta dish or seafood. 

Have We Met Our Match?

So, post Thanksgiving, Shane and I had our Christmas Kick-Off weekend. We did some decorating, baking, building, and buying. It was lovely and relaxing and festive and just what we needed to get in the spirit with the outside looking nothing like Christmas. 

December 3, 2015

This week we celebrated with a new bottle from Portugal. I'll be honest, we bought this one based solely on the sugar content. 2g/L. Let me repeat that: TWO GRAMS PER LITER. Very, very dry. So we were expecting to have found the one bottle that is actually too dry to drink. My my, were we ever wrong. Please keep in mind that this is from our perspective, and our palates, and this is in no way, shape or form saying that it would be enjoyable for everyone... or even the majority of people. 


This week it was Sidónio de Sousa Brut Nature Rosé. We were excited and a bit nervous. We didn't really want to have found our threshold. We pride ourselves on enjoying the most dry of dry bubblies, and were a bit scared that now we'd realize that we're just pretending to like them. That when it came down to the nuts and bolts of it, the brass tacks of dry bubblies, we would actually hate it. Or at least not enjoy it.  


When we popped the top, it smelled very dry (to be expected). It had the most adorable little baby cork, so cute. Tyson destroyed it. Faster and more completely than he has been lately. Must've been a good one. 

The first sip scared us a bit, it was starting to confirm everything we were worried about. That we had met our match. "It's lowering the humidity of the room",  it was so dry. We persevered. A few sips in, giving it air and swirling, we were starting to lose hope.

But then something magical happened. Okay, perhaps not magical, but certainly interesting and somewhat unexpected (by us - the foreshadowing earlier may have clued you in). We started to notice flavours. And not just the flavour "dry". We started to notice sweet (albeit tart, sour candy-esque), fruity flavours. Shane got under-ripe blackberries, and I got more a gooseberry tone (keep in mind, I have only had gooseberries about twice, when I was quite young, and they were ridiculously sour, so that's where I'm drawing my conclusion from). After a glass or two, when the dry-ness really started to even out, Shane said he got more raspberry flavour. 

Overall, yes, we would get this one again, although it certainly wouldn't be for everyone. We quite enjoyed it. 

~S

• Brand: Dulcinea dos Santos Ferriera
• Type of Grape: Not referenced
• Sweetness: 2g/L
• Price: $17.95
• Tasting Notes: Balanced flavour, fruity undertones, even and not acidic. Would pair nicely with a strong cheese, an extra old cheddar perhaps. 

Oopsies!

Late again. Better late on the blog than other things though, I suppose. Last week was a bit of a crazy one, Shane and I, for the first time ever, took off at lunch on Thursday to watch football, eat munchies, and drink beer in celebration of American Football Day (*ahem*Thanksgiving*ahem*)! It was glorious, very relaxing. So relaxing that we took the next day off also. And then on Monday I forgot my notebook at home, so I couldn't do the post... Anyways, at long last, here it is. 

November 26, 2015

This week we celebrated Champagne Thursday with one of our favourite gentlemen: Robert Mondavi. This is a California based winery, and we quite like most (*all*) of the stuff we've tried from them. Last week we saw this sparkling wine, but passed on it to re-try the Momenti. This week we knew we wanted this one. 

When we popped the cork on it, Shane smirked at me and asked what I smelled. I couldn't really smell much yet, but clearly Shane could. He told me he smelled "Carnation Instant Breakfast, the strawberry one". Very specific, there's something up with that man's nose. I ended up getting a quite yeasty and tart smell out of the glass. 

We found the flavour on this brut nice and clean. There wasn't much lingering in the aftertaste which was nice. The bubbles were fantastic and small. In the glass it's very pale, almost colourless. It has a hint of a berry flavour, but hard to say whether that is the actual taste or a trick played by our noses. We did find it was a bit burpy after a couple glasses though. 

Overall, yes, we quite liked it, nice that good ol' Robbie didn't disappoint us!

~S

• Brand: Woodbridge by Robert Mondavi
• Type of Grape: Not detailed
• Sweetness: 17g/L
• Price: $14.95
• Tasting Notes: A lovely clean sparkling wine, tastes drier than it is. Would pair nicely with something creamy: asparagus with Hollandaise sauce perhaps? 

Stars aligned?

So, my deepest apologies about the mix up last week. As I said in my post (that you weren't able to read until now...), I was going away with my mom for the weekend. Shane had wanted to read the post before we put it up, and so I left it in his hands to publish it after editing... Yeah, well, that didn't happen... 

Anyways, I went away with my mom for the weekend, a sewing retreat full of inspiring women making extraordinary quilts and projects. Just beautiful work. It was lovely to catch up with everyone, and get some time dedicated to my own projects that have fallen by the wayside this year. I got some stuff done, but as it's a surprise for a friend, I can't post anything. Remind me after I've given it away and I'll post a picture. 

Shane and my dad had been busy while we were away also, they got a new cupboard put up over our stove, new (to us) tools in the shop, and some other playing. Shane's boys also won their football championship game. 

Phew! Busy busy. 

Onto Champagne Thursday. We decided to repeat the Momenti from the other week, to see if was really as good as we thought the first time, or if all the stars had aligned just right to create this epic, lovely, bubbly week. 


November 19, 2015

So we got the Vieni Estates' Momenti again. On corking the bottle, Shane got a strong puff of berries. It has sweet field berries on the nose in the glass, along with some Granny Smith apples. It's a very pale yellow in the glass. Shane got an exotic fruit aroma when he sniffed. 

This one has lots of lovely bubbles, and still was strong in the tropical fruit Five-Alive juice flavours. There isn't much in the way of a boozy-burn (I'm pretty sure that's the technical term for it?) from this one, which is great. 

This week it didn't spend as much time in the fridge before we got into it, so it wasn't as cold as last time. This led to a more "wine-y" taste and less "fruit juice-y" taste. This isn't a criticism, just an observation. If you're new to the bubblies, I would recommend having this one well chilled to take some of the edge off. We, however, liked it perhaps a bit better this time around, as when it's less chilled it gives the wine flavours a chance to open up. It is certainly a lovely flavoured wine. 

Verdict: Yuppers. Absolutely like this one. It wasn't a fluke the first time brought on by a lonely week, cool house, and tired bodies. 

~S

• Brand: Vieni Estates
• Type of grape: Vidal and Pinot Grigio
• Sweetness: 15g/L
• Price: $13.95
• Tasting Notes: Lovely fruity flavours including field berries, apples, and exotic fruits. Would pair well with brunch or a cheese platter on a hot afternoon. 

Strawberries and Scream

We did it! We made it through another week. Thank goodness it's almost over. Not that it was a bad week, more because Mom and I are going away this weekend, and I'm a touch excited! Not about leaving Shane alone for the weekend, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do, I'm sure he'll survive. 

This week's pre-Champagne Thursday was slightly less lavish than last week's mock-charcuterie platter, but the actual Champagne Thursday piece was significantly more successful. Thank heavens. 

November 12, 2015

We were a little more careful with our selection this week. We were leery about straying too far from our comfort zone, so we stuck with a new version of an old favourite. We have tried the Tierra Sur Sparkling Wine before, but this time we opted for their new Rosé. It's a lovely brut from Chile, and since I've been in a pink mood lately (just found out a friend is having a baby girl in the spring!), it seemed quite fitting. 


Popping the cork unleashed a lovely strawberries and cream aroma (well, strawberries and "scream" which was quickly corrected to "cream", silly Shane, it's not Hallowe'en anymore!). When you put your nose in the glass and take a whiff (are you picturing it? Bubbles up the nose!!), it doesn't have the same strawberries and cream scent,  it has a lovely dry, bready scent that has a slightly floral undertone. 

It's a very pretty pink colour in the glass, with lots of little bubbles. It's got a fruity flavour, like hard almost ripe apples, with a nice crisp mouth feel. The dry and crisp flavour leads into a lovely berry finish. 

This is a nice, safe (for us) bottle of bubbly. It is quite dry though, so it wouldn't work for people who prefer the sweeter bottles. 

Verdict: yuppers. The pink is as nice as the blue topped bottle (which we picked up because of the colour of the foil, shh don't tell anyone!). 

~S
PS: Sorry this is so late, I left this to Shane to publish, and he did not... grr.)

• Brand: Santa Alicia
• Type of Grape: Pinot Noir
• Sweetness: 12g/L
• Price: $17.95
• Tasting Notes: Lovely dry bubbly, floral fruity aroma, crisp hard apple flavour with a berry finish (would pair nicely with cheesy popcorn, or a dark chocolate mousse - yes, I realize how different those two foods are... I guess that makes this bubble well rounded?)