if you're looking for simple drinkability...

2009 Domaine Arnoux Père & Fils Les Pimentiers | AC Savigny-Lès-Beaune

2008 Villa Symposia l'Equilibre | AC Languedoc | Midi

L: 2009 Santa Carolina Reserva De Familia Carmenère | Rapel Valley | Chile
R: 2009 Terra Noble Gran Reserva Cabernet Sauvignon | Colchagua Valley | Chile

The holidays are a collection of dinners and commitments - some attended to gladly, and others, well, maybe not so much. The night never seems long enough when you're with people you actually like. So what happens when you're stuck with the other type? I reach for the bottle to keep me occupied, but really, when most people serve wine, it should be prefaced as "wine".

We're just looking for something simple and pure and that most useful of descriptors, drinkable. But why is it so damn hard to find? Maybe we're asking for too much - we want varietal character, vintage personality, balance, and structure in our wines, among other things. If we're just searching for drinkability though, we need to shut down that part of our brain. No, all four of these wines are simple, fruit-forward wines that don't necessarily offer a lot of excitement, but don't require much from the drinker either. A village Burgundy, one from the south of France, and a pair from Chile - all good on the dinner table, good for a buzz, good for the nights when the bottle is your best friend. 

*Side note: The two Chileans were both suffering from reduction upon the cork-draw. After a few hours of decanting, the Santa Carolina cleared up, showing jammy, if nondescript fruit. The Terra Noble though, stayed sulfur-heavy, that rubbery, muted aroma. Not pleasant, but by the third day, enough sweet fruit comes up that I get the appeal. Maybe a coincidence, but the first time I've come across two wines from the same region and vintage, suffering from the same winemaking fault. Both bottled under cork.

DF

cheap and cheerful on a birthday

Birthdays suck. Now that we're (slightly) older, all it does is remind you that you need to be more responsible, more mature, more adult-like.

Went out to get a birthday gift for a friend - cedar shoe trees, the sort of old-timers thing I really like. Nothing makes a Harry Rosen sales rep go soft faster than when you say, yes, that's all I'm looking for. No I don't want two pairs. No, I don't want to look at anything else. Kind of amazing how transparently sales-oriented they've become there (on a consistent basis), that sort of attitude of fuck off, you're not worth my time, as soon as they realize you're not willing to drop more than a few bills. Even more disappointing is that you expect better from middle-aged men, who, let's be fucking frank, play dress-up and hustle rich customers for a living. As if wearing expensive suits and matching handkerchiefs with ties means anything. Such a shame. I met Harry Rosen a few years ago, when he gave a lecture at my school about entrepreneurship. You'd imagine that under his watch, such behaviour would not be tolerated . . .

I'm allowed to say shit like this once in a while because it's absolutely true and because, well, I'm a grumpy prick. A bit too lazy to bother putting up the names of the wines pictured, but they're all big labels, easy to find, and really, they don't need any more trumpeting. Cheap but cheerful wines to celebrate my friend's birthday this past weekend. We were going for wine to go down easy and just be fun - no thinking required (or desired). Low alcohol, so we could drink a lot. Pure, clean fruit flavours, balanced acidity. Freshness, because my buddy had prepared a large amount of food. And well, cheap - all for under $12 or so a bottle.

I think I did rather well in the 6 bottles I picked up. A box wine chardonnay, to mess around with another wine-loving friend, but French Rabbit's always been very drinkable. My first taste of Fuzion shiraz/malbec, as shitty of a wine as I had imagined it to be. The rest were actually quite good. The C'est La Vie from the Midi, gorgeous pure red fruits, very, very fresh. And the pair of Cono Sur wines, always dependable. I've been drinking their $10 pinot noir since second-year university, and in my opinion, it's one of the best wines at that price. Good acid, good fruit, even a bit of minerality/earthiness. The last two bottles, brought over by said wine-loving friend, a Bordeaux and a vermentino from Lodi(!) were solid, if unspectacular.

As these things go, we ate a long lunch, drank a shitload of wine, and promptly became hungry again. 10pm on a Sunday evening, out to get some congee before calling it a night. A great day. Wine is for thought and contemplation and all that, but sometimes, on a rare occasion (for me), a simple drink is all I want. Simple, honest, chuggable juice.

DF

can you see the angels?

I don't know why I keep doing this to myself. Masochism, that surely must be it, I just like wrecking myself. I know I shouldn't trust certain South American syrahs, I know I shouldn't. I should know better than to go for a wine that Jay Miller has reviewed as a 90.

If there was a refund policy at the LCBO for stupidity I'd be in line every Monday. The Italians have this drinking game (I swear I saw this somewhere) in which you down tumblers of some cheap wine in one go, and look into the bottom of the glass for angels. You keep drinking until you do. Granted, you should probably be drinking (cheap) Italian wines, but in this case, these fruity, sweetly candied, high alcohol South American wines are surprisingly good for that. Down in one, but alas, no angels.

DF

the "other" pinot noirs

2008 Reichstat von Buhl Pinot Noir | QbA Pfalz (left)

2010 Errázuriz Wild Ferment Pinot Noir | Casablanca Valley (right)

2009 Inniskillin Montague Vineyard Pinot Noir | VQA Four Mile Creek

True winos have to be like the parents of a large brood - we don't have favourites. But I do have to confess that the first varietal I truly fell in love with was pinot noir. No need to explain why, no? Like that girl that everyone, including your best friends, told you to stay away from. And of course, one of the first wines to do that was from Niagara. Every wino has a wine that they go crazy about, and that no one else gives a second thought to. That, for me, is this little pocket of vineyards in southern Ontario.

Usually around this time of year, I like to have pinot noir readily available. These are beautiful wines with food, especially examples with high acid and a fine seam of minerality. For deeper pockets, that means Burgundy. For this wino, other regions will have to do . . . for now. The Pfalz and Chilean bottles were a disappointment. First one, with that rubbery aroma that reeks of the worst kind of German wine. The absolutely lightest looking red colour I think I've ever seen. And the Errázuriz, so named because it was fermented using indigenous yeasts; if screwcaps remove the problem of TCA but yet introduce issues of reduction, is the consumer any better off?

So leave it to Inniskillin, those giants of the Niagara wine industry to produce the most interesting wine of the night. I like the Montague Vineyard - especially the 2002, showing lots of structure, minerality. 2009 is going to be a fabulous vintage for Niagara pinot noirs. Not concentrated, but absolutely fine and delicate. This wine shows all that warm, stemmy quality this vineyard seems to be about, along with that clay/earthy heat. Wood and spice and all that, fresh and juicy. Not the best, but does show off some of the characteristics of Niagara pinots.

Are retailers as keen on letting you return bottles full of odours of reduction as a corked one?

DF

2008 Maipo Valley Syrah

2008 Viña Chocalan Syrah Reserva | Maipo Valley | Chile

We just got some bad news from home, in Shanghai. A little out of it at the moment, still getting my mind straight. Things get instantly put into perspective, especially when health issues come up.

The last bottle of dinner, a Chilean syrah. I was skeptical of how good this wine was going to be. Good meaning a wine with authentic syrah character, of course. Maybe going by that definition was a bit of a lost cause, but I did enjoy it. Full of that ripe character, big and plushy tannins, some sweetness on the palate. Oak, certainly. But it was fresh, it was structured, and it remained in balance. If only, if only, there was more of that syrah spiciness, but we can't get too greedy now.

DF

2009 Leyda Valley Pinot Noir

2009 Anakena Single Vineyard Pinot Noir | DO Leyda Valley | Chile

Single vineyard is a marketing term right? Has to be. What exactly is the single vineyard? Leyda Valley? I like Chilean wines but there's no need for this kind of labelling. Under screwcap, under $15 . . . you see why I'm a bit skeptical. But what does DF know.

Odours of reduction that never really goes away. Dark fruit, lean. Chill it down and drink quickly, please. That's a problem right? This whole reduction thing with screwcaps. TCA is terrible, a scourge, but reduction doesn't seem any better. There's no such thing as a perfect closure, clearly, but it'd be nice if the screwcap pundits would admit that there are issues to their beloved closures as well. What's the solution? Is this because of what's happening in the cellar? Or storage? We'll see, but screwcaps are clearly not the saviour of anything.

DF

2009 Limarí Valley

2009 Concha Y Toro Maycas de Limarí Reserva Syrah, Limarí Valley

I think it was Decanter magazine that proclaimed syrah to be the next big thing coming out of Chile. When you make a claim like that, it's helpful to keep in mind that the next big thing is determined not by a region's most expensive wines, but by its most humble.

And judging by this sample, one of the increasing number of wines defined by its obscure geography, Chile has a bit of work to do to understand syrah. Follows the trend of New World type syrah, showcasing fruit, fruit, and more overripe fruit. Macerated until it's unrecognizable varietally. I tried to give this wine a chance, I really did. It's just not any good.

One wine is hardly sufficient to form an opinion about an entire category. But syrah has such potential to be more than the monstrosities the Australians have been trying to sell North American palates for more than a decade now. They can be subtle, savoury, and incredibly linear wines of great finesse. Hopefully, Chile goes down this path - if the Limarí claims to be cool-climate, then let's see some true cool-climate wines being produced.

DF

2008 Rapel Valley

2008 Viña Casablanca El Bosque Winemaker's Choice Syrah, Rapel Valley

Chilean syrah has been getting a lot of press recently, earning itself a feature in a recent issue of Decanter magazine. Since I aspire to have a British palate, time to start drinking! And well, because I love syrah, especially cooler climate examples, which this bottle professes to be.

Maybe I shouldn't have gone for the sub-$15 wine. Jammy, flabby, non-varietal flavours. A South American disaster.....moving on.

DF

2008 Casablanca Valley

2008 Veramonte Reserva Pinot Noir, Casablanca Valley, Chile

It's time to branch out a bit, maybe taste a few South American wines. Here we go again. I've always had a fondness for Chilean pinot noir. I still remember the bottles of $10.10 Cono Sur Pinot Noir that I found absolutely delicious. Simple, fruit-forward, and very satisfying for the price.

Casablanca Valley is building a reputation as a great place for pinot noir, no? First off, yes, those are brandy snifters. I'm still in the process of searching out Burgundy glasses, and in the meantime, those bowls work perfectly.

This wine shows a nice, cherry juice colour. Very young. Quite an overt, bright, complex nose of brambles, red fruits, spice, but very noticeable alcohol. This follows on the palate - the alcohol sears down your throat. Come on now. This is a nice wine and all, but unbalanced by the fire.

This is a problem. Over-alcoholic, homogenous wines. I didn't know if I was drinking a Chilean wine, or an Oregonian, or a Californian, or a Kiwi...this is a problem.