Wine Cedar Creek Proprietor’s White 2006
From Okanagan, BC
Price $9.99 (MSL)
Alcohol Content 13.8%
A kitchen-sink blend dominated by Chardonnay, this has a fresh, citrus nose with some herbaceous overtones. Not unexpectedly, no particular fruit-type really steps up, but there’s plenty of it. Aims to be a good $10 patio bottle and succeeds.
Wine Cedar Creek Proprietor’s Red 2006
From Okanagan, BC
Price $9.99 (MSL)
Alcohol Content 12.8%
Wine is 100% Gamay Noir, and seemingly not potent enough to market as such. No nose to speak of; pleasant and indistinct fruit; not meant to be a big deal—and isn’t. (Too many of the group pronounced it “light” for that to be seen as a complement.) There are other Okanagan producers competing in this price and product range, and so far, they’re winning.
Wine Quail’s Gate Chasselas/Pinot Blanc 2006
From Okanagan, BC
Price $15.99 (MSL)
Alcohol Content 12.5%
Healthy nose and a palate of sweet fruit on a dry background. A very pleasant patio-mixer, although the winemaker’s agent’s claim that it was “simple and seductive” brought with it unfortunate images of Ellie Mae Clampett. (Not helped by promotional notes describing the acid as “racy”) Still, in the words of the eminence grise: “very refreshing”.
Wine Cedar Creek Estate Select Chardonnay 2005
From Okanagan, BC
Price $20.99 (MSL)
Alcohol Content 14.2%
Wine was barrel-fermented and left sur lees for 11 months. Smoky, buttery oak on the attack dominates the fruit, but is still pleasant. Slightly stemmy finish; one taster noted what seemed a “slight hint of botrytis” (presumably a good thing). All in all, a good, big-style new-world effort.
Wine Quails Gate Chenin Blanc 2006
From Okanagan, BC
Price $18.99 (MSL)
Alcohol Content 13.5
Mix is 86% Chenin Blanc with 14% Sauvignon Blanc. “Rapier-like acidity” in the words of one hyperbolic taster; some green overtones to the mid-palate. Simple, but as advertised, good with oysters.
Wine Quails Gate Gamay Rosé 2006
From Okanagan, BC
Price $14.99(MSL)
Alcohol Content 13.5%
Stemmy nose, although what followed on the palate moved one philosophical taster to dub this “a white wine that feels it should be red”. (The consensus was that this meant that the wine had a sense of structure above its place in the food-chain.) Thankfully lacking the over-acidity of so many rosés (which are, after all, largely failed reds.) User-friendly.
Wine Cedar Creek Ehrenfelser 2006
From Okanagan, BC
Price $15.99 (MSL)
Alcohol Content 13.8%
Big and sweet. (Alcohol-hot as well, but in this case, it brings out the fruit.) “Mouth-watering acidity” in the words of one taster moved to poetic feeling. Almost late-harvest in its strength; fruit is big, dopey and friendly. (Is Ehrenfelser still a marginal grape because at its best it tastes like a mix?) 1427 cases produced; coming soon to a store near you.
Wine Cedar Creek Estate Select Pinot Noir 2005
From Okanagan, BC
Price $26.99 (MSL)
Alcohol Content 14.1%
Smoky nose. Not much fruit—like many Pinots, this tastes like it’s been worked to within a centimeter of its life. (Winemaker Tom Di Bello has developed an interventionist reputation as the Jack Bauer of anti-terroirists.) A strange nutrasweet-burst of sweetness bizarrely appears at the finish and disappears just as promptly; in the words of one taster, “the math doesn’t come together.” After the bottle had been put away, he group’s eminence grise put a fatherly arm around your correspondent and whispered “I didn’t like that at all.”
Wine Quails Gate Dry Riesling 2006
From Okanagan, BC
Price $16.99 (MSL)
Alcohol Content 13.0
Decent Riesling nose; fruit a bit underpowered, but has finesse. One taster, surely near the end of his rope, observed that “salmon makes this wine taste fishy.” Cooler heads noted that the alcohol was overpowering the fruit, and wished that more winemakers making Riesling in the New World would follow the lead of the Germans: “9% alcohol, and this wine becomes a willowy blond.”
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