The in-laws flew in today from their snowy home of Winnipeg down to the warm and sunny clime that is Southern California. For dinner we decided to have something light, yet still interesting - moules et frites, or mosselen & friten in Flemish, or mussels and fries in English.
The mussels were cleaned and steamed in a simple combination of sliced red onions and a cup of 2007 Wirsching Estate Silvaner which was the only dry white wine I had left from the week's work. The wine we drank was a Canadian Riesling from the Okanagan region, which we picked up when we were there during Labor Day weekend - 2007 Quails Gate Dry Riesling. This is a winery that came recommended to me, but I don't remember who gave the recommendation. We tasted at this very beautiful winery, and I ended up enjoying their dry Riesling.
Tonight we enjoyed it again - it is a simple, steely, dry Riesling, definitely good enough character; of course it is not as stunning as most German Rieslings I taste and drink, but definitely a sound wine and worth the $15 or so dollars that it costed.
My conclusion about wines from the Okanagan are that I enjoy them, they are not as heavy or oaky or overdone as some Californian wines are, but the bulk of what I have tasted and drank there have been simple, new-worldy, young-vine-like, fun, sometimes tasty, but not awe-inspiring.
I'm still more stunned and awed and thrilled by old world wines.
4 comments:
Ahhh...Okanagan wines. I lived there for 6 months in 2006 and was blown away at the wonderful wines. Low alcohol and oak, refreshing! Also try Grey Monk, Cedar Creek, Burrowing Owl Pinot and Blue Mountain, to name a few.
The Mussels sound yummy! I'm with you on the Old World wines, just have something a little more sensual about them.
Thanks for the comments! :)
Intteresting thoughts
Post a Comment