Test your wine knowledge: Who makes more wine than Canada?
(A) Uruguay;
(B) Algeria;
(C) Switzerland; or
(D) All of the above
If you answered “D,” my hats off to you. It’s not an easy feat to comprehend exactly how insignificant Canada’s wines are. Read the Ontario wine press or walk into an LCBO, and one gets the impression that Canada strides the world like a colossus. But the numbers paint a different picture [PDF].
Forget France or Italy. Even Russia makes 10 times more wine than Canada. Moldova makes seven times as much. We are also out-vined by Mexico and Macedonia. Indeed, Canada’s gross wine production hovers right below Algeria and just above Uzbekistan and Peru. With this in mind, the Short Cellar continues its survey of some of the more unusual wines at the LCBO. Unusual for us, that is, but not for the rest of the world:
Trakia Estate 2006 Bassara Mavrud, Thracian Valley, Bulgaria ($12.95, Vintages #180190 [Ed. Note: No longer available])
Mavrud is one of the classic Bulgarian grapes, providing a wine with guts and power. In this classic mode, the Trakia Estate is as dainty as a Mexican wrestler. It’s heavy, yes, but not without a forceful charm. The palate is smooth and rounded, with a plush character of Christmas cake and black cherry. Strong tannin and acidity give it the structure it needs, making it sturdy but by no means uncouth or funky. 88/100
Takler Pince 2008 Kékfrankos, Szekszárd, Hungary ($13.95, LCBO #0180141)
Kékfrankos (a.k.a. Blaufränkisch) is a light, spicy grape common in Central Europe. Bottles of Kékfrankos are most often dead boring but sometimes they slip unpredictably into wondrous profundity. The Takler Prince is somewhere between these two extremes. It has notes of mocha to complement fully developed flavours of black cherry and tangerine. It is mellow, earthy and tactile. A good choice for Tapas. 87/100
Domaine de l’Oujonnet Bursinel, La Côte AOC, Switzerland ($16.10, Vintages #160572 [Ed. Note: No longer available])
Blossoms, herbs and grass overwhelm the bouquet on this Swiss white but disappear on the palate, leaving a flavour of nothing much except perhaps a tart white peach. It innocuousness is marred at the end by a nasty metallic edge. 85/100
Badagoni 2005 White, Georgia ($17.95, Vintages #114223 [Ed. Note: No longer availale])
Georgia is the oldest wine-producing region of the world — archaeologists have found ceramic jars with traces of 8000-year-old wine. This Georgian is a blend of Rkatsiteli (a tart white grape) and Mtsvané (a fruitier species). The blend is not harmonious. It has an awkward flavour that combines notes of peach pie with cooked peas. An oily and lumpy texture coagulates into a sweet but uninteresting aftertaste. Despite eight millennia of experience, winemaking is still a work in progress for Georgia. 83/100
Matthew Sullivan is a civil litigator in Toronto. He blogs weekly here on lawandstyle.ca. The Short Cellar column also appears in the print edition of Precedent. Matthew can be reached at matthew@lawandstyle.beta-site.ca. Follow along on Twitter: @shortcellar.
Photo by upeslases