Tag Archives: Barque Smokehouse

Canadian Pond Hockey, Beyond Beer

 
Curious to know what wine to drink with Pond Hockey? On Saturday night of the big tourney we had a pot luck dinner and opened these wines…
 
KUNDE ZINFANDEL 2007 (965921, $16.95). Like waiting for a loved one, gazing hopefully at the overhead screen, patiently anticipating this VINTAGES arrival. Barque BBQ price and personality. Bang the drum slowly while the fat renders and enter Zin city. Jettison of bramble, berry and brawn yet no cloying trail of exhaust.   mjg 89
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
X WINERY NAPA CABERNET SAUVIGNON 2007 ($29.95) protrudes as a big nose of capsicum and perfumed poppies with a ton of dark fruit. Grainy tannins will require some aeration. Sure value in mid-round Napa draft choices. I’ll buy tickets to the first few seasons and drink up before free agency sets in.  Available through www.25brix.com.  mjg 90

 

 

 

 

 

 

For seven years I have been playing in the Taylor Cup Pond Hockey Tournament to raise money for Cancer research at Princess Margaret Hospital.  We skate on the frozen ice of Sparrow Lake at Bayview Wildwood Resort.  The weekend was everything we hoped it would be and more. Every game was played on ice and no injuries to report. Shout out to our heroes year after year, hosts Lisa, Brian, Brenda and all the volunteers.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Over $120,000 was raised to support cancer at PMHF. This brings our seven year total to $807,000. My team, VanHooterman raised the second most amount of funds, $13,775. Kudos to my teammates as our seven-year total has now exceeded more than $80,000.
 
We skated to a 2-2 record, not bad for a bunch of old guys and we kept our string alive. No Sunday games, except for the parents and kids shinny, another Taylor Cup tradition.  
 

Cooper and Arlo, Taylor Cup 2012
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Here is a link to the Taylor Cup page:
 
 
 
 
 
Good to go!
 
 
 

VINE DIRT – RECENT TASTINGS

A heterodoxical winter. No blanket of white stuff.  To that inclination I travel against the grain for an encounter with three smoking pearls off the list at Barque.

 

JEAN-LUC COLOMBO VIOGNIER ‘LA VIOLETTE’ 2010 ($18.25) shows great floral intensity for a Vin de Pays d’Oc.  Condrieu intuition coaxes spiced nuts and yerba apricot tea from grapes grown in Languedoc. I waver not from the joy in its necessity, even as it descends a wafer thin minty slope to peter out. Certainly prettier than a Flyer’s coach.  88

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

FIELDING ESTATE CHARDONNAY UNOAKED 2008 ($13.95) is squeaky clean and cheap so “my money flows like wine.” The band plays Dixie while I eat too much chicken, the food and wine marching saintly, effortlessly in. More Mutsu than Meyer, more alfalfa than clover.  A golden, herbal remedy.  87

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PIEROPAN SOAVE CLASSICO 2010 ($19.95) is spring in winter, perennial in its success, consistent and always sharp in attack. Garganega that is oddly mindful of lemon paraffin wax tubes from the Wiz having gone to college in the Loire and now living as a mature adult in the Veneto. Opiate anaesthetic on the finish renders teeth and gums numb and void.  89

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Good to go!

Portfolio Tasting with Norman Hardie, Barque Smokehouse, January 23, 2012

Norman Hardie flaunts an unbiased instinct for what is genuinely evolving as Ontario wine, be it good or bad.  He is both chemist and magician, pundit and critic. For better or for worse he is Matt Kramer’s (WS) boy now, a nuptial trafficker of both Niagara and Prince Edward County fruit, authoring with bravado, crafting with passion. Wild West meets intellectual East, winemaker as Steinbeck or London, possessed with an honest will to hunt down the object of his life. 

Hardie and his king assistant Richard sat down with JB and I at Barque on an afternoon amid this winter of our discontent.  A six strong John Barleycorn tasting, in temperament but not volume.  Limestone soils are forever in his discourse, he a Hagrid of experiential vinification.  His wines are made of a man, “yes I am and I can’t help but love you so.”

RIESLING 2010 ($21) is cracker jack lemon/lime p.e.c. punch, the sprite as foil to niagara’s sharp, propellant fruit. diesel charged to run a unimog.  89

CHARDONNAY PRINCE EDWARD COUNTY 2010 (149054, $35.20) bends chablis, in specie côte de léchet, calling to mind defaix. minerals as fulvous fluid liquid. this is hardie’s immigrant song “from the midnight sun where the hot springs blow.”  88

CHARDONNAY UUNFILTERED NIAGARA PENINSULA 2009 ($35) may mince meursault and mâcon but the proof is in the must. sumptuous loam, an onguiaahra sweat lodge made of birch and poplar. most wines give you only of themselves – this one gives you the wide world.  91

PINOT NOIR PRINCE EDWARD COUNTY 2010 ($35) should appeal to my childhood neighbour, he who created the “not ready for prime time player.” speaks proudly at 11.9% abv from vines “not quite there” admits norm, but like our sugaring maples these creepers will one day help to define our land. uncluttered, modish, honest.   87

PINOT NOIR UNFILTERED NIAGARA PENINSULA 2009 ($39) at 0.5% higher alcohol tepidly ramps up the texture quotient, runs deeper routes yet remains the antithesis of california pinot relish. countenance of subtlety, soft peddling and sober.   89

CABERNET FRANC PRINCE EDWARD COUNTY 2010 (237123, $25) from the foster vineyard in p.e.c. displays flavours so pointed they fell me.  oak loyalty to a stern grape, ode to cherry, currant and cinnabar chinon. smokier fruit here, deeper than your average bourgueil and smarter than your average bear.   90

Good to go!