Predators Finally Become Prey

Music City USA. Game 6. Canucks. Predators.

Please boys! Get it over with tonight! Talk about a city-wide mantra.

I'm not sure that my heart could handle another Game 7. After all, I'm not quite as young as I used to be and there's no need to put my aging ticker at risk.

In the hope that it might prove to be another secret weapon, I also went to the "Power of Trevor" (as in Linden) and decided it was time to wear my #16 jersey for the game.

799. 2007 Sandhill Small Lots Sangiovese (VQA Okanagan Valley)

Knowing that we'd likely need a big game from Roberto Luongo tonight, I figured I might as well pull out a Sandhill wine that might play a bit to his Italian heritage. The Small Lots Sangiovese should fit the bill nicely.

This Sangiovese is a little bigger than the typical Italian Chianti's we tend to see in the Vancouver market. Not being constrained by Italian wine laws, Sandhill's winemaker, Howard Soon, is able to fill out the wine with a small addition (6%) of Barbera (a varietal not generally found in Tuscany where the Sangiovese grape is best known in Italy).

It's a one-of-a-kind wine in Canada as Sandhill's Small Lots is still thought to be the only commercially produced VQA Sangiovese in Canada - and there were only 430 cases produced in the 2007 vintage. I was hoping that the uniqueness of the wine would also match up with the feeling that this vintage of the Canucks is one unlike the others. Hit the sports pages and you continually see columnists and fans saying that this is one of the deepest - if not the deepest ever - Canucks team in terms of talent, that it's a more mature and balanced team than we've seen in the past and that this is as good of a chance as the Canucks have ever had to hoist the Stanley Cup.

Luckily, both the wine and the Canucks were up to the evening's task. It was a 2-1 win for our boys and now the city gets to wait a bit to see when the next battle - the Conference Finals - will start up and whether it will be against the San Jose Sharks or the Detroit Red Wings. As the local wags have been contemplating - does anyone have a preference for serving up fish or wings for the next course?

Good job done by both the Canucks and by the Sandhill wines featured for this series. Guess I need to determine which BC winery I want to match up to that next round of games.