Saturna Island Rosé

Despite the fact that the Gulf Islands are about as close a vacation getaway as you can get from Vancouver, we don't tend to see many wines from island wineries on the shelves of Vancouver bottle shops. I suppose a good part of that reality is that there isn't an awful lot of wine made there, but it would still be nice to see it over here now and then.

While visiting the Tyrant at his new place on Salt Spring Island, we stopped in at two of the island's wine stores and grabbed some bottles that I doubted we see over on the Mainland. Tonight's bottle was one of them.

892. 2009 Saturna Island Rosé (VQA Gulf Islands - BC)

I grabbed this wine in particular because it was sporting a little advert card around the neck stating that it was named as one of winning wines in this year's Vancouver Magazine Top 100 Wine Awards. The magazine's wine competition is now the largest judging of international and domestic wines in Western Canada. It focuses only wines that are available in the BC market and awards wines in a wide array of categories and from all over the price spectrum.

There were only five Rosé wines chosen this year. So, Saturna Island's being included on the winner's list is a nice little tip of the hat - particularly since this is the winery's very first release of a Rosé based on 100% estate grown fruit. The grapes were all Pinot Noir and they lent themselves to a nice tartness. I've seen both cranberry and rhubarb used to describe the fruit on the palate and I think that gives you a pretty good idea. The $16 price tag doesn't hurt that much either.

Our friends, Mickey & Rooney, have a lovely cottage on Saturna. I think I might need to work on getting us another invite so we can make a further exploration of the winery and its offerings.