...Then Dinner with Mickey Rooney

Following the quick in and out at the Yacht Club BBQ, we made our way to Mickey Rooney's home. Mickey Rooney is one of those combo couple names and together - just like the old neighbourhood kids "let's put on a show" movies starring the real guy - they throw down a mean dinner party. Tonight was just to be the four of us, but they were still working their way through a five-page article/recipe on back ribs just for Boo since they knew he loved them.

Rooney is also the Queen of the Garden. Her back yard is always a pleasure tour in itself. And we've benefitted on more than one occasion when she's needed to split her plants and had green to spare.

The garden's a marvelous place for a cocktail or glass of wine. So, we did both.

175. 2006 Orofino Riesling (Similkameen Valley)

Maybe it's fitting that we decided on an Orofino wine for the garden home. As mentioned in an earlier post, Orofino is one of the greenest wineries in the country and the winery itself is made of straw bales.

A gold medal winner at the 2007 All Canadian Wine Championships, this is one of our favourite BC Rieslings and we always look forward to opportunities where there's an open bottle of it.

176. 2005 Canonbah Bridge Ram's Leap Shiraz (New South Wales - Australia)

What better to go with BBQ'd ribs than an Aussie Shiraz? This is a very intriguing bottle. Firstly, it doesn't really come from a designated wine region of Oz. It's more of a pioneering vineyard and winery, on the edge of the Outback, 600 km North-West of Sydney. The vineyard is located on 80 acres of the family's 30,000 acre sheep farm. Having raised prize-winning merino sheep for four generations, the McLaughlin family has now taken a stab at grape-growing in the semi-desert conditions.

Those conditions allow an organic approach to grape growing, with low yields of fruit. Organic to the extent that the family uses the sheep to keep weeds down in and to fertilize the vineyard. They might let some of the sheep in, but they still use an 8-foot fence to keep the kangaroos out.

I didn't know any of this information when I bought the bottle. At the time I grabbed it, I was thinking more about the fact that I'd never tried the producer before. It makes me all that more interested in finding another bottle of their's to try and to maybe see how the growing circumstances leave their mark on the wine.