Not So Scary

As you can readily guess from the timing of this post and the fact that I'm still using the images from our wines around Halloween, I'm way behind with my posts. That trip to the Island threw me for a bit of a loop - and catching up is a ... well, you know.

I'll try and whiz through the next so many wines and try for a little more currency. Not holding my breath, but I can cross my fingers. I'll start with a couple wines that took us through the next so many week nights.

245. 2002 Chateau Reynella Basket Pressed Shiraz (McLaren Vale - Australia)

Other than the fact that Boo was going to make fajitas with the sliced kangaroo steak in the bowl, the scariest thing about this wine was how much we've enjoyed it over the years. I first tried Reynella Shiraz probably more than 10 years ago with Dr. Dirt at a tasting. We've both continued to buy some over the years to follow. Boo and I even tried finding some while in Australia some years back - although it wasn't well -known and we found that rather surprising.

Reynella is the birthplace of the South Australia wine industry. Going back some 170 years, the family was the first to grow grapes commercially in the region. The winery was bought by Australian powerhouse, Hardy's, in 1982 and they continued to produce a higher end product under the Reynella name. The conjoined company succeeded to the point that, in 2003, Hardy's became part of the Constellation Group, the world largest wine business in the world.

It was no surprise that the wine had held up and was still drinking like the big Aussie that it is. It was more surprising that the kangaroos fajitas were really quite tasty.

246. 2007 Bodegas Parra Jimenez Tempranillo (La Mancha D.O. - Spain)

Not as memorable as the Reynella (but then it goes for a fraction of the price as well), this Tempranillo seems to be popping up in wine shops all around the city. There might be a couple of reasons for that. Firstly, it's an organically produced wine and Vancouverites go as ga-ga as anyone over organic goods. The winery is apparently a pioneer in organic farming in Spain.

Secondly, there's an awful lot of Parra Jimenez wine available. I couldn't find a lot of information about the winery, but I did see that they export over 2 millions bottles of wine a year. That'd be a good percentage of all the wine produced in BC.

Despite the value found in the pricing of Spanish wines at the moment, I'm not sure that I'll grab this one again immediately. For me, Tempranillo can be somewhat temperamental and this one just didn't grab me all that much. I wouldn't call it scary, but it wasn't frighteningly good either.