A Different Chapel Hill

After last night's Australian Wine Appreciation Society's Gala Dinner, it just seemed natural to open an Aussie wine of our own to celebrate Australia Day. In my last post, I mentioned that we tried a couple wineries for the first time last night and that Boo and I will have to try and fit visits to a couple of them into our travels Down Under come April. Tonight's wine isn't from one of those newly discovered wineries, but it is one that I'm finally getting to enjoy - for a full bottle - for the first time.

I never did get around to blogging much about last year's Vancouver Playhouse International Wine Festival - likely because I spent too much time tasting wines at it - but this is one of the bottles that I picked up last year. And I've been dying to open it since that time. The Playhouse Festival can be amazing for discovering new wines and wineries and this was a definite keeper in my books. I went back to the winery table all three days of the big Festival Tastings just to make sure that I really liked their wines as much as I thought I did the first day.

Nothing changed for me. I liked them the first day - and I liked them even more by the third. The winery was new to our market and I hadn't heard of them before the Festival but Boo and I have already made contact with them to make sure that we don't miss out during our vacation.

1051. 2008 Chapel Hill Bush Vine Grenache (McLaren Vale - Australia)

I won't go into a whole routine or essay on Chapel Hill at this time - but only because I fully expect to do more than my share of coming to terms with everything that they have to tell when we're Down Under. I will say, however, that this is the style of wine that hooked me on Aussie wines in the first place - all those years ago. It's a big wine with all sorts of dark fruit coming at you - no getting around that - but it also has a lovely integration of spice and richness with the fruit. With or without food, this is a bottle that can be enjoyed by wine newbie or geek. It's got a bit of something for everyone.

This is the first of what I hope and expect will be many more Chapel Hill wines to be enjoyed at our home. Good on ya, mates!!