The Year in Wine

The rise of Riesling, creative packaging and eight other wine trends from 2006. By Christina Burridge

EVERY DECEMBER I SPEND a few days in Brussels eating and drinking. The food is wonderful—rich butter and cream dishes of haute cuisine, caramelized pork hocks, sausage and potatoes in bistros and staminets, and the North African street food of spiced olives with cheese and honey wrapped in flat bread. The wine is another matter. The fancy restaurants have the top wines from Alsace and the Loire, Bordeaux and Burgundy at paralyzing prices and not much else. Belgium is one of the biggest importers of French wine, but most of it—even the stuff that costs $50 and up in a restaurant—is the kind that’s putting French winegrowers out of business. Thin, acidic and dirty. Take my advice and drink the beer.

Last month, when I got back to an empty fridge, the alternative was Gastown’s Chill Winston, a place with a short but interesting by-the-glass list. For the whites, the Dr Pauly Bergweiler Riesling, an Albariño, a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, and the See Ya Later Pinot 3 and the Blasted Church Hatfield’s Fuse from the Okanagan. For the reds, a Côtes du Ventoux, a Malbec, a Tempranillo, the gorgeous Grant Burge Barossa Vines Shiraz, a Washington Cab and Saltspring Island’s Fetish from Garry Oaks. All good stuff, and all under $10 a glass.

Wine, especially inexpensive wine, is far better than it was 20 years ago, and there’s far more to choose from. Vancouver is doubly blessed: there are excellent stores, in both the public and the private systems, selling wine from all over the world—even a Shiraz and a Chenin Blanc from India. And then there are those wines from our own backyard: 133 B.C. wineries and counting—in the Okanagan, the Fraser Valley, Vancouver Island and even hopefuls in Cache Creek. The scary thing is that almost all of them are sold out. The year’s big trends:

BIG YELLOW
Yellow Tail still rules. Last year we drank $10.6 million of the Shiraz, more than twice as much as its nearest competitor, the Wolf Blass Yellow Label Shiraz, and 11 percent more in dollar terms than we did the year before. And we drank another $7 million of the Yellow Tail Merlot and Chardonnay. After that our taste went from Down Under to generic Canadian wines, the big sellers being Jackson-Triggs Merlot and Sauvignon Blanc and Sawmill Creek Barrel Select Merlot and Barrel Select White.

THE B.C. BOOM
The enduring popularity of the Canadian cheapies explains why Canadian wine outsells Australian three to one, but now even the premium wines are flying off shelves, with B.C. VQA making gains of 20 percent over the year. Sumac Ridge’s Gewürztraminer is the big favourite, followed closely by Mission Hill’s Five Vineyards Cab Merlot and Pinot Grigio. Elsewhere in the wine world the problem is oversupply—Bordeaux alone is pulling out more vines than B.C. has altogether—but here at home we can’t get enough of what we produce.

THINK PINK
Red wine sales only recently overtook white in the U.S., but in B.C. it looks like we’re moving back to white. Many restaurants—where wine trends usually start—report new interest in white wines. It’s not Chardonnay that’s changing our habits but the glorious diversity of Sauvignon Blanc, Riesling, Gewürztraminer, Grüner Veltliner, Albariño and Viognier—wines that match our Mediterranean and Asian tastes in food. And rosé has finally made it out on to the patio with wines like B.C.’s Joie proving stylish and versatile. In August—though maybe not January—what could be better with grilled lamb?

RIESLING RIDES AGAIN
One of the pleasures of judging this year’s awards was the Rieslings. Vancouver will get the chance to explore its new enthusiasm for this grape at the Vancouver Playhouse International Wine Festival in March, when exhibitors pour more than 90 Rieslings as part of its Global Focus. The reinvigorated 2005 festival put South Africa back on our drinking map, while the 2006 event stemmed the decline in French wine styles. 2007’s festival should help make Riesling mainstream.

THE WINE IN SPAIN
Spain used to be synonymous with plonk. Now it’s the most exciting wine region in Europe. New investment in vineyards and cellars means bright, vibrant wines at every price point from under $10 to over $50. The LDB has quite a decent selection, and Marquis Wine Cellars has a big Spanish release every December packed with interesting wines from Alicante to Zaragoza. Crisp, zingy Albariños and generous old vine Garnachas are showing up on wine lists all over town.

GOING GREEN
Rows of vines marching down the hillside and across the valley are a potent symbol of our ability to transform nature. Often, though, it’s not as pretty as it looks. Vines can be a chemically induced monoculture, leaving little room for anything else. That’s why there’s a growing demand for organic wine. Caveat emptor, though: definitions vary and organic doesn’t necessarily equal good. One place to look is B.C., where climate and small scale mean few pesticides and chemicals, and where wineries like Tinhorn Creek and Burrowing Owl aim to maintain biodiversity and habitat.

NICE PACKAGE
Whatever Prince Charles might think about the “nasty” cork alternatives, the traditional bottle stopper is better for flooring than for wine. Designers have come up with a slew of new substitutes for both corks and bottles. The 2005 Jurtschitsch Sonnhof Steinhaus Grüner Veltliner has a neat glass stopper. The Voga Pinot Grigio looks more like a vodka bottle. French Rabbit has just launched the first tetrapak in B.C. with lots more to come this year. Palandri is selling an aluminum/plastic recyclable bottle in Ontario. And Paris Hilton is flogging sparkling Austrian Prosecco in a can sold in gas stations across Europe.

THE NAME GAME
Among the new genre of labels you’ll find the critters—the Little Penguins, the French Rabbits and Ted the Mules. And the Fat Bastards, Arrogant Frogs and Red Bicyclettes. They’re all looking to snag the high-potential, under-forty consumer. The big wine companies reckon that high potentials are seduced by brand image; the smaller wineries just hope to stand out on increasingly crowded shelves.

HEAD FOR CAMBIE
Cambie Street may be all torn up, but the new Signature LDB store at 39th is compensation for braving the traffic—it has by far the largest selection of wine in the city. The LDB’s website also at last has a handy search function that will tell you exactly how many bottles of that bargain Castillo de Monséran each store has. Then there are the growing number of private stores—like Liberty’s new Granville Island location, Marquis in the West End, the Kitsilano Wine Cellar on Fourth Avenue or any of the VQA stores—for hard-to-find local wines.

BUCKING THE TREND
Thanks to the strong Canadian dollar wine prices came down last year, but taxes are driving them back up. The latest hit is the January 1st increase in the recycling fee paid by suppliers—which, thanks to mark-ups, PST and GST taxes, could cost us 20 cents more a bottle. Let’s hope the gain to the government treasury will bring us more hospital beds. Otherwise, take comfort from the recent study in the Journal of Wine Economics suggesting most people in blind tastings actually prefer inexpensive wine.

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Go to the results of our 2006 International Wine Awards competition.