What's In Your Cellar, Rasoul?

Rasoul Salehi
Lastella, Le Vieux Pin
Executive Director @ Enotecca
lastella.ca, levieuxpin.ca

As the public face of not one, but two Okanagan wineries, Rasoul spends a lot of his time evangelising the merits of the premium wines produced in the Okanagan Valley. Both the wineries and his own collection draw inspiration from the classic wine regions of France and Italy.

Q - What are your favourite wines to cellar/collect?
Like an investment portfolio I like to keep it balanced and not so to speak put all my eggs in one basket. Having said that vast majority of wines I cellar are:

Sparkling: pretty much solely growers Champagne aka farmer fizz. No other sparkler (except a rare Cava or a rare Cremant) has so much depth, complexity and ability to evolve and get more interesting with age. Not to mention how well they pair with so many variety of dishes.

Whites: very Chablis focused. Love the typicity here. Chablis in hands of good growers makes honest wines. Wines that speak truly of their vintage (growing conditions), age, method of winemaking and of course the rare kimmeridgian soil they are planted on. Often imitated, never duplicated. Love the tension on the finish: the richness combined with laser like focus and acidity.

Q - What are your favourite wine regions to cellar/collect?
Chablis/blanc de blanc grower Champagne, Piedmont Nebbiolo based wines, Northern Rhone reds, traditionally made Brunello and red Burgundy

Q - What inspired you to hold onto that first bottle or case beyond when it was ready to drink?
When early on when I got hit by the wine bug I was able to have a young Bordeaux on release and a day after were able to have the same wine with 20 years of age on it. The change was huge. The complexities and nuances gained by time was utterly mind blowing.

Q - Was there a particular bottle or region of wine that was the impetus of starting your collection?
A bottle of NV Krug champagne with half dozen year of bottle age post disgorgement.

Q - What is the purpose of your wine cellar/collection?
To share with friends and to watch the evolution of each wine as I often buy each label in half case volume or more.

Q - Any particular duds or disappointments of note?
Prematurely oxidized quarts de chaumes, and many prematurely oxidized white burgundies from early 2000s. Also few random cases of 03 Burgundy, 03 Chateaneuf du Pape and red Bordeaux. Find them all to be one dimensional, prune-y and do not eloquently tell the story of where they come from.

Q - How do you store your collection?
We turned a room in our condo into a cellar with a temp/humidity control unit designated to this room. Temp kept at 58-60.

 Q - What causes you to actually pull the trigger on a special bottle from your cellar?
Simple. When like minded people are gathered together that’s a good enough occasion.

Q - Would perusing your wine cellar offer any insight into you as a person?
I think so. I go for difficult wines. Wines that demand your attention and can be very stubborn. Wines that are nuanced rather than hitting you over the head with their fruit and other loud notes. Wines that give more or equally high amounts of intellectual pleasure as opposed to just hedonistic pleasures.

Q - What advice would you share to anyone wanting to start a collection of wine?
Don’t buy heavy in any and I mean any category. Your taste will definitely change. Also don’t go buy in big breadth either. I mean have some sort of a focus either region or grape variety, just not to define in the beginning. If you spread too thin it takes a hell of a lot longer to learn what you like and what you don’t like. Finally join a tasting group or two or three or four or create one. Best way of learning is doing group tastings with various themes. Some themes can be super narrow like Cabernet from a sub appellation within Napa of the same vintage or as broad as Cabernet of the world within all price range.

 - Liam Carrier ©copyright 2012 IconWines.ca

What's In Your Cellar, John?

John Skinner
Painted Rock Estate Winery
Proprietor
http://www.paintedrock.ca/

Prior to starting a winery, John was a stockbroker for 25 years where he would have been very familiar with the concept of buying and holding. As a wine enthusiast first, his passions were routed with blue chip Bordeaux wines and as such it should be no surprise that the family's excellent estate wines take their inspiration from the long lasting wines of Aquitaine and are making proud editions to many collector's New World section of their cellar.

Q - What are your favourite wine regions to cellar?
To break my cellar down I think it is 70/30 Old World to New World. I began collecting wine years ago and bought reasonable quantities of names that I enjoyed. The majority are Bordeaux because I knew them and had confidence in their ability to cellar. I also have wines from other regions in France and a fair amount from Italy. In recent years I have expanded my largely Napa New World section to include some great Chilean producers, some smaller Australian producers and a number from Washington and Oregon. Happily my BC section is growing as the quality of our regions wines improve and I have greater confidence in the wines ability to cellar.

Q - What is the purpose of your wine cellar?
I actually bought a small but very high quality cellar from a very good collector some years ago because he had gems from virtually every good region in the world. This I called “due diligence” for my building a winery. My cellar was somewhat one dimensional and this cellar added opportunities for me to do broad regional comparisons which I have found very helpful.

Q - Is there a jewel of note or a favourite wine in your collection?
I own some very good Bordeaux 1st Growths that I take great pleasure sharing with my adult children but my favourite cellaring experience to date was buying a case of 1984 Heitz Martha’s Vineyard in 1988 and starting in 1998 opening a bottle a year with my buddies. For our Christmas lunch we would each bring a favourite and I decided to take them on a 12 year experiment. That wine was almost routinely the favourite each year until the last when it sadly disappointed. We were never quite sure if the wine was past its prime or it was a bad bottle. It wasn’t corked but was tired. Great memories.

 - Liam Carrier ©copyright 2012 IconWines.ca

What's In Your Cellar, Daenna?




Photo by Barry Komar

Daenna Van Mulligen, aka The Wine Diva
Writer, Publisher
http://www.winescores.ca/, http://www.winediva.ca/

Busy writing for national publications like Vines magazine, recording radio segments and maintaining two popular wine websites, it's no wonder that Daenna has had little time to actively manage her cellar of late. Stocked for personal gratification only, you're more likely to find in her cellar wines sourced while on her many trips to the world's wine regions with emotional attachment being valued much higher than investment potential.

Q - What are your favourite wines to cellar?
There is no one particular region or variety we collect. When we (my husband and myself) began “seriously” collecting wine, we had just fallen in love (quelle surprise) with Burgundy. So, if you were to catalogue our cellars, you’d find more red Burgundy (with a smattering of white) bottles than any other.

Saying that, we wished we’d diversified earlier in our collecting years. It’s great to have a deep selection of vintage Burgundy to choose from, but like anything, it’s best not to put all of your eggs in one basket. We learned after several years to expand, but I wish it we’d done it sooner.

Q - What inspired you to hold onto that first bottle or case beyond when it was ready to drink?
Not sure actually – forgetfulness…?
Was there a particular bottle or region of wine that was the impetus of starting your collection? We started with BC wines in 1996. The only one we had left was a 1994 Okanagan Vineyards Cabernet (made by Sandor Meyer, now the winemaker of Inniskillin Okanagan), which we dragged back and forth across the country when we moved to Toronto in 1999 and back to Vancouver in 2003. We finally opened it (thinking it must surely be vinegar) with my friend Terry David Mulligan about two years ago, just as a curiosity. It was fantastic!

Q - Is there a jewel of note or a favourite wine in your collection?
Not one single one, at least not that I can think of. I personally find the bottles I’ve brought back from trips I have taken to be the most special to me. The owner or the winemaker has given these bottles to me - some are even signed. When I drink them (although I have not had much opportunity lately) it takes me right back to my visit, to that winery, that region and even the food I may have eaten at that time.

Q - How do you store your collection?
Good question *smile*. We have two freestanding temperature-controlled cellars in our home; there are some cases in a downstairs closet, which is rarely used. We have some off site (for really long term wines like Port, Bordeaux and some Burgundy) cellaring and an out of province cellar at my mother in law’s home, back in the prairies. That cellar is in her root cellar and I have not been back in about eight years. I look forward to seeing some gems (including old Riesling and Sauternes) we’ve nearly forgotten about, this summer.

Q - What causes you to actually pull the trigger on a special bottle from your cellar?
Several times a year, we get together with some other geeky (but not annoyingly affected) wine folks and delve in. I think it’s most important to share great wine. So we all bring some bottles from our cellars and crack them open with simple foods. My husband and I have a load of ‘97s from around the world, which we save for our anniversary each year – or other “special” occasions.

Q - What have you learned about wine from starting your collection?
OMG – everything and nothing I’m sure. I was in a completely different career when I began collecting, so I’d like to think I’ve learned enough to fill a few books…but I’m still learning – that NEVER stops.

Q - Any general comments about building a cellar/collection?
1. If you invest in a cellar – like a condominium sized refrigerated cellar, always go bigger than you think. Always. For instance, if you think a 50-bottle cellar is big enough buy a 100-bottle cellar. Odds are, even that will eventually become to small.
2. Research the bottles you are buying to cellar - the region, the variety and especially the producer. Look for providence, are these wines expected to age well based on those criteria.

Q - What advice would you share to anyone wanting to start a collection of wine?
Diversify, diversify and diversify. If you love Burgundy I understand, but purchase wines from Rioja, from Piedmont and Chianti, from Barossa and Bordeaux. Please don’t forget Rhone, Alsace and Mosel, Loire, Portugal, Central Otago and California and even South America and South Africa. There are ultra-premium wines from South America and South Africa, which are half the price (or less) than those from the Old World (Europe) and also completely age-worthy.

 -  Liam Carrier ©copyright 2012 IconWines.ca

What's In Your Cellar, JAK?

JAK Meyer
Meyer Family Vineyards
Proprietor
http://www.mfvwines.com/

As the proprietor of an Okanagan Falls winery devoted to producing top quality Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, it's no surpire that JAK lists Burgundy as a favoured region to cellar. He looks for wines built to age and evolve over a long time which also draws him to the red blends of Bordeaux and the intense Cabernets of Napa Valley. It is with Napa Cabs that his cellar began, but as his tastes have evolved, so has the make-up of his cellar.

Q - What are your favourite wines to cellar?
My preferences have changed through the years but the ones I keep coming back to are the Bordeaux’s.

Q - What is the purpose of your wine cellar?
This has also changed dramatically as I have learned now I only cellar wines that will evolve and last, purely for enjoyment and sharing.

Q - What inspired you to hold onto that first bottle or case beyond when it was ready to drink?
My first case purchase was a case of 2000 Leonetti Sangiovese from Washington. I was told this was a great wine and should get some on release. I tried a bottle right away and thought it was terrible and very disappointed. They sat for years and one day I1 tried another and it was unbelievable! I loved that wine and now 10 years later I am down to my last couple of bottles and wished I had more!

Q - Is there a jewel of note or a favourite wine in your collection?
2005 Chateau Leoville Las Cases, St-Julien and 2005 Chateau Pavie, St-Emilion. I have not tried them yet but bought these upon release. They are both 100 point wines that I am patiently waiting to try.

Q - Any particular duds or disappointments of note?
Tons. I have about 600 bottles in my cellar and in my early years I bought lots of wine that was ready to drink but had no cellar potential or ageability. I was cellaring faster than drinking and the young wines with no ability to age have turned bad.

Q - What causes you to actually pull the trigger on a special bottle from your cellar?
I say any wine, at any time can be drunk. I would prefer that it is ready but wine is made to be drunk and I will open anything in my cellar.

Q - What have you learned about wine from starting your collection?
The changes in wine are fascinating! I never would have guessed wines could evolve as much as they do.

Q - Would perusing your wine cellar offer any insight into you as a person?
That I am extremely disorganized and messy. My wine cellar looks like a storage room with half the bottles in cases on the floor but I do know where everything is! It looks like my desk.

Q - Any general comments about building a collection?
Decide on the region or varietals you like. Look for bargains such as same area as highly scored wines but relatively unknown. Follow the wine critics and reviewers to find the hidden gems. You will be so happy the day you bought a wine at $40 dollars and then find the later vintages selling for $100 or more. It's like finding hidden treasure!

Q - What advice would you share to anyone wanting to start a collection of their own?
Buy wines for their cellaring capabilities only. Buy wines that will last 10 years or more. Anything else just drink or mark clearly to be drunk in 2 to 3 years.

 - Liam Carrier ©copyright 2012 IconWines.ca

Getting started with blogging

Hello Wine Drinkers, Cork Dorks and Enthusiasts,

We are IconWines.ca. We are a small Vancouver-based company evaluating the world’s icon wines for our investment portfolio. Along the way we will be blogging about the trials and tribulations of the wine trade and establishing a secondary market for the investments we make.

At heart we are wine lovers who are eager to use our experience from other fields to create a website that is both fun and informative.

We will also be offering weekly wines recommendations, wine reviews/tasting notes and articles on traveling to the great wine regions of the world.

A special focus of the site will be devoted to the amazing wine regions right in our backyard: The Okanagan Valley, The Similkameen Valley, The Gulf Islands and The Fraser Valley.

Regards,

LC & HC