If you can see through a red wine, it’s generally ready to drink.
The best way to get an idea of a wine’s color is to get a white background & hold the glass on an angle in front of it.
Pinot Noir is usually less tannic than Cabernet & matures more quickly, generally in two to five years.
Pinot Noir is temperamental. high maintenance, expensive, & difficult to grow and make into wine.
Walking into your loacal LCBO, seeing his nice display of wines called “Cellared In Canada” you would think that you are buying Canadian wine. You have just been fooled. Cellared In Canada wines can (and often are) made from 70% foreign grapes.
Want to buy real Canadian wines? At the LCBO the only way to do this is to look for VQA on the label.
If you have a Facebook account you really should jion the “Boycott Cellared In Canada wines” group. Here is a link to this group:
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/group.php?gid=119899540133
One interesting message posted in the facebook roup was from Richard Karlo who explained the wine content act.
Here is a copy of his post:
To bring a little clarity into how we got to the current situation here is a little history on the wine content act.
Until 1972 all wine produced in Ontario was 100% locally grown. The wine content act was changed to increase blending in response to majority of grapes being pulled out (lambrusca) and replanted with fine wine grapes.
This was a long time ago when there was a shortage of the better varieties. This shortage no longer exists.
In 1972 wineries were allowed to blend up to 25% foreign content, into their wines.
In 1980, the wine content regulations were changed to allow wineries to blend up to 30% imported product in any one bottle of wine. This was done to supplement a perceived shortage of premium grapes.
In 1989, the North American Free Trade Agreement came into effect, and the wine content act was changed to allow wineries to blend up to 70% imported product.
Why was this done? Under the grape adjustment program, grape growers pulled out 8,200 acres of grapes so they could replace them with higher quality vinifera. The wineries, at that time, insisted there were not enough domestic grapes planted to fulfill market requirements.
This Act was supposed to end Dec. 31/2000
After a number of changes throughout the years, in January 2001, the wine content act was changed to allow a minimum of 30% Ontario-grown product and a maximum of 70% imported product in the “Cellared in”category.
There is no crop shortage to justify allowing so much foreign content in our wine. The industry growers are facing crop surpluses because the government supports sales and marketing of blended wine through the LCBO.
This situation has nothing to do with the problems at 20 Bees. That is a convenient scape goat for those who want to deflect attention from the real issues.
Gary