Western Living Magazine
Before & After: A False Creek Industrial Loft Transforms Into a Warm, Modern Oasis
Pamela Anderson’s Ladysmith Home Is a Whimsical, ‘Funky Grandma’ Dream Come True
Dream Condo Alert: A Warm, Timber-Lined Loft We ‘Woodn’t’ Mind Living In
The Essential Guide to the 2023 BCL Summer Spirit Release
Recipe: Spot Prawn and Cherry Gazpacho
The Low-Alcohol Revolution Comes to the Okanagan
Wellness in Whistler—Your Ultimate Early Summer Retreat
It all starts here in Nanaimo
Local Summer Getaway Guide 2023: 6 Great Ways to Explore B.C., Alberta and Washington
Protected: Visit the Joint Replacement Center of Scottsdale
What to Get for Mother’s Day: Editors’ Picks
This Is Not a Drill: West Elm Just Launched an Outdoor Furniture Collab with Marimekko
Designers of the Year 2023: Meet the All-Star Industrial Design Judges
Deadline Extended! Enter Western Living’s 2023 Designers of the Year Awards
Designers of the Year 2023: These Are Your All-Star Interior Design Judges
Moon Curser continues to be the mad scientist of the Okanagan.
Moon Curser Petit Verdot 2012, $29When you’re a young wine region like the Okanagan, you can go one of two ways: you can follow the lessons of the regions that have gone before you, add in a dash of terroir and try to compete with the big boys, hoping that your $30 Cabernet isn’t overshadowed by California or undercut by Chile. Or you can throw the playbook out altogether and just plant whatever excites you and hope that it does well in our climate. Moon Curser does both. Their Syrah won a gold medal at this year’s Decanter World Wine Awards, but they also do some things that are at first blush, crazy. They grow a brilliant Touriga Nacional (the national grape of Portugal), a Carmenere (the same for Chile), and an Arneis (the white grape of Piedmont). In this group a Petit Verdot seems almost tame. It is, after all, one of the grape varieties of Bordeaux, which makes it vitis vinfera royalty, but it’s never been considered a grape that does particularly well on its own. It can be hard and tannic and even when it’s used in Left Bank Bordeaux it’s rare for the percentage gets higher than 3% of the blend.So it takes some moxie to ignore Bordeaux’s four centuries of experience and decide you’re going to make a Petit Verdot—but isn’t moxie exactly what a new wine region should specialize in? It is and this wine is proof of that. It’s tannic, sure , but modern winemaking techniques ensure it’s less so than some of the flagship cabernets the Okanagan is producing. What it does show is the textbook aromas of violets that the grape specializes in, with some subsidiary graphite notes that keep it the wine serious and on point. More importantly the grape imparts some serious acidity that is often lacking in Okanagan reds. Above all the wine is cool—bring a bottle of this to a dinner party and you can be sure that no one else will have brought a Petit Verdot (unless they buy the Pirramamma from Australia, which is also pretty great).Just make sure you make a toast to the rule breakers.
Are you over 18 years of age?