Millenium Tasting
By John Schreiner, Kelowna Daily Courier
October 28, 2005

October 22, 2005

By John Schreiner

Judging by the high prices of its wines, Bordeaux must produce some of the world's best wines.

Then comes the reality check. Every so often, someone organizes a tasting that matches Bordeaux against upstarts from the New World. The upstarts have this tiresome habit of coming out on top.

The most recent example was a mid-October tasting organized by the Vendange Institute of Ottawa, a wine school accredited to teach the British courses that can lead to getting the elusive Master of Wine designation.

The Ottawa school collected six Ontario reds, six from British Columbia and six from France. The winner: CedarCreek 2002 Meritage. And five of the six B.C. reds were in the top ten, compared with three reds from Bordeaux and two from Ontario (see table). It is a pretty convincing win, with one minor caveat that I will come to later.

There is a long tradition of tastings where New World wines challenge the presumed kings of hill, starting perhaps with the 1976 Paris tasting organized by Stephen Spurrier, then a young British wine merchant in the French capital.

The sensational outcome rocked the wine world. The winning red was a 1973 Stag's Leap Wine Cellars Napa Cabernet Sauvignon. That wine nosed out, in this order, Château Mouton 1970, Château Haut-Brion 1970 and Château Montrose 1970. The fourth place wine was a 1971 Ridge Cabernet Sauvignon, also from California, edging out Château Léoville-Las-Cases 1971.

The tasting was restaged in 1986. This time the winners were a Clos du Val 1972 Cabernet from California (which had been eighth 10 years earlier) and the Ridge. They narrowly bested, in this order, Montrose, Léoville-Las-Cases and Mouton.

With those two tastings, the California wine industry signalled that it had arrived at the front rank of wine quality.

Chilean wineries have played a similar game. Early last year, Viña Errázuriz convened an important tasting in Berlin with a panel of 36 tasters drawn from European wine journalists and wine buyers. The tasters were presented with two vintages each of eight top wines from France, Italy and Chile's Errázuriz winery.

You might guess what happened. The first and second place wines were two Cabernet-based reds from the Chilean winery: Viñedo Chadwick 2000 and Seña 2001. They outscored two of Bordeaux's best: Château Lafite and Château Margaux. None of these wines is cheap but the French wines, with their pedigree and worldwide prestige, fetch about $275 a bottle compared to $80 a bottle for unheralded Viñedo Chadwick, a relatively new label from Chile.

The Ottawa tasting blended the scores from a panel of 36 "expert" tasters and 26 so-called "public" tasters. One unintended hilarious result of this was that the numbers were added up, and divided, resulting in scores to two decimal points, like figure skating.

Impressively, CedarCreek's Meritage was the top-scoring wine both with the experts (88.94) and with the public (89.91). That is a decisive win, especially for a winery whose recent reputation has been made with its sublime Pinot Noirs. Obviously, CedarCreek also is growing some superb Merlot and Cabernet in its vineyards.

Here is what is significant for consumers: the Canadian wines are better value. The CedarCreek wine sells for $40. The second-place wine, a Merlot from Colio in Ontario, is $25. The third place wine, Château Lascombes from Bordeaux, with a pedigree as long as your arm, is about $70.

Here's my caveat: there is always an apples-and-oranges element to tastings when New World wines face off against the Old World. The Stag's Leap Cabernet that whipped some of Bordeaux's best wines was made with grapes from three-year-old wines. Young vines typically yield wines that are more expressive but not as long-lived as wines made from mature vines. As a rule of thumb, the top Bordeaux reds are made with grapes from vines at least 10 years old.

French wines suffer in competitions because they often are not as showy as wines of the New World. One reason is climate. Most years, it is easier to grow richly ripe grapes in Chile or in California or in the Okanagan than in Bordeaux. Secondly, the Bordeaux tradition has been to make wines capable of aging 10 to 30 years, if not longer. Young Bordeaux reds often are not as juicy tasting as young New World reds, although the Bordelais certainly make juicier reds today than they did 30 years ago.

Yet even if these tastings do not match like to like, the results still are valid. And what they prove to me is the Canadian wines, and especially those from British Columbia, can hold their own against some of Bordeaux's best.

Vendange Institute tasting results

Wine                                         Origin    Price  Score
CedarCreek Meritage 2002                     BC        $40    89.32
Colio CEV Merlot 2000                        ON        $25    87.88
Burrowing Owl Meritage 2002                  BC        $35    87.39
Sumac Ridge Pinnacle 2001                    BC        $50    87.30
Château Lascombes 2000                       Bordeaux  $69    86.70
Château Pontet-Canet 2001                    Bordeaux  $74    86.37
Stoney Ridge Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve 1998 ON        $25    86.31
Château Rauzan-Gassies 2000                  Bordeaux  $55    85.72
Osoyoos Larose Le Grand Vin 2002             BC        $35    85.69
Mission Hill Oculus 2002                     BC        $38    84.83
Château Pichon-Longueville 2001              Bordeaux $109    84.70
Lakeview Cellars Cabernet Merlot 1998        ON        $25    84.70
Fielding Cabernet Merlot Reserve 2002        ON        $35    84.23
Château Brane-Cantenac 2001                  Bordeaux  $95    83.31
Château La  Tour-du-Pin-Figeac 2001          Bordeaux  $60    83.16
Thirty Bench Blend 1998                      ON        $35    83.13
Fairview Cellars Bear's Meritage 2000        BC        $25    82.81
Cave Spring Cabernet Merlot 2002             ON        $30    82.23