Wine Tasting at Home

Arrowleaf Bacchus
While we generally drink much more red wine than white we have had a few whites lately that we thought were worth writing about. The first was a 2006 Arrowleaf Bacchus. When we first moved to the Okanagan Arrowleaf was one of the first wineries that we visited and we became quite regular visitors. The winery had just opened and we did like the Bacchus back then too, as well as the Pinot Noir and the Zweigelt but it has been several years since we have tasted any Arrowleaf at all. The winery is located north of Kelowna in Winfield, BC and is named after the bright yellow blooms of the Arrowleaf Balsamroot plant that blossom in spring and mark the start of each growing season. The Bacchus is a blend of Riesling, Sylvaner and Mueller-Thurgau and is naturally low in alcohol content making it light and refreshing. It is crisp with a bit of sweetness and would be a great summer wine all by itself. Since it is clearly not summer it also went well with halibut. And yes we still do like it.

Lang Pinot Gris
The second bottle was a 2007 Lang Vineyards Pinot Gris which has won both bronze and silver International awards. This was one of the wines purchased on our October trip in which we collected all of the Lang Pinots that we could get our hands on (previous Lang blog). It had a citrus and apple flavor and was slightly dry which Jeff prefers but Tara does not. The label suggested pairing with Chicken or sharp cheeses so we did both (Jeff the Chicken and Tara the cheese) and both went very well.

Ruby Tuesday
We also tried a 2008 Ruby Tuesday Gewurztraminer which we likely opened a bit too soon as it did not have the flavors that we expected and tasted a bit ‘new’. We will save the other bottle for a year or two. Both the Arrowleaf Bacchus and the Lang Pinot Gris were good and we would buy them both again but at only $14.99 the Bacchus was the best value and we preferred it a bit anyway.