Community Tasting Note

• Vino Loco wrote: 89 points

  December 31, 2020 - HNY BC, and a French Visitor (My backyard): Fully blind tasting, 2 hour decant, all 2016 vintages.
  - Burrowing Owl Meritage
  - Chateau La Vielle Cure – aka the French ninja to keep people honest
  - Noble Ridge Reserve Meritage
  - Road 3 Fifth Element.
  
  Burrowing Owl - was closed and clearly too young. No noticeable notes on the nose, and the finish was unmemorable – love Burrowing Owl wines and will look forward to this in another 3 to 5 years. Our French taster described it as being “écoeurante” – which she described as something that is okay as a sip, but not something you’d want a full bottle of. 44 CS, 30 M, 25 CF, 1 Malbec.
  Chateau La Vielle Cure – performed well amongst the BC Meritages. Had a pleasant nose with a bit more bite. Very purple in colour, almost fake looking, but was still a very nice drinking wine. 87 M, 10 CF, 3 CS.
  Noble Ridge – Blasé nose. Nothing memorable on the tasting notes. Was out of its league with the others, but improved over the evening. 59 M, 37 C, 2 CF, 2 Malbec
  Road 13 5th Element – Prominent cherry notes. Big tannins that dissipated over the evening. A solid wine. 44 CS, 41 M, 15 PV.
  
  Unofficial rankings:
  1st place - Road 13 Fifth Element
  2nd place - Cure
  3rd - Burrowing Owl
  4th Noble Ridge

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1 Comment

• Canoehead commented:

  1/1/21, 12:54 PM - Great horizontal tasting. I’m surprised the Noble Ridge presented so poorly but peer comparisons like this can reveal both weaknesses and strengths. The 2016 5th Element is a star - the higher than normal Petit Verdot portion from a ripe season really aids in stitching that blend together. Brilliant idea to include Vielle Cure. An actual value wine from Bordeaux. Thanks.