Notes from a tasting of Le Vieux Pin wines.
This is a very serious new BC winery that has put tremendous amounts of money and effort into their new venture and have produced some excellent wines.
They still have a reality gap between pricing and quality, and I thin that this stems from being a bit too idealistic. You can groom your vines meticulously, you can name each individual grape, give it a little smoking jacket t keep it warm at night and regularly polish it, and the wine you end up with may well be at least a certain amount better because of it, but it isn’t going to be worth what it cost you to make. Cutting the cropping rate, and escalating labour costs mean that you end up with wines that are priced higher than arguably better wines from other areas like California and France. This path leads but one place and the only question is do you change your idealistic and very expensive ways so that you can make good wine at competitive prices, or do you go down while still righteously preaching your ideals. The jury is still out on that.
Needless to say they make quite limited amounts of wine and the availability is rather limited as well. We are really talking about two wineries, Vieux Pin, which makes more or less French styled wines, and La Stella, which makes Italian style. I say ‘style’ because the La Stella overlaps varietals with Vieux Pin and much of the rest of the BC wine industry, making Pinot Gris (Pinot Grigio), merlot and a merlot rose. They are also embarking on an ill advised (IMO) venture into BC Sangiovese. Maybe they’ll pleasantly surprise me, but until then I remain a sceptic, having suffered through many insipid new world Sangios.
Vieux Pin (named after an old tree on the property) makes pinot noir, merlot, sauv blanc, and more recently gewürztraminer, as well as a pinot rose.
I’ll list the Vieux Pin notes first. They give their wines catchy names as well as a varietal designation.
2008 Aurore Sauvignon Blanc – impressive clean wine without the searing acidity of some of the Antipodean efforts with this grape and lots of good varietal character. Probably the best BC SB I have tasted, with La Frenz coming up a close second. But at $35, they are 50% higher for maybe 10% better.
2008 Verite Gewurztraminer – again, a nice wine with a pretty varietal spicy nose, sustained flavours, good length and balance. Would rate in the top 5 BC Gewurz for me (the actual list changes year to year) and at $25 I’d actually buy a few bottles.
2008 Celeste Chardonnay – soft sweetish nose, but a hollow wine, with nothing but acidity in the finish. ???
2006 Perigee Pinot Noir – pale elegant wine with decent varietal nose. But not $45!
2006 Emoi Pinot Noir – similar but more tannic.
2008 Vaila Pinot Noir Rose – lovely nose and lots of stuffing. Probably the best most serious Rose I’ve seen from BC and worth the $25 tag.
2006 Epoque Merlot – sweet cocoa and fruit nose, decent current drinking. $38
2006 Apogee Merlot – with a small amount of added cab franc, this had the superior and more complex nose with lots of fruit, stuffing and good length. $65 too pricy though.
2006 Equinoxe Cab Franc – their small production top of the line model, this showed a lovely nose, more complex again, really good concentration and very good length. A very enjoyable wine, but at $120 this will sell as a curiosity as BCs highest priced wine (unless there is a higher one I haven’t heard of) but it won’t be any competition for other really god merlot based wines.
La Stella wines:
2008 Vivace Pinot Gris - barrel fermented in part, this came off very well indeed, more like a sauv blanc in some ways, reminding me of a young Cloudy Bay with the high acidity, crisp and clean. At $28, also probably the highest priced PG in BC
2008 Chardonnay – pleasant – an ‘OK’ wine that was run of the mill as BC chards go, though certainly better than the Vieux Pin example.
2006 Allegreto Merlot – good colour, pleasant nose but something in the finish I found a tad odd, maybe a hint of bitterness. Pass at $38
2006 Maestoso Merlot – small lots (200 cases) wine that showed good everything, fruit, nose and length, except value at $85
Given that these wines are all such small production, the rarity value will probably result in them selling out, but that doesn’t really make them competitive value with other BC wines, except as noted. With the exception of the Chards, it was all good winemaking though, so definitely one to watch.