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Wine Recommendation
Le Vieux Pin
2005 Vaïla Rosé, Ecovitis Vineyard(Okanagan Valley)
Le Vieux Pin is a new Okanagan producer, opening its tasting room in the spring in a winery on Black Sage Road, just south of Oliver. It has just begun releasing its wines, although this rosé was presold last summer and now can be found only on top restaurant wine lists (such as Rob Feeney’s Lumiére in Vancouver).
This wine, named after the vineyard manager’s daughter who was born in 2005, came about almost by chance. LVP’s objective is to make big, concentrated red wines. Consequently, winemaker Daniel Bontorin bled about 15% of the free-run juice from freshly crushed Pinot Noir, fermenting it with a special Italian rosé yeast.
Tastings of the barrel sample of the Pinot Noir – called Belle and not yet released – show the outcome was, as desired, a muscular Pinot Noir. But a very attractive rosé also resulted. The wine has a deep, vibrant pink hue, with rich floral and strawberry aromas. In the mouth, the wine delivers an explosion of sweet strawberries and then proceeds to notes of minerality that give the wine structure and depth. The finish is dry. This is a serious rosé, a food friendly competitor to any good Tavel rosé. 88 points.
Reviewed February 12, 2007 by John Schreiner.
Other reviewed wines from Le Vieux Pin
The Wine
Winery: Le Vieux Pin |
The Reviewer
John Schreiner
John Schreiner has been covering the wines of British Columbia for the past 30 years and has written 10 books on the wines of Canada and BC. He has judged at major competitions and is currently a panel member for the Lieutenant Governor’s Awards of Excellence in Wine. Both as a judge and as a wine critic, he approaches each wine not to find fault, but to find excellence. That he now finds the latter more often than the former testifies to the dramatic improvement shown by BC winemaking in the past decade. |