Wine Recommendation
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Wine Recommendation

Wine:Quails' Gate Estate Winery 2005 Limited Release Pinot Noir  (Okanagan Valley)

Quails' Gate Estate Winery

2005 Limited Release Pinot Noir
(Okanagan Valley)




With 40 acres and seven clones of Pinot Noir, Quails’ Gate is the single largest producer of this variety in the Okanagan. Winemaker Grant Stanley, a Vancouver native who trained in New Zealand and worked there for a Pinot Noir specialist, has said that he spends “80 percent” of his time thinking about Pinot Noir.

Limited Release is the middle tier among Quails’ Gates wines, usually involving significant volumes of wine distributed widely and at accessible prices. Stanley, now having done three vintages at Quails’ Gate, has refined the Pinot Noirs in general and raised the quality of the Limited Release range.

This is a wine that begins to show its terroir, reflecting the complex volcanic soils in the vineyard and Stanley’s bold use of wild yeast during fermentation. The wine has a fine dark colour. The aromas include hints of cherry but also the alluring forest floor aromas that Pinot lovers sometimes dub “barnyard.” The flavours deliver earthy cherry notes and the texture is full and robust, like a full-bodied, artisanal Burgundy. 88 points.

Reviewed May 17, 2007 by John Schreiner.

The Wine

Winery: Quails' Gate Estate Winery
Vintage: 2005
Wine: Limited Release Pinot Noir
Appellation: Okanagan Valley
Grape: Pinot Noir
Price: 750ml $25.00

Review Date: 5/17/2007

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.