Wine Recommendation
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Wine Recommendation

Arrowleaf Cellars 2004 Zweigelt  (Okanagan Valley)

Arrowleaf Cellars

2004 Zweigelt
(Okanagan Valley)



Only a handful of Okanagan wineries grow Zweigelt, a major red variety in Austria (where it was developed in 1922) and almost nowhere else. One of the knocks against it is that consumers can’t pronounce the name; one of Arrowleaf’s competitors makes do with Z on the label while another came up with Zeta.

Arrowleaf stands boldly behind the name, and so it should. This is a big, dark wine, with an array of spicy flavours of brambleberries and cherries set against good, new oak. There is a lot going on in the finish of this medium-bodied red, including even notes of chocolate. Still youthful, this vintage will not be released until the fall. It has the structure to age well for several more years. 88 points.

Reviewed July 5, 2006 by John Schreiner.

The Wine

Winery: Arrowleaf Cellars
Vintage: 2004
Wine: Zweigelt
Appellation: Okanagan Valley
Grape: Zweigelt
Price: 750ml $16.90

Review Date: 7/5/2006

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.