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Wine Recommendation
Seven Stones Winery
2005 Chardonnay(Similkameen Valley)
Seven Stones Winery, which opens its tasting room next spring, is named for the huge boulders sprinkled about the Similkameen Valley. The most prominent are associated with First Nations traditions. The one pictured on this label is called Speaking Rock, apparently because it was a meeting place for native orators.
Credit Vivienne Hanson, the winery’s co-owner, for picking up on this theme and talking her husband, George, out of giving the winery the same name as he gave the vineyard (Harmony One). The legends attached to each of the stones will be celebrated on the labels while murals of the label art will decorate the tasting room.
Only 150 cases of this debut Chardonnay will be released. Vivienne admits she did not particularly like Chardonnay. “This wine changed my mind,” she says. Light gold in colour, the wine has aromas of citrus fruits. On the richly-textured palate, flavours of tangerine, lime and pineapple are set on the lightly toasted note from the barrels. With only half the wine put through malolactic fermentation, the wine is vividly fresh on the finish. 89 points.
Reviewed November 24, 2006 by John Schreiner.
Other reviewed wines from Seven Stones Winery
The Wine
Winery: Seven Stones Winery |
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. |