Each month the wine club continues to meet via Zoom to discuss our favourite wines and accompanying hors d’oeuvres. Each member selects a new wine each month. We would like to share our comments on a few of our selections with you from our meeting in August.
Santa Carolina Gran Reserva Chardonnay 2017
The wine that was chosen by Tim Sulisz for the August 6th Probus Wine Tasting Club meeting was a Santa Carolina Gran Reserva Chardonnay 2017. This is a white wine from the Santiago region of Chile that is called the Valle de Itata. A bottle of this Chardonnay costs $18.95 and is rated as 91 or 92 out of 100. It is a full bodied dry wine with an alcohol content of 14%, and nicely complemented the hors d’oeuvres that Tim had selected of cheese on a St. Mary’s cracker with a orange and rhubarb chutney topping. It is described as fragrant with ripe tropical fruit, soft citrus and toasty
aromas on the nose. It is dry, medium-plus-bodied with ripe pear, apple, dried pineapple and toasted nut flavours on the palate.
The LCBO’s description of this wine is that Santa Carolina’s team has turned to the granitic soils of Itata for its Chardonnay, and this is the first of them. It is a broad, ripe-flavored white with a powerful base of tannins that livens up this exuberant white for grilled fish or grilled chicken dishes. Other food pairings for Chardonnay are crab cakes, roast pork, prawn bisque, cheese fondue, stuffed chicken breast, or roast turkey. LCBO says that this wine is tremendous value for money. Tim recommends this Chardonnay as a flavorful accompaniment to a special dinner.
Spinelli Unoaked Chardonnay from the Abbruzo region of Italy:
The wine chosen by Linda Johnson for our August meeting was Unoaked Spinelli Chardonnay. This is an inexpensive and cheerful light wine that is very price worthy – $8.45 a bottle, 12% alcohol. It has won several awards in Italy, including 2020 Ecofriendly award. The grapes are from the hilly region of Abbruzo on the coast of the Adriatic Sea to the cool, rocky terrain of the Apennine Mountains. This wine is a mouth-watering sipper or it can be enjoyed with grilled seafood or chicken.
Probus Club of Kingsway-Islington 