"For All the Right Rieslings"

36.  2005 Tangled Vines Riesling (Okanagan)

The bottle says, "For all the right Rieslings."   The only problem this time around was that it seems it took us too long to open the bottle.  The fruit and the lemon and lime that the bottle also talked about just wasn't there any more.  The bottle wasn't corked; it had just lost its freshness.  

It's a good thing that I've previously had the wine on a couple of occasions and I know the style that winemaker, Craig McKenzie, is going for - largely stemming from his years in Australia's Clare Valley - because I might not have thought much of the wine if this were my only try.

Tangled Vines is a small BC winery that I really want to see succeed.  I love the fact that they prominently feature pinot blanc as a varietal, but even more-so because I used to bump into the winemaker back in university days (just like the host in the last post) - and I like seeing contemporaries score big.  Craig was in our neighbour and rival fraternity and even though we weren't exactly drinking buddies, we knew who the other one was.  

A couple of years back, some friends and Boo and I went up for the Okanagan Spring Wine Festival and Craig was serving at the big festival tasting.  It didn't click at the moment (because it had been a number of years after all), but I mentioned to the others that I was pretty sure I recognized him at the winery's table.  As chance would have it, we were doing a bit of a tasting tour the next day and we drove right by Tangled Vines and decided to stop in.  Over this same riesling, Craig and I figured out where it was that we knew each other from.  I've tried keeping an eye out for them ever since.

We'll see more Tangled Vines on The List.  I'm just mad at myself for not being able to sing the praises of Craig and his wines this time around.  My bad.