Giving Canadian Red Wines a Chance

My first experience with wine was when I lived in Australia. I was the right age, in the right company, and I had worked at a few restaurants. Right off the bat, I was introduced to amazing Aussie reds, predominantly shiraz and cabernet sauvignon from Margaret River, WA. I loved them! I did branch out a bit and try other reds, but I always gravitated back to my good old friends. I moved to Canada a few years ago, and have sampled a fair few red wines from British Columbia, Ontario and Nova Scotia, but if I had to pick a Canadian wine to drink, it would have been a white, and if I had to pick a red wine, it would have generally been from anywhere else but Canada.


But all of the above was if I had  to pick. In all other cases, I will drink whatever is offered, with no complaints. This past week, I had a 2007 Niagara Cabernet Franc put in front of me, and really enjoyed it! 


I started taking a wine and food pairing class at a local community college on Monday and learned that even though I've had a lot of experience drinking  wine, I've had so little experience tasting  wine. I now realise that I only really knew one end of the red wine spectrum and have unfairly judged those wines with 'less oomph'. Perhaps that's why I really enjoyed the Pillitteri Estate wine -- because it was the first wine I drank since my first class in this new course I'm taking, and I was able to objectively taste it and pick out its subtleties. 


With this in mind, I'm going to branch out more. I'm going to try to savour lighter red wines without regional (or other) prejudice. I'm going to not automatically dislike something just because it doesn't taste like what I'm used to. There's a whole world of wine out there for me to enjoy - I'm going to have fun exploring!