Martin’s Lane & Black Hills Estate Winery

So, it’s been coming on three months since I’ve written anything for my food blog.

There’s a couple of reasons for that.

In the first eight months of living in Vancouver, I think we’ve tapped out on most of the good places to eat; we’ve hit about 20 of them.

Secondarily, I decided to sell my home in Toronto so that I could become a proper Vancouverite and live in a home that’s beyond my means.

In all seriousness – it was a lot of work to get that moving along to make it just right to put it on the market, which it is as of yesterday.

For a little fun – here’s the listing when I bought it – and below, you’ll see some photos of the space today.

Now that the heavy lifting is done (two solid months of it) – I’ve decided to play around with things a little in the writing department.

In the summer, my partner and I went on an epic trip to the Similkameen and Okanagan Valley, and our friends, Craig and June, planned a 20 vineyard tour to share with us. It was pretty incredible for a couple of newbies to the area.

We bought plenty of wine – a small wine fridge, until we figure out our home situation – and had enough experiences to think about wine in our new home province for a little bit.

A lot of folks I know purchase wine but don’t drink it; the opposite has been happening in our home. We’ve been testing out all of the great bottles that we brought home.

Another thing we did, was join wine clubs at two of the vineyards that we really enjoyed; Black Hills Estate Winery and Martin’s Lane.

Black Hills Estate Winery is a simple place – with a nice little spot to have a tapas lunch on the patio – a pool that no one is allowed to swim in – and probably my favourite wines in BC.

Martin’s Lane is a little more upscale, exclusive, and artsy … with its Douglas Coupland sculpture of Van Gogh’s head sitting sideways near the entrance.

But, they were two vineyards at which we truly enjoyed the product and the experience.

Martin’s Lane, similar to it’s sister vineyard, Checkmate, just focusses on two grapes. In the case of ML, it’s Pinot Noir and Riesling. Now, I’m no Miles from “Sideways,” but I’m definitely a Pinot Noir guy. I love a wine that looks light in the glass, but has got structure for days.

BHEW is known for it’s Bordeaux-style blends, specifically the Nota Bene, which was my true introduction to BC wines. In Ontario, we get to try Burrowing Owl, and that’s about it. Don’t get me wrong, Burrowing Owl is good, but there’s a whole world of wine out here in BC.

Since returning home from our trip, we’ve received a couple of shipments of wine, so we’ve been tapping into it, bit by bit.

This past weekend, we had a couple of lovely guests over, so we decided to try two of the wines that have been on my mind; Martin’s Lane 2017 Fritzi’s Vineyard Pinot Noir and Black Hill 2018 Carménère (which I believe is a member exclusive).

It’s quite rare to get Carménère in France anymore due to the blight that took out those vines in the mid-1800s. However, the grape is found in other countries, such as Chile (predominantly), Italy, the US, and, as I found out recently, in BC.

Here are our tasting notes from the evening:

Martin’s Lane 2017 Fritzi’s Vineyard Pinot Noir

Colour – Light in opacity, crimson/garnet colour, cherry rim
Nose – Raspberry, Leather, Cassis, Licorice
Palate – Raspberry, Earthy notes – like mushroom, or dirt, and a bit of lemon
Tannins – Fine and pleasant on the gums

Black Hill 2018 Carménère

Colour – Intense in colour, ruby, with a cherry rim
Nose – Green Pepper, Eucalyptus, and Anise
Palate – Blackberry, Mushrooms, and Sweet Peppers
Tannins – More pronounced. Rather grippy.

We finished the ML Pinot Noir the evening our guests were over, but I continued to drink the Carménère throughout this week, and it continued to develop over the days into a more structured, robust wine, with a fine character … allowing the aging notes to flourish in a non-offensive manner.

The one call out is that the first bottle of the Carménère that we opened was corked – and I’ll address that with the fine folks at BHEW.

I may start grading wines as I open up more of these to taste and write reviews – but for now, I’ll just provide some tasting notes for your enjoyment.

Cheers – Salud – Salute – Živeli – Prost – Na Zdrowie – Skål – Santé