Wine Recommendation
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Wine Recommendation

Burrowing Owl Vineyards 2005 Merlot  (Okanagan Valley)

Burrowing Owl Vineyards

2005 Merlot
(Okanagan Valley)



Burrowing Owl’s Merlot is such an icon among Okanagan wines that, even though the winery produces about 7,000 cases of it, most of the wine shops have their customers on allocations of one or two bottles. Since the winery’s first Merlot in 1997, Burrowing Owl has been remarkably consistent, releasing big, chewy Merlots almost regardless of the vintage.

This 2005 wine, from arguably the Okanagan’s Dark in colour, it has aromas of blackberries, cherries, spice and vanilla. On the palate, there are tastes of black currants, blackberries, plums, with a touch of chocolate. The tannins are round, ripe and soft, giving the wine the familiar richness that helps account for its popularity. 88 points

Reviewed August 1, 2007 by John Schreiner.

The Wine

Winery: Burrowing Owl Vineyards
Vintage: 2005
Wine: Merlot
Appellation: Okanagan Valley
Grape: Merlot
Price: 750ml $26.90

Review Date: 8/1/2007

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.