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.
Other reviewed wines from Burrowing Owl Vineyards
The Wine
Winery: Burrowing Owl Vineyards |
The ReviewerJohn 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. |