Wine Review – 2012 Domaine Queylus La Grande Réserve

Domaine Queylus’ La Grande Réserve is an Old-World Merlot-Cabernet Franc blend showcasing the Niagara Peninsula’s immense potential for producing top quality wines…

Bottle Presentation

A clean, easy-to-read label with a classy splash of blue.

Appearance

Medium garnet.

Nose

A clean, pronounced intensity nose, with red cherry, black cherry, cassis, violet, raspberry, green pepper (a classic Cabernet Franc aroma), bay leaf, ash, cinnamon, nutmeg, iron, and charred wood notes. Despite this wine’s age, we’d still consider it youthful because of the notes it is giving us.

Palate

A dry, medium-bodied red blend with high acidity, medium(+) tannins, and medium alcohol. Pronounced flavour intensity with notes of sour red cherry, sour raspberry, cranberry, cedar, bay leaf, tomato leaf, earth, minerals, violet, and chocolate.

Finish

A medium(+) finish, with enduring leaf and earth flavours.

Overall Impressions

This 2012 Domaine Quelus La Grande Réserve Merlot-Cabernet Franc blend offers an Old-World style from a New World producer. It offered plenty of complexity and intensity, with decent length and balance. On the latter note, we detected some alcohol in the nose, suggesting the balance could be improved.

We poured our La Grande Réserve on Friday Night Pizza Night. This powerful red offered plenty of earthy notes with a savoury sausage pizza. It served up more of the same with a prosciutto, balsamic vinegar and apple pizza, though a few more green notes emerged. We could see this wine pairing better with grilled meat and savoury dishes such as Beef Bourguignon.

Overall, we’d consider this a very good wine. We suggest drinking it now, as opposed to cellaring it for any length of time, so you can still enjoy the fruity notes.

Ratings

Overall Rating: 90/10

E-Wine rating: 2/5. We’d purchase a bottle to enjoy now.

Value: 2.5/5. At a smidge under $50 per bottle, we’d consider this a decent value given the other offerings at this price point.