An Insanely Good White and an Insanely Good Rosé are on Sale Until Saturday at the BCL

I shop at the BCL.

People are often surprised by this—I think they assume a wine writer just swims in oceans of samples and never deigns to peruse the aisles at the local government store. And while I do get plenty of samples, I also need to supplement. Frequently—especially in the sparkling category. And I also like going to the BCL: I like seeing what’s new, what’s selling, what’s languishing.

So it was on one such trip that I came across the deal of the summer: two bottles that I’ve had before that are excellent deals normally and are smoking deals until July 26.  And please accept my apologies for the horrendous photos—it always seems weird taking snaps at a government facility so I’m fast and terrible. But these wines are the furthest thing from terrible.

CedarCreek Pinot Gris 2024 $23

I don’t often gravitate towards Pinot Gris. Its approachable fruit-forward style is almost always fine, rarely bad and just as rarely truly special. I understand why such a description would actually be compelling to most wine consumers: it’s consistent and well-priced and the flavour profile is broadly enticing, what’s not to like? But when you’re drinking (sorry, sampling) a tonne of wine sometime you want things that are out of ordinary.

This wine is out of the ordinary. For starters, like all the “Crafted in B.C.” wines, the grapes were grown elsewhere (in this case Oregon’s Willamette Valley). And something magical happened when these grapes landed in the hands of CedarCreek’s winemakers. They took the ample fruit that Oregon grapes provide and somehow coaxed more acidity out of them than one would expect (acidity being an Okanagan calling card) and the result is a supremely balanced wine—the fruit is there (mid-ripe nectarine, maybe even some apricot) but it’s held in careful check by a great structure of acidity keeping it from flabbing out all over hell and creation. So it’s easy to sip (very easy to sip), but can stand up to food as well and is just simply delicious. IMHO CedarCreek should have elevated this to their Platinum tier of wines, where is would be $40 and still very much worth it. At $25? Buy a 6 pack. At $23, a case.

Field & Flight Rosé 2024 $18

There’s no good North American rosé at the BCL for under $20. And the ones that are close are generally created using a dog’s breakfast of leftover red grapes that can be bought cheap. That’s how you can make a rosé for under $20 given all the $$$ factors in play here. But here’s a wine that blows those preconceptions out of the water. It’s from Quails’ Gate and while it’s made from imported grapes, I’m not sure it’s technically a “Crafted in B.C.” wine, because the owner’s of Quails’ Gate, the Stewart Family, have long had wine interests in California (Plume and Lake Sonoma are two of their ventures down South). But lets get back to those grapes: a scan of label simply shows that they are from “California” and while that’s a broad category, I don’t really expect much more in a sub-$20 wine. But after tasting it and being smitten with it’s easygoing, yet serious charm (crisp, rather than ripe strawberry, some citrus) and lovely pale pink hue I decided to do some digging. The grapes are from the Lodi east of the Bay Area—not exactly Napa, but historic and solid. And it’s all Pinot Noir, aka: the most expensive grape there is to grow and buy. I have no idea why it doesn’t say this on the label—perhaps they want to have flexibility in the coming years depending on the market conditions but for right now you can buy actually buy a 100 per cent Pinot Noir rosé from Lodi for $18. Madness (in the very best sense of the word). Hoard.