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The Vancouver Sun - Anthony Gismondi: B.C. Wine Pick - Moon Curser Arneis 2022 - 91 points

Anthony Gismondi selects BC Wine Pick - Moon Curser Arneis 2022 91 points!

"BC Wine of the Week

Moon Curser Arneis 2022, Okanagan Valley, British Columbia, Canada

91/100

Arneis is a rare white grape from Italy’s Piedmont region that Moon Curser has successfully grown on the south Okanagan Valley Osoyoos East Bench in near complete obscurity. Arneis translates to little rascal, or troublemaker, in the Piemontese dialect, which refers to its problematic propensity to grow. Still, it hasn’t stopped Moon Curser from releasing some terrific bottles led by the latest 2022 label. The nose is incredible, mineral and saline all in one, while the palate is awash with restrained yellow fruit and kiwi with just enough acidity to finish with vibrancy. My favourite match is roast chicken stuffed with mushrooms, but it is also a magical sushi wine."

Read full article where Gismondi selects BC Wine Pick Moon Curser Arneis

 

Gismondi on Wine - 2023 Releases, 2 wines rated 90+ Points and more

To view Anthony Gismondi's full review, click on the wine.

Moon Curser Arneis 2022 - 91 Points

Moon Curser Dolcetto 2022 - 90 Points

Moon Curser Viognier 2022 - 89 Points

Moon Curser Malbec 2021 - 89 Points

Moon Curser Tempranillo 2021 - 88 Points

Moon Curser Heist Rose 2022 - 88 Points

The Vancouver Sun - Anthony Gismondi: B.C. wine for the week of Mar 29 - Moon Curser Roussanne Marsanne 2021 - 89 points

Moon Curser Roussanne Marsanne 2021, Osoyoos, Okanagan Valley, British Columbia, Canada 

89 points

"this 82/18 mix of Roussanne/Marsanne sourced from the home vineyard on the Osoyoos East Bench is another winner."

Read Anthony Gismondi's BC Wine for the Week review here.

The Vancouver Sun - Anthony Gismondi: B.C. wine for the week of Oct. 27 - Moon Curser Arneis 2021 - 89 points

Moon Curser Arneis 2021, Osoyoos, Okanagan Valley, British Columbia, Canada 

89 points

"Arneis is a somewhat rare white variety from Italy’s Piedmont region. Moon Curser has released several quality versions of its Osoyoos East Bench Arneis, and 2021 is another."

Read Anthony Gismondi's BC Wine for the Week review here.

Gismondi on Wine - Moon Curser Malbec 2020 - 91 points

"Moon Curser Malbec 2020 - 91 Points - 16 3/4 / 20

Osoyoos, Okanagan Valley, British Columbia, Canada. A thin-skinned grape, malbec adores heat within reason. Thus, it is well suited to the south Okanagan and its Osoyoos East Bench home. At Moon Curser, 2020 is described as an "unforgettable season" that "allowed for fantastic flavour development and balanced accumulation of sugars and acidity." Post its stainless steel ferment, the wine is aged in 225L barriques (25% new). It is a juicy mix of spice and blueberries streaked with violets, earth, and a touch of milk chocolate. Attractive, warm and spicy, this will have many fans. Barbecue ribs come swiftly to mind. The tannins are dense and long but should only be a mid-term interference. Very well done.

TASTED BY: ANTHONY GISMONDI"

View Moon Curser Malbec 91 points by Gismondi

Gismondi on Wine - 2022 Releases, 6 wines rated 90+ Points and more

To view Anthony Gismondi's full review, click on the wine.

Moon Curser Contraband Syrah 2020 - 91 Points

Moon Curser Touriga Nacional 2020 - 91 Points

Moon Curser Malbec 2020 - 91 Points

Moon Curser Dead of Night 2020 - 90 Points

Moon Curser Syrah 2020 - 90 Points

Moon Curser Petit Verdot 2020 - 90 Points

Moon Curser Roussanne Marsanne 2021 - 89 Points

Moon Curser Arneis 2021 - 89 Points

Moon Curser Viognier 2021 - 89 Points

Moon Curser Tempranillo 2020 - 88 Points

Moon Curser Heist Rose 2021 - 88 Points

The Vancouver Sun - Anthony Gismondi: Knowing these B.C. wine regulations makes shopping for local wine easy

"Weekend Wine Picks

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Moon Curser Border Vines 2018, Osoyoos, Okanagan Valley, British Columbia, Canada

$25.99 I 88/100

Border vines is a Cabernet forward blend of 69/15/10/3/3/ Cabernet Sauvignon, Malbec, Petit Verdot, Carménère, Cabernet Franc. At a hefty 14.8 per cent alcohol, you feel the Cabernet Sauvignon tannins and the power of the Petit Verdot. It is a bit of a bruiser at this point and will need time to settle down in the bottle. Rich and potent black fruits reminiscent of Bing cherries, black currants, and blueberries with dark chocolate, spice, and savoury dried herbs. Youthful and rambunctious but has fine potential. I suggest five years in the bottle or serve with a slab of rare beef."

To view article click here

The Vancouver Sun - Anthony Gismondi: Looking back at notable wine world events in 2019

"Today we look back on 2019, a year in which American wine critic Robert Parker officially retired from the wine business.

Parker was a tireless taster, and his newsletter The Wine Advocate was the gold standard of wine criticism. You might say he was the perfect guy at the ideal time to be writing about quality wines and their producers.

There are other voices today, but none compare to Parker and his global impact on the wine, and it is unlikely he will be replaced in the age of social media where it seems everybody is an expert.

Closer to home, two British Columbia wineries shone at the National Wine Awards of Canada in 2019. Mission Hill Family Estate won the coveted Canadian Winery of the Year award on the strength of 18 medals, eight of which belong to its Terroir Collection introduced to highlight single vineyard sites in the Okanagan Valley. [Osoyoos]-based Moon Curser Vineyards earned the Best Performing Small Winery (under 10,000 cases) grabbing one platinum and six gold medals.

..."

To read full article click here

The Vancouver Sun - Salut: Is diversity the long game in British Columbian wine?

"Demanding diversity in our wines and obtaining it are often two very different stories, especially in the New World.

As the years unfold, British Columbia wineries are finally moving in that direction although it’s not necessarily just about different grapes going into the ground. We see some unique offerings — especially among the white wines with Grüner Veltliner, Roussanne and Marsanne and a few reds like Dolcetto, Grenache, Touriga Nacional and Sangiovese — but the most significant change in diversity is coming from a different direction.

Achieving diversity is more about the blends, new grape clones, and mixing different sites to improve the ultimate complexity of the wine. It’s especially true as we reassess some early vineyard plantings, some of which never should have gone into the ground where they did.

Even when the site was ideal, there were problems with getting virus-free plant material, or the correct rootstock or clone. Post planting the viticulture and trellising are equally as crucial, because each can affect the quality and diversity of the wines.

Research and education have changed so much about what we know nowadays. Planting any grape in B.C. is about being on a suitable site for each variety. That could mean tracking the temperature, and studying a vineyard’s proximity to a lake or mountainside. It could be about altitude, daylight hours, irrigation and more. Alas, knowing more hasn’t necessarily given us all the answers and, in many cases, it has only generated more questions.

Growing wine on great sites is what many would say is the long game. The ultimate result will be a diversity of grapes and wines, but for now we are barely into the first period.

In this fall edition of Salut, we provide an update on where our red wines are heading in the diversity game. Sorting out the significant grapes is underway, and it is already much improved, but there are so many more to be assessed in the coming decades.

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Diverse British Columbia reds for fall

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Moon Curser Touriga Nacional 2017, Osoyoos, Okanagan Valley, $39.99

One of the celebrated platinum medal winners at the 2019 WineAlign National Wine Awards of Canada, and as diverse as it gets in B.C.

..."

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The Vancouver Sun - Moon Curser's success lies in avant-garde varieties

 

"Ever since attending a series of wine classes in Calgary less than two decades ago it’s been a bit of a storybook journey for the Tolley family, owners of Moon Curser Vineyards in the south Okanagan.

Today the hardworking, modest couple (Chris Tolley is a farmer/winemaker; Beata Tolley is the winery manager) find themselves Best Performing Small Winery in Canada awarded at the 2019 WineAlign National Wine Awards of Canada for a winery producing 10,000 cases or less.

After those initial wine classes, the Tolleys quickly concluded that owning a winery was something they wanted to explore so they gave up their jobs in Calgary and headed for Lincoln University in New Zealand where they both took the one-year diplomas in viticulture and oenology.

In those early days, they did a fair amount of research by visiting wineries in New Zealand and quickly noticed a sameness in tasting room experiences. Visits to Australia proved more fruitful because many were exploring lesser-known varieties better suited to the warming climate. What they took away from those visits was that it was the odd wines like Viognier that captured their interest and became talking points after they left the winery.

The seed was planted, and when they got back to British Columbia in 2004, they bought an old cherry orchard on the east Osoyoos Bench in the south Okanagan Valley. Quickly they began to explore grape varieties that were decidedly different from the Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay, Sauvignon, Merlot crowd.

Most of what they planted would send the everyday wine drinker running for Jancis Robinson’s famous Guide to Wine Grapes — and it is a strategy that has proven to be uber-successful. The list of non-stream varietal wines changing minds includes Touriga Nacional (Portugal), Carménère (Chile), Tannat (Uruguay), Arneis and Dolcetto (Italy), Tempranillo (Spain) — the list goes on.

Moon Curser began its life as Twisted Tree, a somewhat conservative winery name, that was dropped after a 2011 marketing overhaul. The Moon Curser name embodied the rich history of the South Okanagan, where gold smugglers would regularly cross the nearby U.S. border during the night. As historical as the name is, the winery is hardly tradition-bound. One could argue it may be the most experimental producer in the country.

Certainly planting avant-garde varieties has set the winery apart and in some ways could be instrumental in it moving forward if temperatures continue to rise in the Okanagan.

That said, not everything has worked. Early on, love for Italian varietals led to planting Corvina, a grape widely planted in Valpolicella in the Veneto, northern Italy. It never ripened. On the other hand, Arneis is thriving and is a fabulous addition to B.C.’s growing grape repertoire.

Much of Moon Curser’s recent success stems from old-fashioned, hard work. Now 15 years down the road, the vineyards and the knowledge to look after them seem to have meshed. You can’t teach experience, but you can earn it one year at a time, which is the real story of this small, hillside estate winery and one of the most exciting wine lineups in Canada.

At the end of the competition, the winery walked away with several medals led by a platinum for its remarkable ode to the Douro Valley, the 2017 Touriga Nacional ($40). They followed that up with six gold medals for a 2015 Tannat ($40); 2018 Dolcetto ($25), 2017 Malbec ($31), 2017 Tempranillo ($31), 2017 Petit Verdot ($40) and 2017 Dead of Night ($40), a blend of Syrah and Tannat.

All that is left for you to do is try the wine and eventually visit the winery on the Osoyoos West Bench and experience what the Tolleys did when they first got into the business — something new, intriguing and, most of all, different."

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