For our winter season wine tasting, we choose to focus on local wines recommended by our team and readers. We picked wines that were $25 or under, perfect for Christmas gifts or to bring to a party.

The contenders:

Mt Lehman Winery – Platinum Reserve Merlot 2011

One of our owners, James Alisch tried this wine from this local Abbotsford winery and knew from the first taste it was a contender for the MIRA Floors team wine tasting. Supporting local business and trying a wine the winery boasts as “probably unlike any other [Merlot] you have tried before” is a win-win. This Merlot spent 14 months aging in a combination of new and used French Oak. It has bright fruit flavours, a burst of acidity with bing cherry flavours with a hint of licorice.

Hester Creek Estate Winery – Character White 2011

We were replacing the commercial carpet in a client’s office and he named the Hester Creek Estate Winery in Oliver as one of his BC favourites. We choose to sample the winery’s Character White, a blend of estate Chardonnay, Pinot Gris, Pint Blanc and Trebbiano grapes. This wine offers an appealing fruity fragrance with bright flavours of citrus and apple and just a hint of spice on the palate. With this wine, the acidity helps balance the sweetness. It would be great paired with seafood, Asian fare, or grilled poultry (Holiday Hint: Bring it out to enjoy with Turkey!).

The winner?

With half of the office staff preferring red and the other more partial to white, the results are always very close. Leading by just a half a point on our rating scale, the Hester Creek Character White was our victor for this round of wine tasting.

Have a great wine you think we should try for our next office tasting? Let us know in the comments.

What do wine and flooring have in common? Nothing really, until now.

Every few months the Mira team does an in-office wine tasting. It’s a bit of fun for the office team and gives us a chance to try staff favourites and wines recommended by customers.

This month’s contenders are:

Sauvignon Blanc – Oyster Bay Marlborough 2012
This New Zealand wine is a crowd pleaser that is well suited for long afternoons on the patio in the coming summer months. The Mira team thought this was a light, refreshing wine with a fruity palate. The lively fruit tones are well-balanced by the wine’s crisp acidity.

Valdepenas Gran Reserva – Anciano Aged 10 Years
This full-bodied Spanish wine was recommended to us by one of our newsletter readers. By law, all Gran Reserva wines must be aged for a minimum of 5 years before they are released. They spend 18 months in an oak cask and 42 more months bottled and cellared. The Mira team members who preferred the red loved its complex fruit flavours that lead into a long, drawn-out finish.

The winner?
Leading by just one vote, the Oyster Bay was declared this rounds winner.

Have a great wine you think we should try for our next office tasting? Let us know in the comments.