We were in Calgary and Banff two weeks ago for a wedding. We wanted some vino for a couple of family dinners, so off we went to Willow Park wines. I'm a huge fan of Shiraz and Grenache, particularly new world styles and we love chilled sparkling shiraz. The conversation went like this:
me, to WP worker #1: "I'm interested in buying some fine Aussie Shiraz"
WP worker #2 quite loudly: "That's an Oxymoron".
"mutter..."
#1: "Most of our wines are covered up for our Spanish wine tasting but here's what we have"
"I can't really see much here and the price tags have been moved. What do you recommend?"
#1: "How about these Peter Lehmann?"
"The one aussie wine that we can't really drink is Lehmann because we get headaches"
WP worker #3: "You should stay away from Aussie wines anyways, they are really bad with sulfites"
"Well, I've had a fair bit of Aussie wines and it's just the lehmann regular reds, and not the Black queen sparking shiraz, that's the problem. I'd still like to get a nice red".
#1: "How about this Penfold's St Henri's 2001"
"ok".
Found out after the fact that it was a parker 89 rating but we never did open it up. Very disappointing selection of wines.
"I see you've got a big spanish thing going on, maybe a nice spanish wine?"
#1 "I'll pass you on to xyz (WP #4)".
"Hi WP #4, I'm looking for a nice spanish wine and a starter"
discussion ensues,
#4: "We love this Les Terrasses 2004".
I bought a bottle, it was quite nice though not as nice as they raved, 92 parker rating
"Now I'd like to have some bubbly, how about a good Australian Sparkling Shiraz"?
#4: "there's no such thing as a good aussie sparkling shiraz".
"What's with you guys and slagging Australia?"
conversation roughly ends there...
How about that, 3 different slags of Australian wines, a terrible selection, and one decent Spanish recommendation.
I'd say way too much attitude from them. They aren't nearly as good as they think they are. Must be all that new money in cowtown.
Ha. Too funny, I would actually agree that fine and Shiraz don't go together, but that's just my taste (which is poor). I know heaps of people whose opinion would differ drastically. They obviously don't know jack. You should try some nice West Australia wines. I like them more than the Eastern ones (but hey, I'm a little biased). Maybe you should make Margaret River your next Aussie destination. You can drop by and see us while you are at it! We might even come down with you as its one of our favorite places to visit.