Foreign Affair Dream 2012
Foreign Affair is an Ontario VQA winery, based in the Niagara region. They are famous for using the Italian wine making technique “appassimento”, this technique used for one of Italy’s most famous wine – The Amarone. Appassimento style wines tends to blend grapes that have been dried after picking, therefore concentrating the flavour and sugar content, creating a more powerful wine. They make wines in both partially and fully appassimento style.
The Dream 2012 is a blend of Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, and Petit Verdot, aged for 26 months in select French, American, and Hungarian oak barrels and the final blend is made up of 15% appassimento wine.
Decanted for 1 hour before consumption.
Colour: Clear dark purple core.
Nose: Ripe juicy cherries, blackberries, plums. Notes of cigar box, vanilla, leather, liquorice, and a hint of spice.
The vanilla notes is rather dominate on the nose, smells almost dessert-like.
Palate: Off-dry, medium acidity, medium silky tannins. Dried dark fruits, consists of dried cherries, raisins, blackberries. Touch of vanilla and well integrated oak.
Finish: Long finish, touch of tingling pepper on the back end.
Score: 83/100
A great wine at a great price, would buy another or two to see how it develops with time. Off-dry, dark fruit forward with a touch of spice and well integrated oak to balance the flavour. Great length on the finish, would recommend to both beginners and enthusiasts.
Overall really enjoyable wine, on its own or with food, I am afraid this might not have enough tannins to cut through some of the fatty meats, would work well with stews and lamb.
Ready to drink, could be cellared for at least 5+ years.
**Do note I score a bit tighter than the majority.