cassis or not cassis, that is the question

The answer, alas, is no, not.

Marie arrived on Monday evening, and she brought something with her: a bottle of fruit wine, clearly blackcurrant flavoured, that she had salvaged from our work on moving Mum out of her condo and into care in 2018. 

Take a closer look at that bottle:  2004.  This, friends, is not a grape wine chockful of tannins that will let it age.  No, it is not.

Conrad and I visited Elephant Island with Mum and Roy and Greer way back in 2005 when we did some wine tasting in the Okanagan as birthday treat for me.  Mum was partial to sweeter wines, and she - good Brit that she was - loved blackcurrant.  And so she must have bought it and held it.  I don't know why she didn't open it a long time ago, and now that she's been gone 6 years, we'll never find out.

Monday night, then, between dinner and dessert, I opened it.  I poured us three small servings, noting the tar-like colour.  It did not smell bad, to be honest, but oh, I had my doubts.  I brought the servings and bottle out for all of us, and we toasted Mum.  And then sipped.  And looked at each other.  And, yeah.  Not good.  It honestly reminded me of pomegranate molasses.  Nicely fragrant, more tart on the tongue than you would think.

We put the "cassis" (for, really, it was not cassis we might think of it, and yes I can be a horrible snob at these things sometimes) aside.  If we had had it in, oh, 2005 or not much longer after that, it would have been a lovely after dinner drink.  I remember liking much of what Elephant Island produced, after all.  But no, away it went, and I pulled out a Big Head icewine from our visit there two years ago. 

It had held up well and went nicely with the apple cider doughnuts and salted maple ice cream.  We toasted Mum again, and enjoyed our wine together.