Phantom Creek Rosé & Pinot Gris wines review

The Phantom Creek Estates wines we are reviewing in this post

In this post, we review two wines: Rose and Pinot Gris.
Phantom Creek Estates Rosé 2021 can be purchased directly at the winery and through fine wine retailers. Pinot Gris 2020 is not available at the winery. Instead, it is listed through the BC liquor distribution branch.

On that note, let’s crack on with the review of these two wines.

Wine Tasting notes and Food Pairing recommendations:

• Once opened, this Rosé should be consumed within a maximum of two days to avoid degradation of the flavour profile. Have a tightly fitted cork, and keep the wine in the fridge if you do not finish it in one day.
• As with any Rosé, you should drink it within a year, a maximum of two years. These wines are not made for cellaring and will lose their flavour and freshness if you cellar them longer.

2021 was the summer of the infamous Western North America heat wave that set a record high temperature for Canada. This was one of the first 2021 wines that we had an opportunity to taste and explore how the extreme heat impacted the quality of the wine.

Phantom Creek Estates Rosé 2021 is a simple wine that does not require many words to describe it.

It is an enjoyable summer drink and also a breeze to pair with food.

• Most people think of Rosé as an easygoing wine for summer barbecues and the get-together with friends. If you plan to use Phantom Creek Estates Rosé 2021 for such occasions, you won’t be disappointed!
• Here’s an easy food pairing idea that does not require much culinary mastery. Barbecue pork ribs and fennel sausage.
  • Pair any of these protein options with lightly grilled vegetables such as zucchini, tomatoes, asparagus and red onion.
  • Drizzle the grilled vegetables with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, balsamic glaze, salt and pepper. Now you can rock any party with your food and wine pairing.
  • For the vegans among us, vegetables prepared this way make for an excellent food pairing to go with the Phantom Creek Estates Rosé without any help from proteins.
• Tarragon risotto makes for another interesting pairing with this wine. As a rule, creamy dishes do not work with Rosé, but this one does. We attribute this magic to the strong tarragon flavour of our risotto.
• A perfect food pairing for this wine is Ukrainian potato deruny, also known as Jewish latke, accompanied with roasted to the crispy rind, guanciale, and mango chutney.
• If you are not a meat eater, deruny served with mango chutney work exceptionally well with this wine. You can find our recipe for this dish here: Grandma’s Potato Deruny aka Latkes, reimagined

Proper food pairing will help you get the most out of this wine.

• Saffron risotto is a passable pairing with this wine. Sign up for our newsletter to ensure you don’t miss a recipe for this dish.
• We also liked how the rich white fish, such as black cod, especially if using Japanese-inspired miso marinade, accentuates the lemony notes of this wine.
• A noteworthy pairing for this wine is Crab cakes on a bed of creamed corn. It is not a Perfect 10 pairing but very close to it.

Now to the food pairings that do not work: Avoid hot and creamy dips, such as artichoke dip, crab dip, and fondue, as they tend to overpower this Pinot Gris completely. You run into the same problem with pan-fried salmon or steelhead.

Bottom line

To wrap this up, we opine on how these two wines compare against similar, entry-level Rosés and Pinot Gris produced by other Okanagan winegrowers.

As an experiment, we did a side-by-side, aka horizontal tasting, of Phantom Creek and Tantalus Rosé wines. For our Pinot Gris horizontal tasting, we pitted Phantom Creek Estates against Blue Mountain Winery.

The results?

Phantom Creek won the Rosé challenge, hands down. It should be noted that Tantalus’s wine was $10 cheaper than Phantom Creek’s. As they say, you get what you pay for with these two wines.

Blue Mountain won the Pinot Gris challenge. Interestingly these two wines are priced about the same. However, Blue Mountain Pinot Gris had a more interesting flavour profile and was less finicky, food pairing-wise.

Bottom line, both the Pinot Gris and Rosé are basic, entry-level wines from the Phantom Creek Estates winery. You are not uncovering a hidden value with either of these two. Several other similarly priced wines come out of the Okanagan wine growing region. Some are better, some are worse.