Top Wine Picks! Spooky Wines for Halloween

Okay, I’m not much for pairing wine with anything Halloween. I’m also not super keen on trying to match wine with your favourite Halloween candy, and I certainly am not going to try and match a wine to your Halloween costume.

And hey, don’t even get me started on pumpkin beer.

But in the spirit of the spookiest of “holidays” (and it is one of my faves), here are a few scary good wines from My Wine Canada’s partner wineries from B.C.:

1) Moon Curser 2012 Dead of Night – I couldn’t very well pass up something called Dead of Night when talking about Halloween. Luckily, this 50-50 Tannat/Syrah blend delivers scary good juice. Complex blueberry, black tea, licorice, plum, cherry and vanilla notes on the full-bodied palate are dense and attractive, making for good drinking now or cellaring for a few years. The perfect steak wine. (14.3% alcohol, $42.00)

2) Wild Goose 2014 Pinot Gris – The tropical fruit notes (pineapple and mango) are front and centre on this killer B.C. Pinot Gris, with loads of peach, red apple, tangerine, lemon and honey notes in there as well. This light-plus bodied white hints at a touch of sweetness without ever getting too cloying. For the price it’s tough to think of a Pinot Gris that out-performs this wine. (12.8% alcohol, $18.00)

3) C.C. Jentsch 2013 The Chase – Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc make up the bulk of this dynamite red blend. Blueberry, plum, savoury, cassis, raspberry, mint and mocha notes carry the weight here, with black tea and pepper notes delivering solid tannins that result in an almost Bordeaux-ish style blend. The savoury component here screams Old World – try this stellar value red blend with hard cheeses, heartier stews or Latin American fare. (13.9% alcohol, $19.90)

Ben MacPhee-Sigurdson is the wine columnist and literary editor for the Winnipeg Free Press. He’s on Twitter and Instagram at @bensigurdson.