Wine: A face-off including a big Italian wine primed for the season’s first BBQ

Red wine showdown

Masseria Surani Heracles Primitivo, 2013, Puglia, Italy    
$17.95, 88.5 points
After DNA analysis, California’s Zinfandel was found to be the same as southern Italy and Sicily’s Primitivo. This is a big wine. Intense nose of black plums and vanilla oak with fruity, ripe plum and cocoa flavours. A carnivore’s wine if ever there was one. 

Liberty School Zinfandel, 2013, California  
$19.95, 88 points
This Zinfandel is dense purple in colour with a bouquet of plums and leather, which is lifted with a cedary note. The wine is medium- to full-bodied, dry and firmly structured with a black plum flavour and an engaging floral top note.

Winner: Both wines weigh in with the same alcohol: 13.5 per cent. The winner, by a whisker, is the Primitivo.

White wine showdown

Flat Rock Cellars Riesling, 2014, Ontario
$16.95, 89 points
Grown on Niagara’s Twenty Mile Bench, this is a great value Riesling. It’s very pale in colour with a hint of lime; the minerally citrus nose is already developing that characteristic petrol note; off-dry, medium-bodied, with honey and grapefruit flavours. A well-made wine.  

Culmina Decora Riesling, 2014, British Columbia 
$24.95, 90 points
This winery in the southern Okanagan is owned by Donald Triggs, formerly a proprietor of Jackson-Triggs. Pale straw in colour, it has a spicy grapefruit nose with a petrol note. Medium-bodied, dry. Lively on the palate with bracing acidity and a mineral finish.  

Winner: For value, Flat Rock; as a cellar prospect, Culmina

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