Top Drops

A Visit to Emiliana Vineyards: the Heart of Chile’s Organic Wine Movement

November 14, 2012

Last week’s column for the North Shore News was a quick recap of our visit to Emiliana Los Robles Organic Biodynamic Vineyards. It was one of the more impressive but—more to the point— profound experiences of my week in Chile. I still find it quite remarkable that a company of this size took the giant […]

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“The Lake”: When History, Music and Wine Combine

October 29, 2012

  UPDATED: The Lake opens tonight—and is sold out. The good news is there are still tix for tomorrow night (November 15). And the better news is that all audience members  have a chance to enter a draw to win a superb weekend at Quails Gate’s guest cottage, The Nest, with dinner at Old Vines […]

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Joie and More Joie: Joie Farm Reserve Wines Bump it Up a Notch

October 1, 2012

Time to catch up on some housekeeping. Here’s our column from the North Shore News a couple of weeks ago. As you can tell, we’re a big fan of Joie Farm (and—full disclosure—a longtime friend of Heidi and Michael.) The piece speaks for itself … and we can still taste that Pinot and wild mushroom […]

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The Gold Standard, Okanagan Style: 2012 British Columbia Wine Awards

September 29, 2012

If you’re a BC wine lover, the line-up of the 24 gold medal winners of this year’s British Columbia Wine Awards (a key part of the Okanagan Fall Wine Festival) adds up to a pretty serious shopping list. (Most of these wines should still be available at the winery.) We were fortunate to be invited back […]

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Sea Cider House Rules: An Elixir Redefined on BC’s Saanich Peninsular

July 26, 2012

My first encounter with real cider happened at a relatively youg age. Not long after my 16th birthday, in a misguided attempt to beat the summer heat, I downed an ice cold pint of draught Somerset scrumpy—which was probably around 8 percent ABV, if not more. An aside – local scrumpy was also rumoured to […]

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Black Hills Wine Experience Centre Takes Tasting to the Next Level

June 16, 2012
Black-Hills-Wine-Experience-Poolside-Tim-Pawsey-photo

Beyond test driving our Zagat equipped Acura, the main reason for last week’s Okanagan swing was to take in the Vinos and check out Black Hills snappy new tasting room—aka Black Hills Wine Experience Centre. The Vino’s, founded by Black Hills president Glenn Fawcett, turned out to be a fun evening, with no shortage of […]

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A Tasting with Quails’ Gate Winemaker Grant Stanley

June 10, 2012

One of our favourite tastings of the year is an action packed hour or so spent with Quails Gate winemaker Grant Stanley. We’ll get to the wines shortly but much of my enthusiasm stems from the fact that Grant—aside from being a superb winemaker and one of the most personable guys in the industry—is refreshingly […]

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Joie Springs Eternal: An Annual Highlight

April 16, 2012

Our recent nod to the BC Liquor Stores Alsace promo  just happened to coincide with the release of Joie Farm’s latest crop of whites and ever popular rosé. And, as usually seems to be the case, right out of the gate, the Joie wines are an indication of what to expect for 2011 (overall, a challenging year) […]

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Alsace Puts a Spring in Our Palate

April 14, 2012

Up in the lofty surrounds of a marble clad tower high above downtown Vancouver, HiredBelly.com’s cutting edge IT department is still grappling with the challenge of how to present our ongoing Belly’s Best wine picks in a timely and easily accessible way. We’ll let you know when they finally get it figured out. (If they […]

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Tasting Diversity – Speed dating wine-style with some of Chile’s best

March 7, 2012

Another Vancouver Playhouse International Wine Festival done! But what an action packed week, with an amazing array of events, most of which went off without a hitch. Kudos to the tireless Playhouse team, to the legion of unsung volunteers who make this thing work, and especially to Wines of Chile, for truly raising the bar on […]

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