In our glass: past and present wine picks
A comprehensive organic-biodynamic program from vineyard to bottle, Tim Pawsey photo 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. A [...]
Cipes Arial beside Krug Grande Cuvée: More of a love-in than a smackdown, TP photo Champagne and sparkling wine producers enjoy a well earned rep for coming up with some pretty clever promos. We can certainly attest to that ... However, we were still intrigued, a few weeks back, when Summerhill’s Ezra Cipes [...]
With the apparently unstoppable success of Malbec, Argentina is in the enviable position of having almost too big a hit on its hands. Almost, but not quite.
Quails Gate Estate, on the site of the Allison homestead, overlooks Lake Okanagan (photo Brian Sprout) 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 [...]
LittleFarm's Rhys Pender and Alishan Driediger Planting your own vineyard requires healthy doses of optimism, a ton of knowledge, unbridled passion and not a little cash, regardless of how big—or small—the project. Making your own wine, even more. This week we got to taste the first release from Similkameen’s aptly named Little Farm [...]
Heidi Noble and Michael Dinn ... to the next level, TP photo 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 [...]
Gold medal weather accompanied our judging at Manteo Resort 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 [...]
Terravista Vineyards Figaro label portrays a dancing, glass art figurine—and captures the essence of these vibrant blends One of the more intriguing winners in this year’s Lieutenant Governor Awards line-up is the well crafted, southern Rhone inspired Road 13 Jackpot White 2011, which artfully blends Viognier, Roussanne and Marsanne (mainly from Similkameen) for [...]
Winning wines, from one of the year's toughest contests: celebrating BC's best, Tim Pawsey photo This week’s announcement of winners of the Lieutenant Governor’s Awards for Excellence in British Columbia Wines marks ten years since the competition’s inception. Check out the Government House website and you can track the winners over that [...]
I started my recent wine tour of the Okanagan Valley a little early, right in Vancouver, to be precise. This time I left behind my own car in favour of a swish, spacious and sporty, titanium 2013 Acura RDX Tech, courtesy of Acura Canada—just like the one in The Avengers! Aside from [...]