BC Riesling Review - Everything Here Including an Interactive Map

It has been a long voyage of discovery for me to find out what type of relationship Riesling grapes have with the soils of BC, or as some may say the terroir of the area. As mentioned in previous articles, it started with the idea, then contacting all BC wineries that produce a Riesling wine, to ask for a sample from their 2014 or 2013 vintage. Making detailed tasting notes over the summer and into the fall ensued. I tagged the notes to the geographic location of the vineyard that produced the grapes for that bottle of wine. Then using a Geographic Information System (GIS) I imported this wine and vineyard information, as well as a soil map of BC, then overlaid the two layers, to find out, which soils were most commonly associated with the Riesling grapes.

Eluviated Eutric Brunisol: Riesling aromas (left) and flavours (right)

The question I was trying to answer, is are there any unique or distinct aromas and flavours in the wines from a particular soil type? I selected all the wines that came from a particular soil identified in the GIS, and produced aggregated information via Word Clouds. And indeed there were unique aromas and flavours. The list of articles below, shows the journey from beginning to end, followed by an interactive map of BC, where you can click on a dot representing each wine I tasted. My tasting notes are there in a tabular format. I have written a description below this map of the names of the fields in the pop-up windows that appear when you click on a wine dot. I hope these articles and maps really make you interested in BC terroir, and of course BC wine. Please feel free to leave a comment about the articles or the map. I love feedback. Cheers!

My BC Riesling Review Articles

Is BC Riesling Special?

My BC Riesling Review Update

BC Riesling Review – The Tasting Notes

BC Riesling Review – Let’s Talk About Soil

BC Riesling Review – Unique Aromas and Flavours Identified

BC Riesling Review – Give Me Some Latitude

My BC Riesling Map

View larger map

On the map, I showed the location of the Riesling soils beyond just the locations of the vineyards, in hope that BC wineries or grape growers may wish to find areas in BC with similar soils in order to plant new Riesling vines.

Understanding the Map Pop-Up Information

The information in the pop-up for each winery’s wine (there are sometimes more than one wine per winery) is shown in a tabular format. The field names and descriptions are provided below to help you understand my tasting notes. At the bottom of the pop-up list is a digital picture of the wine label, which you may want to use to help remember a bottle you would like to buy in a wine shop.

WINERY	Winery name
VINTAGE	Vintage year
ALCOHOL %	Alcohol percentage
DESCRIPTION	Description on label
REGION	Specific region in BC for the vineyard
COLOUR INTENSITY	How deep the colour is of the wine
COLOUR	The colour of the wine
NOSE INTENSITY	How intense the aromas are in the glass
AROMA 1	First aroma identified
AROMA 2	Second aroma identified
AROMA 3	Third aroma identified
AROMA 4	Fourth aroma identified
2ND AROMA 1	First new aroma after decanting
2ND AROMA 2	Second new aroma after decanting
SWEETNESS	Sweetness level of the wine
ACIDITY	Acidity level of the wine
ALCOHOL	How alcoholic the wine felt on the palate
BODY	How full the wine felt in the mouth
FLAVOUR INTENSITY	How intense the flavours were in the mouth
MOUTHFEEL DESCRIPTOR 1	First descriptor of mouth feel
MOUTHFEEL DESCRIPTOR 2	Second descriptor of mouth feel
FLAVOUR 1	First flavour identified
FLAVOUR 2	Second flavour identified
FLAVOUR 3	Third flavour identified
FLAVOUR 4	Fourth flavour identified
2ND FLAVOUR 1	First new flavour after decanting
2ND FLAVOUR 2	Second new flavour after decanting
2ND FLAVOUR 3	Third new flavour after decanting
2ND FLAVOUR 4	Fourth new flavour after decanting
MINERALITY	Was any minerality detected on the palate
FLAVOUR LENGTH	How long was the finish on the wine
ACIDITY LEVEL	Was there significant acidity on the finish
FLAVOUR10	First flavour on the finish
FLAVOUR20	Second flavour on the finish
FLAVOUR30	Third flavour on the finish
FLAVOUR40	Fourth flavour on the finish
2NDFLAVO3	First new flavour on the finish after decanting
2NDFLAVO4	Second new flavour on the finish after decanting
RATING	My rating of the wine out of 5.
PERCENT_1	Percent of primary soil type in this area
SOILNAME_1	Name of the soil
SOILSYM_1	Soil symbol
SOILCODE_1	Soil code
SOILMOD_1	Soil modifier
PROFILE_1	Portion of the soil profile
DEVELOP1_1	The type of primary soil, e.g. E.EB
SOILLINK_1	Web link to more info on this soil type
MAX_SLOPE	Maximum slope for this soil region
AVG_SLOPE	Average slope for this soil region
MIN_SLOPE	Minimum slope for this soil region
MAX_ELEV	Maximum elevation in metres for this soil region
AVG_ELEV	Average elevation in metres for this soil region
MIN_ELEV	Minimum elevation in metres for this soil region

Thank You to the Wineries

Thank you again to all the BC wineries that participated in the BC Riesling Review. I could not have done this without you. I hope this information is useful to you, as well as to vineyard managers, and everyone that loves BC wines that reads these articles.