Jan
04
2012
January 23, 2012 is a New Chinese New Year. This new year will be the Year of the Black Water Dragon. It begins on the first day of the first lunar month (usually in late January or early February) and ends on the 15th day of the first lunar month (Lantern Festival). A Dragon is [...]
Nov
10
2011
November is always a special time for tasting new wines at the Import Vintners and Spirits Association (IVSA). It’s just one month away from the Christmas and New Years holidays. And that means lots of sparkling wines to taste. So with this in mind, I spent almost all my time at the IVSA tasting bubbles. [...]
Aug
31
2011
In my previous article about preparing for your Summer Wine Trip in the Southern Hemisphere, I outlined most of the wine producing countries and some airline ticket prices from Canada to those countries. This is Part 2 of this article, where you will get to know a bit about the signature grapes of Chile and [...]
Feb
13
2011
This week I attended the IVSA‘s latest tastings of new wine and spirits in the Vancouver area. There was at least 70 different tables from my quick count, with each table offering 5-10 different wines. As such, I was not able to try everything offered, but hopefully I was able to find a few gems, [...]
Sep
26
2010
For the past 5 years, Vancouver’s South World Wine Society has been having a tasting in January called the “5 Nations Cup“. This January was the 5th competition. The premise of the event is that 5 white and 5 red wines are selected by the cellar master and the speaker at the event. The wines [...]
Sep
26
2010
In the first part of my notes on the 31st Vancouver Playhouse International Wine Festival I talked about BC wines as this was the featured region. But there was more than just BC wines at the festival. I will spend some time talking about the International wines that I was able to try. Some of [...]