MyWinePal

Chile is a fascinating country, with climate and terrain that vary from the Atacama desert in the north to glaciers in Patagonia to the south, and everything in between!  From Wikipedia I learned that by surface 80% of South America’s glaciers lie in Chile.  Then there are the Andes Mountains, which controls/modifies the weather coming in [...]

Living on the west coast, we get spoiled with the mild weather, access to beaches, nearby mountains, sailing, enjoying the beach, and more.  One of our more recent perks has been access to wineries, and on a recent trip to Washington state, I ventured to Whidbey Island, and sampled wines from some of the wineries [...]

With every season, there is either grape growing, harvesting, vinification, aging, or bottling of wine. Recently I was happy to do some tasting in Vancouver of recently bottled wines from Le Vieux Pin and La Stella wineries.  These two wineries from South Okanagan offer different styles of wines; Le Vieux Pin being produced in a [...]

04.16.2013.  That’s the date that the Okanagan Falls Winery Association (OFWA) launched their Inaugural “The Heart of Wine Country Comes to Vancouver” event to show their wines to the wine trade, which includes wine writers like me, but as well wine shop and restaurant owners and staff.  If you ask someone in Vancouver where is [...]

Driving down to Seattle from Vancouver, BC for Taste Washington, I always think about the wineries I’ve tried last year; how will their wines taste this year, and what new surprises will I find.  There is always some wine that fits your palate, whether it is a light, citrusy Sauvignon Blanc, a round full bodied [...]

It’s no secret that there are many Canadian snowbirds that fly down for the winter months in Southern California; Palms Springs, in particular. With the average maximum “winter” temperatures in Palm Springs in November to March varying between 22-27 degrees Celsius and beautiful sun, who wouldn’t want to be there?  But what can you do there?  Well [...]

Wow, the Vancouver International Wine Festival was sure busy for me. I attended a dinner, a lunch, a seminar, and visited the Festival Tasting room 3 times. I was able to speak with many winery principals from California, which is always interesting. They can tell you background information about the winery or a particular wine they [...]

The first time you walk into the International Festival Tasting Room can be intimidating, with 175 wineries pouring 3 or more wines each, you have at least 525 wines to try.  But over time, you become a wine tasting veteran like me, setting up a strategy, checking out the background of some wineries you may [...]

California is one of the great wine regions of the world, in part due to the excellent climate and soils, and in part due to the willingness to experiment with different grape varieties and methods to produce the best quality wine.  At this year’s Vancouver International Wine Festival I had an opportunity to speak with [...]

The British Columbia Wine Institute welcomed me and a room full of other revelers to the “BC Paired: Indulge Your Senses!” during the Vancouver International Wine Festival. This event was a celebration of BC wines, red, white, sparkling and fortified, paired together with locally sourced BC ingredients prepared to complement the wines. 23 wineries were present to [...]