MyWinePal

Did you know that Vina Carmen is Chile’s oldest winery, founded in 1850 by Christian Lanz, who named the winery after his wife, Carmen? The Carmenere grape variety was rediscovered at Carmen in 1994. In 1997 Carmen launched the first Chilean organic wine under the Nativa brand.  I remember buying the wine in WA state [...]

Miguel Torres is best known as a wine making family with long pedigree from Spain.  From Spain they have spread out around the world.  One place where they have taken root has been Chile; the Curico Valley to be precise.  Their winery is very well known for their high quality Cordillera red blend. But when [...]

Emiliana Vineyards has become very well-known for their organic and biodynamic wines that they produce in the Colchagua Valley, Chile. I speak briefly with Fernando Pavon, Export Director about the winery and their wines.  Enjoy.

To complement my blog article about the “Northern Gem, Southern Icon” dinner with Concha y Toro at the Blue Water Cafe, I also recorded a video.  The video is an introduction to the winery, the wines we will be tasting, their iconic Cabernet Sauvignon wine “Don Melchor“, and an introduction to Chile’s signature red grape [...]

As part of my wine tasting activities at the Vancouver Playhouse International Wine Festival, I interviewed several winery principals.  For this first video I talk with Ms. Lucia Romero from El Porvenir de los Andes, from the Salta region of Argentina.  This region is well known for their Torrontes wines.  Enjoy!

Last week the Vancouver Playhouse International Wine Festival finished, and more work began for me.  Last week was about tasting the wines from Chile and from many other wineries around the world.  This week starts my writing my experiences in seminars and in the International Festival Tasting room. I made the following recommendations for Chilean [...]

One of the great things about the Vancouver Playhouse International Wine Festival is that you can meet winery principals either at a wine maker dinner, a seminar, or at their winery’s table at the International Festival Tasting room.  In case you don’t know who will be attending the Festival this year, here is some background [...]

In case you didn’t know, Chile is the Theme Country this year at the Vancouver Playhouse International Wine Festival.  But you may not know which wineries will be there?  The Remedy… I have the list here for you.  With my many years past association with the South World Wine Society I can let you know [...]

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 [...]

The 31st Vancouver Playhouse International Wine Festival has now come and gone. I attended the “Get Uncorked” kick off to the Festival, went to a Burgundy tasting (pinot noir, chardonnay and gamay), a Pinot tasting (all types of pinot both red and white), a Vinho Verde (Portuguese wine) tasting, plus tasted wines in the big [...]