MyWinePal

How many of you save bottles of wine to taste many years later?  Some of us do this on purpose while others forget about a bottle in the back of a cabinet and discover it after the wine has aged many years.  I do keep bottles to age on purpose.  One bottle from the French Languedoc is Chateau Notre Dame…

I enjoy having dinner with friends and introducing an unfamiliar wine.  For my latest dinner, I brought a bottle of Kamloops’ area wine, Monte Creek Ranch Frontenac Gris 2024.  This is an organic wine using a hybrid grape, Frontenac Gris, that is cold hardy to survive winter blasts, while regular vitis vinifera grape vines would perish. I picked this wine…

Rosé wines are quite enjoyable in the summer while you are on your patio, enjoying a meal, but these wines fit in throughout the year with their red fruit flavours and bright acidity.  In BC we are familiar with the rose wines made here and maybe with rosé wines from Provence, but we should also be considering Ontario rosé wines. …

While we have our summer backyard barbeques, Argentina has the asado, slow-grilled meat over open flames, which they pair with their signature red grape wine, Malbec.  Fortunately for us, Argentinean Malbecs are here in Canada to purchase.  I received three Argentinean Malbecs to review from you, coming at a value price point.  All three, with tax, are no more than…

Here are two fresh wines for the summertime from the Okanagan’s Blasted Church Vineyards: a Chardonnay and a Rosé wine.  The rosé is made with a red grape you may not know, Blaufränkisch, but it is in the Valley and is originally from Austria and is also in Germany, where it is known as Lemberger (an unfortunate name in my opinion)…

We all need R&R sometime.  I have two for you today from Osoyoos’ Adega on 45th Estate Winery.  I received their Adega on 45th Estate Winery Riesling 2025 and Rosé 2025.  Both wines come from our terrific and well-deserved 2025 vintage.   The winery founded by siblings Maria Nunes and Fred Farinha, alongside their spouses, the European-inspired property was named “Adega”…

If you are a BC wine lover, you probably visited Summerland and the Okanagan to enjoy the scenery, food, and wine, but we are now all thinking about the terrible tragedy with the Summerland forest fires.  How can we help, no matter where we are across Canada?  Here are a few suggestions, some of which have been emailed to me,…

BC is well-known for producing quality sparkling wines.  Township 7 Vineyards & Winery has dedicated a significant portion of their wine production to making top-quality sparkling wines, under the “seven stars” label, for over 25 years.  These wines are small lot cuvées, crafted with passion in the méthode champenoise style and made by Township 7’s winemaker, Mary McDermott. Grape varieties…

Chaberton Estate Winery is the pioneer estate of the Fraser Valley and in BC. They farm 44 acres of estate-grown fruit with other parcels from across the Okanagan Valley. The winery’s history was initially established by the Violets family, whose European lineage includes a Guinness World Record for a one-million-litre oak barrel.   They sold their winery and vineyard in France…

Chaberton Estate Winery is the pioneer winery of the Fraser Valley. It grows 44 acres of estate-grown fruit with other parcels from across the Okanagan Valley. Claude and Inge Violet sold their winery and vineyard in France and moved to the Fraser Valley in the 1970’s.  They experimented with different grape varieties to see which grew well here, selected the…