MyWinePal

Cocktail culture in Vancouver has been around for a few years now, but I think it slows down in the summer and picks up in the fall and winter.  As we are slowly transitioning from summer to fall weather, I thought we could get into some simple cocktails to make and enjoy using sherry.  Have you ever made cocktails using…

Isn’t wine a miracle?  From grapes, ripened by sunshine and nourished by the soil, they transform with the help from yeast to produce wines for us to enjoy.  There is no reason for wine to exist, other than for pleasure. Don’t you agree? I received a bottle of one of Portugal’s Vinho Verde (Green Wine) from the Quinta da Pedra…

Summer is slowly winding down.  But we can still enjoy time on our patios with a glass of BC wine.  Here are two BC wines from Lillooet’s Fort Berens Estate Winery you may wish to try.  I am tasting their Fort Berens Estate Winery Pinot Gris 2025 and Fort Berens Estate Winery Rosé 2025.  The grapes come from their estate,…

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,…