Author: mywinepal

  Cuillin Hills Winery, established in 2004, is a family-owned and operated boutique winery located in Woodinville, Washington. Winemaker, Derek DesVoigne, is commited to produce small lots of distinct wines.  One of the wines I purchased last year while on a trip to Washington state, and just opened, is their Cuillin Hills Mourvedre 2008. Mourvedre is not the most common grape…

Have you ever felt like you have a daunting task, but persevere with the hope you will discover a few gold nuggets? I’m sure many BC prospectors felt this as they searched for gold in Barkerville and further north. This is also how I feel when I attend the Colour BC VQA tastings. There are so many BC VQA wines…

TWB – The Wine Bar opened December 2012 and is yet to reach it’s first birthday.  A very unpretentious place where there are a plethora of wines around the by the glass, which you can sip  with tiny bites and tapas. But did you know that Rachelle Goudreau, Sommelier at TWB, is offering something extra every other Thursday; a bit of…

Vineyards surround Chile’s capital of Santiago. In the 19th century, Santiago’s rich moved to the valley around Santiago to try their hand as a landowner. They planted vineyards and built large estates. Despite Santiago’s growth and rapid consumption of arable land the Maipo Valley still thrives. It lies between the Andes and the coastal mountains, which keep the climate dry…

Greata Ranch Estate Winery has an envious location.  Just south of West Kelowna, right on the shore of Lake Okanagan.  It’s a beautiful spot to look at the lake, the scenic hills across the water, and to sip wine.  I was recently in Kelowna and thought I’d drop by to visit Greata Ranch as the last time I was there…

Better known by the tremendous success of its white wines, particularly Marlborough’s Sauvignon Blanc, New Zealand’s red wines are mostly off the radar for the global market, with the visible exception of Pinot Noir. The “heart break grape” has made its home in Martinborough, at the southern tip of North Island, and in Otago, in the southern end of South…

Last September I was first introduced to the wines of Flat Roof Manor, a winery located in the Stellenbosch region of South Africa.  At that time I wrote about their Flat Roof Manor Malbec.  Their wines are priced very aggressively and provide you with a decent, fruit driven wine.  I was happy to be asked to review their Pinot Grigio, which…

Chile is blessed with perfect conditions to grow grapes; a varied climate, warmer and drier in the north, and wetter and cooler in the south.  A dry climate and soil types not conducive to the phyloxera louse allow Chilean vineyards to be grown on their own rootstock, not grafted.  Some say that this allows you to taste the “true” flavour…

Two Oceans is a wine label from South Africa, but as well it describes where the Indian and Atlantic oceans fuse off the southern coast of Africa.  The Cape’s coastal region is a temperate climate with maritime breezes from both oceans moderating the heat in the day and lowering the temperature at night, allowing the grapes to ripen slowly and…

This is the second year of the Wine Campus at Okanagan Crush Pad.  The wine campus is a program to foster the education of professionals in the wine industry. Okanagan Crush Pad makes an annual donation of $5,000 to the BC Hospitality Foundation (BCHF) which goes toward a scholarship for students enrolled in a recognized and accredited wine program with…