Category: bc

David Scholefield and Michael Bartier are not new to wine in BC.  Michael Bartier was born and raised in the Okanagan and worked in the past for Hawthorne Mountain (See Ya Later Ranch), Township 7, Stag’s Hollow and most recently Road 13 Vineyards. He joins the team at Okanagan Crush Pad Winery as winemaker, where he and David produce their…

Meyer Family Vineyards goal is”crafting single vineyard wines of excellence“. This is my fourth review of their Chardonnay and Pinot Noir wines and each year their wines get better.  More complexity, more balance. For this review I received a bottle of the following wines: Meyer Family Vineyards Chardonnay, McLean Creek Road Vineyard, Okanagan Falls, 2010 Meyer Family Vineyards Tribute Series…

When people hear Napa Valley, they think big Cabernets.  Which is true, you can get some huge Cabernet Sauvignons there, but they also produce other wines, such as Chardonnay, Riesling, and Pinot Noir.  Did you know that the Napa Valley is one-eighth the size of Bordeaux and produces just 4% of California’s wine grape harvest, and 95% of its wineries…

I’ve been told that over the past two decades, the Wines of British Columbia have truly come of age.  Wines are produced in the Okanagan, the Similkameen, the Fraser Valley, the Gulf Islands and on Vancouver Island.  Cool climate to desert conditions let us produce a wide range of wines and wine styles.  At the BC VQA Wines Fall Release,…

This week I was invited to some major announcements from Okanagan Crush Pad. OCP was established in 2010 by Christine Coletta and Steve Lornie. The Crush Pad is located on Switchback Road in Summerland, BC. Their head wine maker is Mr. Michael Bartier. Mr. Alberto Antonini is their consulting viticulturist and wine maker from Italy, and David Scholefield is their…

This Part 2 of my review of my picks from the Vancouver Playhouse International Wine Festival.  Part 1 covered the wines of Spain.  Part 2 is the rest of the world. Again, there are so many wines at the tasting, and so little time, I’m sure I missed many great wines.  If you tasted some that I didn’t list, please…

On the MyWinePal blog I posted my Spanish wine picks, sans reviews, but promised the reviews would come out here on the main MyWinePal website. As promised, I’ve had a chance to sit down in front of the computer going through my wine notes and entering them for you. I hope you find a wine or two of interest to…

This is my third time to review Meyer Family Vineyards’ wines, and I am always impressed with them.  Each vintage I think is getting better as the winemaker gets a better feel for the terroir of their vineyards. For this review, I tasted the 2009 vintage of 3 of Meyer Family Vineyards’ Chardonnay, plus a new wine for me, simply…

It was my pleasure to have a serious sit down tasting of the wines from D’Angelo Estate Winery. I’ve tasted their wines before at various tastings, the latest being the Naramata Bench “Simply Red” tasting in September. Sal D’Angelo has been making wine for nearly 25 years. He started with a winery in Amherstburg, ON in 1984, and in 2007…

The summer is upon us, so it was time to head out to the Fraser Valley in the Vancouver lower mainland, and visit some of the wineries. I have visited Lulu Island and Pacific Breeze wineries in the past. Today my goal was to visit Township 7, Neck of the Woods, and Domaine de Chaberton Estate Winery. Well first off,…