Category: bc

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…

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…

People are more concerned about where their food is coming from than ever before.  The big push in the past was to get food trucked or flown in from around the world at the lowest price, but now people are looking for as local as possible, and from smaller producers who they can connect with either at a farmer’s market,…

Wine is more than just wine.  It is an experience and each wine should hopefully tell you a story about it’s journey from a blossom to a grape to a bottle of wine.  As it is an experience, I think the best ways to enjoy wines are through experiences.  Here are 4 experiences that I recommend: Visit a wine region…

Did you know that SpierHead Winery from South East Kelowna won the “Best New Winery” at the 2012 BC Wine Awards and that their Pinot Noir was ranked #1 by the judges at the 2012 Canadian Wine Awards?  Well, now you know.  I’ve been in contact with SpierHead for a year now, tasting their wines and telling people about their…

With every season, there is either grape growing, harvesting, vinification, aging, or bottling of wine. Recently I was happy to do some tasting in Vancouver of recently bottled wines from Le Vieux Pin and La Stella wineries.  These two wineries from South Okanagan offer different styles of wines; Le Vieux Pin being produced in a more restrained French style, while…

Starting a restaurant is hard.  Running a restaurant is hard. Whether you are the owner, chef, wait staff, or any combination of these, you are dedicated, you love food, and what you do.  This week was the Vancouver Magazine 24th Annual Restaurant Awards in Vancouver, celebrating our restaurants, chefs, and staff who have been tantalizing our tastebuds over the past…

Bartier Scholefield‘s slogan is “Wine is Narrative“, which I agree it is, at least maybe for boutique wineries, sourcing grapes from a small region.  In my previous article, BC Has a Wine Story, I talked about the story that wine tells through the terroir that the vines were planted and the grapes ripened. Bartier Scholefield’s story comes from the Summerland…

04.16.2013.  That’s the date that the Okanagan Falls Winery Association (OFWA) launched their Inaugural “The Heart of Wine Country Comes to Vancouver” event to show their wines to the wine trade, which includes wine writers like me, but as well wine shop and restaurant owners and staff.  If you ask someone in Vancouver where is the Naramata Bench, they could…

BC‘s wine story, just like all other wine regions, is heavily dependent upon it’s terroir.  You may have heard of the term terroir, but what does it mean, and what is BC’s wine story? What is Terroir? Terroir is a many splendid thing!  Depending on who you ask, you may get many different answers, but all the answers share one…