Category: chardonnay

Did you know that Blue Grouse Estate Winery and Unsworth Vineyards in the Cowichan Valley on Vancouver Island are owned by the Sonoma-based Jackson Family from California?  The acquisitions, in 2022 and 2020, respectively, allow the family to grow their global portfolio, which includes vineyards in California, Oregon, Washington, Italy, France, Chile, South Africa, and Australia.  They see tremendous potential…

I finally had a chance on a recent trip to Victoria to make a side trip to the Cowichan Valley to visit Unsworth Vineyards and Blue Grouse Estate Winery.  Unsworth is a bit closer to Victoria, so it was the first stop on my wine tasting day.  The winery grounds look beautiful with a modern-designed tasting room with lots of…

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)…

What BC wine would you have with a sechetti (parachute) pasta stuffed with ground chicken and bacon, served in a creamy rosé sauce?  One option is a Rose wine, but another valid option would be a Chardonnay.  Today I had this pasta dish with a glass of Lillooet’s Fort Berens Estate Winery Chardonnay 2025.  Fort Beren’s wines are now certified…

Sometimes two different wineries or wine families get together in partnership to form a new winery, such as Almaviva, which is a joint venture established in the late 1990s between Baroness Philippine de Rothschild and the Guilisasti/Larrain family, theowners of Concha y Toro.  Another example is Chateau Ste. Michelle of Washington state and Ernst Loosen of Germany, creating Eroica Riesling. …

If you enjoy BC sparkling wine, you may be interested to find out which wine was named the best sparkling wine at the All Canadian Wine Championships this year.  It is Noble Ridge’s 2019 The One.  Here is the press release about their win, as written by the winery. Okanagan Falls, BC [July 7, 2026] Noble Ridge Vineyard & Winery…

This is the final article for my Ontario Chardonnay Review.  I’ve reviewed the wines, compiled tasting notes, identified soils associated with the participating wineries, and identified the weather conditions for each vintage.  Are there any similarities between wines produced on the same soil type, and are there any similarities between wines produced in the same year, and finally are there…

I have been interviewing Ontario winery principals for many years about their harvest and the growing season.  Weather and growing conditions can vary widely from year to year.  For my Ontario Chardonnay Review I tried to get wines that were from one or two growing seasons.  Most of the wines I received came from 2023 and 2024, with a few…

Soil is one of the important factors influencing the aromas and flavours produced by wine grapes.  For my Ontario Chardonnay Review, I checked with the Government of Canada National Soil Database (NSDB) Soils of Ontario to determine the soil types associated with each of the Ontario wineries that provided their bottle(s) of Chardonnay.  Using the free, open source, computer mapping…

The last Chardonnay to review for my Ontario Chardonnay Review is a sparkling wine made by  Drea’s Wine Co. which produces small batch, single vineyard, low intervention wines.  Drea’s wines are certified by Sustainable Winegrowing Ontario.  I really enjoyed tasting Drea’s Cabernet Franc wines when I undertook my Ontario Cabernet Franc Review last year.  Let me tell you about the latest…