Category: france

When you talk with visitors to the Okanagan, most will say they want to visit Summerhill Winery and see their pyramid, where they partially age all their wines. Some may say they also want to visit because it uses biodynamic farming methods.  I sat down with Ezra Cipes, CEO of Summerhill, and son of the founder, Stephen Cipes, at a restaurant…

From the Fall through Spring, the Import Vintners & Spirits Association (IVSA) hosts a regular tasting of importers latest wines, beer and spirits.  The kick-off for the fall was last week, and it was very busy.  Again too many wines to try, so I went table by table trying to find wines of interest, or completely new wines/wineries I have…

I was happy to be invited for the second year in a row to the Select Wines & Spirits’ Annual Portfolio Tasting, held at the Shaughnessy Golf and Country Club.  Last year I found several gems that I passed along to you, and you will read about my latest wine recommendations.  You may want to compare to my last year’s…

This long weekend I went to a friend’s house for dinner and I brought a bottle of Chenin Blanc from the Loire Valley, France that I purchased last summer while I was on vacation. When I picked out this bottle to bring to the dinner party, I remembered going to the winery, my discussion with the person in the tasting…

Being social has it’s privileges.  One such privilege is being invited to Marquis Wine Cellar’s Social Media tasting in downtown Vancouver.  A small, intimate affair with other social media wine and food bloggers; we get to try some new and exciting wines brought in by Marquis.  This year, I had my sights on two wines: 1) Josko Gravner Breg Anfora…

Last year I attended the Taste of Tulalip and had a great time.  The food and wine were top quality.  The tickets for this year’s event are now on sale, so I thought I would give you early notice so that you can buy your tickets before they sell out.  The event has a Friday night Gala Dinner, which has…

Yesterday afternoon was beautiful and sunny, and the Dockside Restaurant perfectly placed in Granville Island looking over the water.  With this as our backdrop we were enticed to try wines from around the world by 17 different wine agencies here in Vancouver.  The name of the event is Pelican Bay Wine Tasting.  As I had not attended this event before,…

Today I was looking forward to the latest wine releases from Le Vieux Pin and La Stella wineries. In case you haven’t heard or tried wines from these two wineries, Le Vieux Pin makes wine in a French style, while La Stella takes the Italian route.  What do eggs have to do with this?  Read on about the wines first….

My last event at the Vancouver Playhouse International Wine Festival was “Speaking Frankly About Franc“. I was eagerly waiting for this seminar as I really enjoy drinking Cabernet Franc. A grape that is at home in Bordeaux and in the Loire Valley. It is used as a blending grape in Bordeaux, as a minor partner to Cabernet Sauvignon or Merlot….

There were more wineries than those from Chile at the 2012 Vancouver Playhouse International Wine Festival.  It took a while to drag me away from the Chilean wineries, and to try the wines from the rest of the world attending the Festival.  There were many nice wines, and now it’s my time to share them with you. Red Wines (and…