Category: interview

I was pleased to be invited to interview Olga Bussinello, Director, of the Consorzio per la Tutela dei Vini Valpolicella here in Vancouver recently. The Consortium for the Tutelage of Valpolicella Wines is an association of wine producers, winemakers and bottlers of the wine production area of Valpolicella, a territory that includes 19 municipalities in the Verona province. Excellence in the vineyard is the purpose of the…

If you are familiar with BC wines at all, you should know of Sandra Oldfield and the winery she helped start with her husband Kenn Oldfield and friends Barb and Bob Shaunessy, called Tinhorn Creek in Oliver in 1993 and first vintage in 1994. This year, 24 years later, life changed for Sandra and Kenn when Tinhorn Creek was sold…

2017 was a terrible harvest in France due to poor weather conditions through the growing season, producing the smallest grape harvest since 1945. In the United States, Napa and Sonoma Valleys were hit by forest fires which although was late in the harvest, still affected later ripening grapes like Cabernet Sauvignon. The Valleys were also suffering from a heat wave, causing…

Canada should be proud of its recent wine history.  We started getting serious about vitis vinifera in the 1970s.  BC and Ontario started growing wine grapes and producing wines.  Nova Scotia and Quebec have followed, and I heard, but have not seen, that there are also wines being produced in New Brunswick.  Our climate since the 1970s has warmed up…

Who is Randy Picton? Randy Picton is the head wine maker at Nk’Mip Cellars, the first Aboriginal-owned winery in North America.  How did he get this position?  What did he do and which winery did he work at before moving to Nk’Mip? Did you know that Randy submitted 14 different wines to the 2012 Wine Access awards and walked away…

Who is Bruce Nicholson? Bruce Nicholson joined Inniskillin Wines, Niagara-on-the-Lake as Wine maker on January 1, 2007, after working for 20 years in the Okanagan where he was the first wine maker, and then became the Senior Winemaker for Jackson-Triggs Okanagan Estate in British Columbia. Half of Bruce’s awards in 2012 were for ice wine.  Does he want to be…

Being part of the Wine Trade in Vancouver, I’ve learned quite a bit about Portuguese wines and I’ve tried to pass that info along to you in my posts.  Tasting wines are important, but also important is to talk with Portuguese wine makers and people in the Portuguese Wine Trade.  The Wines of Portugal were in Vancouver recently, and I…

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…

As part of my wine tasting activities at the Vancouver Playhouse International Wine Festival, I interviewed several winery principals.  For this first video I talk with Ms. Lucia Romero from El Porvenir de los Andes, from the Salta region of Argentina.  This region is well known for their Torrontes wines.  Enjoy!