Enjoy Wine, Food, and Travel with Karl MyWinePal
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…
Naramata Bench in the Okanagan Valley (Image courtesy https://winebc.smugmug.com/Other/Okanagan-Valley/) We all can agree that BC’s Okanagan Valley is a special place. Some of the things noted by winebc.org about the Okanagan Valley is “The Okanagan Valley lies in a rain shadow, between the Coastal and Monashee mountain ranges. This results in very low annual average rainfall. The area between Oliver…
Did you know that Upper Bench Estate Winery in Penticton, BC also makes their own cheese? A match made for any wine lover. I knew, but hadn’t had the chance to try their cheese together with their wines. I was fortunate to have them send me some of their King Cole Blue cheese, which I dutifully tried with each one…
Who is Christa-Lee McWatters-Bond from Evolve Cellars? From the Evolve Cellars website, “Christa-Lee has been part of the BC wine industry since birth. Growing up as the daughter of BC wine ambassador Harry McWatters instilled in her a true appreciation for and love of wine – which included her making wine when she was 9 years old (not for public consumption, of course). She…
Who is Pedro Parra? A French-educated Chilean, who looks at the definition of terroir through the use of modern scientific techniques. The Old World has many hundreds of years to experiment, but in the New World, we do not have luxury. From my interview at the Vancouver International Wine Festival, find out how Pedro determines terroir and the best grapes to…
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…
Canada is a big country, with our wine grape growing areas on the limit of possibility, but at the edges of possibility is where you can make exciting wines, I’ve been told. In the Festival Tasting Room I spent many hours tasting wines from BC, Ontario, and Nova Scotia, and speaking with the winery principals in attendance. Below are the…
Did you know that there are 671 wineries in Canada, as of Feb 2017? There are 276 wineries in BC. There is grape wine being produced in BC, Ontario, Quebec, and Nova Scotia. As part of the Vancouver International Wine Festival, wineries from across Canada were invited to attend, and to celebrate our 150th birthday as a country. Bringing together…
In Part 1 of this article, I covered the comments and insights of wine makers and hands-on owners in BC, Ontario, and Germany on the heartbreak and backache from growing and making wine from the Riesling and Pinot Noir grapes. In Part 2, I have my tasting notes on the wines from these winery principals. Our Featured Wines Haywire Narrative…
In this seminar at the Vancouver International Wine Festival we had a panel of distinguished wine makers and hands-on owners share their stories and insights on Riesling and Pinot Noir, two notorious cool-climate grapes famed for breaking backs in the vineyard and hearts in the winery. These individuals talked about the challenges in the Okanagan Valley, Niagara Peninsula, and Mosel…
Video Guide Uncorks the Story of British Columbia Wines. Buy Now.
