Category: Okanagan

The Fall BC VQA wines were released this past week, and as usual there are too many wines to taste and evaluate.  I usually like to try wines I have not had before, or sample from BC newest wineries.  If you have not come across the term VQA before, it stands for Vintners Quality Alliance, an association that was formed…

My second agent portfolio wine tasting for September is by Andrew Peller Ltd and Andrew Peller Import Agency.  Through both branches they show off our local BC wines, and the wines the represent from around the world.  It was a great sunny day, and they had their wines out for us on a patio.  Greeting me was Howard Soon, senior…

With summer holidays and then the extended power outage due to the wind storm this past weekend, I have finally finished tasting through all the 2013-14 vintages of BC Riesling that I received from BC wineries.  Thank you all.  My next step is to enter all my tasting notes into a database.  The database will be broken down by primary…

The Wines of British Columbia shone at The Judgment of BC Wine Tasting with Steven Spurrier and DJ Kearney today.  Steven Spurrier, the Consultant Editor at Decanter magazine, headed the famous Judgement of Paris in 1976 (which was made into the movie “Bottle Shock”).  The Judgement of Paris carried out two blind tasting comparisons: one of Chardonnays and another of…

I first met owners Chrstine Coletta and Steve Lornie in May 2011, when they were unveiling the concrete eggs they acquired to ferment a line of their wines at Okanagan Crush Pad (OCP). Jump forward 4 years, and you will see that they have followed a long, slightly windy road, that has brought them to where they are today; celebrating…

I first wrote this article in August 2015 when these 2 wines were first released during a walk about food & wine tasting, but then in the Fall I received a bottle of each wine again at home to re-taste. Since August, approximately 4 months have elapsed till this re-taste.  Both wines are under screw cap, so did the aromas…

Do you know where Lake Country is in BC?  Most people probably don’t, but it is just a short drive north of Kelowna.  One of the first wineries in BC, Gray Monk Estate Winery, was established in Lake Country. Other Lake Country wineries are 50th Parallel Estate, Arrowleaf Cellars, Intrigue Wines, and Ex Nihilo Vineyards. I was recently in the…

There are many methods or devices that people use to add oxygen to wine to soften it up and bring out the flavours and aromas of the wines.  It can be as simple as a decanter.  One of the devices which I heard about, called OptiWine, caught my interest.  I emailed the company optiwine.fr and asked them for one of…

Summer is here, it’s hot outside, and you need a cool drink on the patio.  More people are opening a botle of rose wine.  I received a bottle of SpierHead Pinot Noir Rose 2014 to taste.  Spierhead Winery is located in Kelowna on Spiers Road.  I have tasted many of their wines in the past and all have been good…

Sometimes you get some free time and can take a quick trip to the Okanagan.  That recently happened to me.  I wanted to visit at least 2 new wineries to me on this trip. I stayed in Kelowna, and checking the latest winery map, I saw that I have been to all in the area before, so I fixed my…