Category: Orange Wine

You may not have heard of Jean-Claude Mas but his family began growing grapes in the south of France in 1892.  Jean-Claude gained experience in the wine business and education around the world, coming back to the family business when he inherited his father’s vineyards in Pézénas of 35 hectares.  In 2000 he created Les Domaines Paul Mas from these…

Have you heard of “orange” wine?  It is sometimes called “natural” wine and basically, it is a wine made from white grapes, like orange muscat or Pinot Gris, and is left with the skins intact, much like is done for red grapes, to get red wine.  But with white grapes, the skins can impart an orange colour, more texture and…

Last week I attended the Swirl Around BC wines event seminar, which was followed by wine tastings from a variety of BC wineries.  I decided to check on sparkling, rosé, and white wines leading up to the Holiday season.  Here are a few wines I thought were quite good and you may enjoy.  Remember with the winter cold snap affecting…

You may be wondering what happened to me as i typically post 3-4 wine articles a week.  I am in the Niagara region in southern Ontario to celebrate my birthday and to visit some wineries and taste their wines.  I have copious notes on the wines and probably tasted over 60 wines covering eight different wineries.  It will take me…

It has been four years since I last attended Taste Washington in Seattle.  COVID shut down the event, but now Taste Washington is back and maybe even better.  This is the event where you can taste the wide variety of wines made across Washington state, without having to drive yourself.  Winery focus seems to have changed.  During my tasting time,…

Have you ever tried an “orange wine” before?  An orange wine is a wine made with white grapes that have extended skin contact like is done for red grapes to extract colour and tannins from those grapes.  While white grape skin does not have much colour to extract, you do get some orange colour plus tannins from the skins.  At…

I have two interesting finesse wines from Gerard Bertrand from the sunny south of France.  Gerard Bertrand’s Orange Gold 2020 is an organic wine made with a blend of Chardonnay, Grenache Blanc, Viognier, Marsanne, Mauzac, Muscat, and Clairette with skin contact.  The other wine is the Gerard Bertrand An 806 AOP Corbieres 2017 a Grenache, Syrah, Mourvedre red blend.  One…

During my vacation on the Sunshine Coast, I enjoyed a very nice dinner at Seasider Bistro in Powell River.  I had their Bouillabaisse and paired it with a glass of Kettle Valley Winery Pinot Gris 2019.  The pairing was very nice, but the wine made me wonder how to describe it. Pinot Gris grapes can take on a pinkish hue when…

This past year I tasted a tremendous number of wines from around the world, but some wines really resonated with me.  It may have been the great balance of fruit, sugar, acidity for a white wine, or the fruit, tannins and minerality in a red wine, or something else. Something that made the wine stand above the other wines.  Could…

40 Knots Vineyard & Estate Winery is a short sailing trip if you want from Vancouver to Comox on Vancouver Island.  Once there you can meet Layne Robert Craig and Brenda Hetman, a husband and wife couple, who have started this winery, and done so with very specific goals.  They want to craft wines following biodynamic farming methods.  They do…