Category: pinot noir

Introducing Harper’s Trail Harper’s Trail, named for the cattle drive trail of pioneer rancher Thaddeus Harper, is the first estate winery from Kamloops. Tucked into the city outskirts on the bank of the South Thompson River, Ed and Vicki Collett’s vineyard sits among rolling hills of sage and grass, home to bighorn sheep, bears, and myriad birds. The backdrop of limestone, hoodoos,…

From my first article posing the question, “what unique aromas and flavours may be characterized by BC’s Pinot Noir based on soil type“, I’ve led you through my process of tasting the wines, adding the tasting notes to a computerized GIS map, overlaid the tasting notes vineyard locations to a soil map of BC, and finally aggregating the flavours and…

What is OKANAGAN CRUSH PAD? Okanagan Crush Pad is a winery located in Summerland BC, which is home to our flagship wines Haywire and Narrative, plus wines made for custom crush clients. The licensed winery has been designed to facilitate production of multiple small lots of wine from many different sources, and the management of Okanagan Crush Pad welcomes clients seeking to use…

The first modern winery on Vancouver Island is Vigneti Zanatta which is located 10 minutes by car southwest of downtown Duncan.  I think what sets them apart from the other wineries on Vancouver Island is their specialization on making sparkling wines. The winery was named Vigneti Zanatta after the Italian family who owned the farm since the 1950s, and still do through…

Since 2011, Okanagan Crush Pad  (OCP) winery in Summerland offered the Okanagan Wine Campus, where the BC Sommelier of the Year has the opportunity to create their own wine label at the OCP facility.  They are part of the whole wine making process, starting with grape selecting, wine making, blending, labeling, marketing and bottling their wines.  $5000 of the “small lot”…

BC’s Pinot Noirs do show unique aromas and flavours according to soil type, as I have found through my GIS analysis of soil type.  But we know that our climate, although considered cool, does show variation from the warmer regions of the South Okanagan as we move northward to Lake Country for example.  A second question I posed besides the…

With the Fall harvest safely in and the rains now freely flowing, it is time to celebrate the bounty of wines that are coming out this Fall.  Burrowing Owl has released their latest flight of wines to the public, covering mainly red wines from the 2013 vintage and one white wine, a Chardonnay, from the 2014 vintage.  I received a…

“It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.” Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness This spring, I took my first step in my journey with the thought that maybe the different soil types in BC affect the aromas and flavours of Pinot Noir grapes.  How to…

From my initial analysis of soil type with the vineyards associated with my BC Pinot Noir tasting notes using a Geographic Information System, I can see some regional clusters in BC.  I also see some commonality between the most common Pinot Noir vineyard soil types and the most common Riesling vineyard soil types that I analyzed last year from my BC Riesling Review . Soil…

A wine agent’s portfolio tasting typically gives you the chance to try both listed as well as spec wines; wines that may only show up in specialty wine shops or restaurants, in limited quantities.  I have been to Mark Anthony Wine and Spirits‘ portfolio tasting now for a few years, and I am always very impressed by the wineries that…