Category: pinot noir

Buying French wine can be daunting.  The name of the grape is not seen on the bottle.  There could be the name of the village or vineyard on the bottle.  None of which probably helps many people here in Canada.  But with perseverance and a bit of knowledge you can learn a bit about a wine region, such as the…

Where is the Okanagan Falls Region? The Okanagan Falls region reaches from the shores of Skaha Lake to the tip of Vaseux Lake, north to south. It is sandwiched between Penticton, Summerland and Oliver, the Okanagan Falls area is famed for some of Canada’s top wine production with the highest quality wines in the valley. It is the narrowest part…

Last year I was trying to answer the question “Are there any unique aromas and flavours in Riesling grown from a particular soil type in BC?”  Through donated bottles by BC wineries, I tasted through 35 bottles of BC Riesling, attaching my tasting notes to the geographic location of the vineyard where the grapes were sourced, and then overlaid this…

We all need air to breathe, don’t you agree? Even wines can benefit from breathing.  I was reminded this twice over the last few days.  One was at a restaurant, where I ordered a bottle of red wine that I’ve tasted before and rated it very highly. When I tried it in the restaurant, I thought it may be corked…

SpierHead Winery is really getting in deep with Pinot Noir.  According to SpierHead Winery, the Kelowna area is emerging as one of the most suitable regions in BC for Pinot Noir.  They planted Dijon clones 115, 667, 777 and 828, as well as the Pommard clone in their vineyard.  They also recently planted 1/2 acre each of the California heritage…

In my previous article on two sub $20 bottles of Cabernet Merlot blends from Mission Hill, I introduced you to the “intro” level of their wines, 5 Vineyards, and an alternate label, Ganton & Larsen Prospect Winery.  I noted that there are higher level tiers to Mission Hill’s wines.  Moving up one level we have the “Reserve” Series.  I was…

In 2015, I only rated 7 wines with 5 stars.  There were many wines that came close to my idea of perfection in a glass, and many of these I gave 4.5 stars.  These are amazing wines still and I highly recommend purchasing any of them.  There are 77 wines that I classified as 4.5 stars.  All of these wines…

This is the second chance that I have had to taste and write about the wines from Serendipity Winery, in the Naramata Bench.  My previous review of Serendipity Winery’s wines is at this link.  The winery is managed and owned by Judy Kingston and her daughter Katie O’Kell.  They have 2 winery dogs, Toby and Whiskey, to greet you if…

Natural wine is a hot topic in the wine world. Maybe you have not heard of it. There is some range of what is a “Natural” wine. It could fall into the organic, or biodynamic, or sustainable categories for some people.  During this seminar at Cornucopia, we had DJ Kearney, wine educator, writing and judge, give her perspective on Natural…

It is always a special time when a wine agency opens their portfolio of wines for you to taste, review, and recommend.  This past week I had a chance to try the wines from Select Wines’ annual portfolio tasting.  With any tasting of this magnitude there will always be more wines than time to taste them.  I try my best…