Category: pinot noir

California and Argentina.  What does this US State and South American country have in common?  Answer: Paul Hobbs.  Through my interview with Paul, I learned about his love of wine and interest in making interesting wines from interesting regions around the world.  Having a northern hemisphere and a southern hemisphere harvest each year gives Paul the chance to refine his…

If you have not heard about Paul Hobbs, or tried any of his wines, this interview help you learn about a fascinating person, making top quality wines in California, and also around the world.  Paul is a very engaging person with a casual style, arriving in the tasting room, set up inside Market by Jean-Georges, at the Shangri-La here in…

Are you tired of drinking Cabernet Sauvignon or Chardonnay from around the world?  Are you excited by trying a wine from a grape that you have never heard of before?  If you said YES, then you should be trying the wines from Portugal.  It has over 250 different indigenous grape varieties and produces some very flavourful wines.  Plus the wines…

New Zealand is a small country, but packs a big punch in the wine world with their crisp, herbal, and citrusy Sauvignon Blancs, and more recently with their Pinot Noirs.  The Pinot Noir grape has been said to be the best grape to demonstrate terroir, with New Zealand the terroir is quite varied from the North to the South Island,…

With the daylight hours getting longer, and weather getting warmer, we are all thinking about getting outside, having a bbq or just enjoying sitting on our patios, sipping a glass of wine and chatting with family or friends.  But what to drink?  I received two bottles of wine from BC’s Spierhead Winery recently that would fit the bill; a Pinot…

Where in Vancouver can you taste wines from 114 different wineries across California?  At the California Wine Fair.  The 2014 Fair was last week and it did not disappoint, with sparkling, still and dessert wines for us to savour. And as an added benefit, proceeds to this event went to support the Arts Club Theatre, which is celebrating it’s 50th…

Easter is a big holiday for many of us, where we get together with family and enjoy a big dinner. Easter is also leading us into Spring. Flowers are already blooming here in Vancouver, and I’m sure it will come soon in the rest of Canada.  Below are a few suggestions that I posted a few years ago.  As I…

Since Bartier Scholefield started producing their wines in 2011, in the Okanagan, BC, I have been fortunate to try them and write about them for you.  They have been keeping to their “Wine As Narrative“, telling us a story about the terroir, from where it was produced.  Their wines are produced as much without wine maker intervention, so that you…

While the big draw for many people to the Vancouver International Wine Festival this year was sparkling wine, and French Champagne, specifically, there were many other wonderful wines to sample.  For this article, since France was the Theme Country, I would like to concentrate on their wines, sans Champagne.  My Champagne article is here. Every region in France is known…

You may be a Champagne lover like me, but have you ever considered how the bubble gets in the bottle?  Why some bubbles are small and creamy, while others are much larger and dissapate faster?  It all depends on how Champagne is made. First off, Champagne is a sparkling wine that is made in the Champagne region of France.  The…