Category: Sustainability

This seminar, Challenge of the Red Titans, was fun.  It was held Friday afternoon and we had spent the week preceding with serious discussions of Italian wines.  We deserved a dash of fun, but the seminar still provided us with valuable information about Italian red wines.  We learned a bit about how the big Italian blockbuster wineries are reshaping themselves…

Wineries change hands over time, but you do not often hear of a winery with a vineyard going from monks to lay people.  Monte del Frà is one of those wineries and we are lucky to have the winery attending VanWineFest 2024.  Their wines are in our market already, but you can get a chance to speak with a winery…

I have been watching and tasting Yalumba‘s organic tier of wines for a few years.  This year, I noticed “GEN” on the label. From the 2022 vintage, all Yalumba GEN wines will be Sustainable Winegrowing Australia (SWA) certified. Yalumba GEN is 100% certified organic (by Australian Certified Organic) meaning they use no chemical fertilizers, pesticides or herbicides in their vineyard…

Beaufort Vineyard & Estate Winery is a small family-run winery (by Sylie Senay and Rolland Tanguay and their son, Alex Guertin) in Courtney – Comox on Vancouver Island.  I had not heard of the winery, but as I was nearby I thought I would check-in. The winery is certified organic and also follows regenerative and sustainable agriculture.  They grow 10…

When I am on vacation, if there is a winery nearby, I will usually drop by.  In this case, 40 Knots Winery is in Comox, just 30 minutes away from Campbell River, so I popped in to say hi to Brenda Hetman-Craig, Owner of 40 Knots, and to sample some of her wines on their patio.  This was my first…

Congratulations to Blue Grouse Estate Winery for making wines and helping out charities for their 10 years of being in business.  It takes a lot of work.  In case you haven’t tasted Blue Grouse wines or visited them on Vancouver Island, here is a press release for you.  Cin cin. ~~~ This summer the team at Blue Grouse Estate Winery…

I had an educational and fun tasting experience at the 2022 Northwest Wine Expedition Masterclass: Sustainability. We had Barbara Philip MW host the event with Alex Sokol Blosser, co-owner and winemaker, from Sokol Blosser Winery from Oregon, and Cam Matches, Sr Director of Sales, from Aquilini Beverage Group (Vancouver) from Washington to give us information about each state as it…

Do you know how wine producers in Champagne, France are working to combat climate change and be more sustainable? See below for some key highlights and initiatives from the region: Champagne was the first wine-growing region in the world to implement a carbon footprint assessment and identify the main sources of emissions. Since the region’s carbon footprint plan was enacted…

As part of Earth Day, I received this press release from Tightrope Winery & Vineyard that they are the first certified member of Sustainable Winegrowing BC.  Congratulations.  I hope that many more BC wineries are able to be certified as well.  We only have one earth.  Here is their press release. ~~~ TIGHTROPE WINERY … a sustainable approach to wine…