Category: VQA

Finally, the sunny, warm weather is with us here in BC. Winter was dreadful, but now we can get out on the patio and enjoy some freshly vinified BC white wine. The 2016 harvest was very good in BC and produced wines with good flavour character and acidity. Recently I attended the Bloom BC VQA Spring Release Tasting and tasted…

Winemakers, just like butchers, bakers, and astrophysicists, have to go to school, in order to learn how things work, why they work that way, and best practices.  In Canada there are colleges that offer wine making training; one such place is Niagara College, located by Niagara-on-the-Lake in Ontario.  I was fortunate to visit the college to review one of their…

I will be volunteering at the 4th Annual Shine a Light Kidney Gala which takes place on March 3rd, 2016 at The Fairmont Vancouver Hotel.  This event raises awareness of kidney disease for the work and mission of The Kidney Foundation of Canada and the Canadian Society of Nephrology. Last year’s Gala, hosted and covered by CTV, was successful thanks…

Harry McWatters is a leader in the British Columbia wine industry for the past 40+ years. In 1980, he founded BC’s first estate winery, Sumac Ridge Estate Winery, and later started See Ya Later Ranch Estate Winery in 1995.  He purchased and planted vines on his Sundial Vineyard on Black Sage Road in 1993. With Sumac Ridge Harry was able to…

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…

For those of you who have not heard of the Harper’s Trail winery, they made news across BC as they started the first winery in the Kamloops area.  Not knowing if the vines would last the winter, they tried and were successful.  The weather in Kamloops for the summer and fall is sunny and warm; perfect conditions for grape growing. …

Have you ever felt like you have a daunting task, but persevere with the hope you will discover a few gold nuggets? I’m sure many BC prospectors felt this as they searched for gold in Barkerville and further north. This is also how I feel when I attend the Colour BC VQA tastings. There are so many BC VQA wines…

Bartier Scholefield‘s slogan is “Wine is Narrative“, which I agree it is, at least maybe for boutique wineries, sourcing grapes from a small region.  In my previous article, BC Has a Wine Story, I talked about the story that wine tells through the terroir that the vines were planted and the grapes ripened. Bartier Scholefield’s story comes from the Summerland…

The British Columbia Wine Institute welcomed me and a room full of other revelers to the “BC Paired: Indulge Your Senses!” during the Vancouver International Wine Festival. This event was a celebration of BC wines, red, white, sparkling and fortified, paired together with locally sourced BC ingredients prepared to complement the wines. 23 wineries were present to show off their wonderful range…

I use WordPress for MyWinePal.com and MyWinePal.wordpress.com.  Yes I have 2 blogs.  Sometimes I think it is double the effort, but other times I think that I like the separation of the two blogs.  In MyWinePal.com I post my longer articles and wine reviews, while MyWinePal.wordpress.com concentrates more on announcing food and wine events, as well as writing shorter articles…