Category: VQA

For my Ontario Chardonnay Review, Cave Spring Vineyard sent me four bottles of their various Chardonnay wines.  In my previous article I reviewed two of the wines and I am now reviewing the remaining two wines.  This winery is one of the pioneers in the area, having been around for four decades.  They are certified by Sustainable Winegrowing Ontario and…

We are back to estate grown BC grapes for the 2025 vintage.  It was a great year for our wine grapes, producing a bumper crop for all vineyards.  I have two white wines from Okanagan’s Hester Creek Estate Winery; their Hester Creek Estate Winery Character White 2025, a white blend containing Gewürztraminer, Viognier, and Pinot Gris, and Hester Creek Estate…

My next set of Ontario Chardonnay wines to review comes from Cave Spring Vineyard.  This winery is one of the pioneers in the area, having been around for four decades.  They are certified by Sustainable Winegrowing Ontario and their wines are also vegan-friendly.  The two wines I received to review are Cave Spring Vineyard Chardonnay 2024 (coming from a selection…

Easter is this weekend and you are wondering what wines to pair with your holiday meal.  I would like to suggest that a rosé wine pairs well with everything.  Rosé wines typically have high acidity and nice red fruit flavours that are very complimentary for many dishes.  I also recommend an aromatic white wine.  These wines usually have higher acidity…

Today starts my unveiling of Ontario Chardonnay; a terroir-driven exploration of elegance and expression.  Chardonnay has long been a cornerstone of Ontario’s viticultural identity, offering a compelling canvas for terroir to shine.  Ontario’s cool-climate Chardonnay reveals a spectrum of styles, from taut and mineral-driven to richly textured and barrel-aged.  Here is an unoaked and an unoaked Chardonnay from two different wineries:  Featherstone Estate Winery Unoaked…

Winemaking in the past has been dominated by men around the world, but times are changing.  British Columbia is a great example.  If you’ve ever cracked open a bottle of BC wine, there is a high probability that it was made by a female winemaker and/or the winery is female owned. Estimates suggest about 20% of lead winemakers in the…

Six months ago, in August 2025, I tasted BC’s Hester Creek Estate Vineyard Garland 2022 and The Judge 2022 Bordeaux-style red blends.  These are their top tier Origin wines.  Both wines were made in the epic year of 2022 when weather conditions and the harvest was perfect.  At that time I first tasted these wines, both tied in my wine…

Chardonnay wines can vary in style and in intensity.  Many people avoid Chardonnay as they were exposed to heavily oaked versions in the past.  But there are many unoaked Chardonnay that you can enjoy.  I received this bottle from the south Okanagan’s Gold Hill Winery of their Charisma Un-Oaked Chardonnay 2022 to review for you.  It has four years of…

The new Lunar New Year of the Fire Horse starts on February 17, 2026.  In a previous article on mywinepal.com, I listed wines that have a horse theme.  One of the wines I listed was BC’s Haywire Winery Lunar Red 2022.  I received a bottle of this wine to review and from my tasting notes, I think it should pair…

It is always a treat at a winemaker’s dinner to be able to talk with the winemaker who gives us some insight into how the wines we are drinking together were made and any challenges they encountered.  I recently attended a winemaker dinner at Provence Marinaside, featuring Jessica Otting from the Niagara region’s Tawse Winery, who gave us those insights. …