MyWinePal

This October, I spent two weeks touring Chile, which of course included visiting several wineries. I had made appointments ahead of time with the winemakers so that I could go through their wines with them, as they would be the best knowledge of their wines. The Chilean people are very hospitable. My meetings with the wineries, were more than just…

Oregon has been touted as having the best pinot noir outside of Burgundy. MyWinePal went to Burgundy last fall, and now visited Oregon to see how the two wine regions compare. In Oregon, most of my time was spent around the McMinnville, Dundee and Salem areas. The landscape was quite varied, with some flatter sloped agricultural areas, but most of…

It was a beautiful, sunny day for the New Zealand Wine Fair in Vancouver. The event was held at the new Vancouver Trade and Convention Centre. There were 33 different wineries present at this year’s event, and they covered all areas from both the north and south island. Many of the wineries present do not have representation in Canada, but…

In the first part of my notes on the 31st Vancouver Playhouse International Wine Festival I talked about BC wines as this was the featured region. But there was more than just BC wines at the festival. I will spend some time talking about the International wines that I was able to try. Some of the international winery tables I…

The 31st Vancouver Playhouse International Wine Festival has now come and gone. I attended the “Get Uncorked” kick off to the Festival, went to a Burgundy tasting (pinot noir, chardonnay and gamay), a Pinot tasting (all types of pinot both red and white), a Vinho Verde (Portuguese wine) tasting, plus tasted wines in the big tasting room three times. I…

Most of you probably know little about Portuguese wine other than the bottles of the slightly sweet, sparkly Mateus that were so prevalent in Canada 30 years ago. But then you moved on to the classical French varietals, like Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon. Well I would like to suggest you take a chance on both white and red wines from…

Burgundy produces arguably the the most characterful wines in the world. For those who don’t know, Burgundy is famous primarily for Pinot Noir and for Chardonnay, but also is known for Gamay (which makes Nouveau Boujoulais). The region is divided into five major areas: Côte d’Or (divided into Côte de Beaune and Côte de Nuits), Chablis, Côte Chalonnaise, the Maconnais…

Alsace, located in eastern France, has a long history of wine making. The Rhine River flows through the Alsace region and the wine trade from the 12th to the 16th century was almost monopolized by Strasbourg and Cologne as the Mediterranean region was controlled by the Arabian people who shut off the wine trade by controlling access to the Straits…

Saturday, I took the TGV high speed train to Reims (pronounced “Rance”) to see some of the famous champagne houses in the region. The scenery was a blur at 200+ km/hr on the TGV. It was quite foggy on route to Reims as well as started to rain. I did not think that this would be a very good day…

In April 2008, MyWinePal was able to spend almost a week touring Sonoma and Napa Valleys. The weather was unusually warm; almost 20 degrees Farenheit above the normal temperature. Workers were in the fields actively managing the trellising. Some of the wineries,and brief notes on the wineries follow. The first visits were at J Vineyards and Rodney Strong in Healdsburg….