Enjoy Wine, Food, and Travel with Karl MyWinePal
The wines of BC and the rest of the world, excluding the USA, were the last of the wines I tasted at the International Festival Tasting Room during VanWineFest 2025. Read through my wine tasting notes below and if you find some wines that spark your interest, check out your local BC Liquor store, some private wine shops,…
While I was Grinch-like in awarding 5 stars to only three wines I tasted in 2024, I was more Oprah-like with the 4.5-5 -star wines. Plus, there are many quality wines, so it should not be a surprise. This year there were 13 BC wines, 18 Italian wines, 4 French wines, 2 Californian wines, and 4 wines from New Zealand…
71 Italian wineries presented their wines at VanWineFest 2024. With each winery pouring 5 different wines, we had 355 wines to sip and savour in the International Festival Tasting Room. I spent my Thursday tasting white and sparkling wines and Friday tasting the red wines. In this article, I cover my favourite white and sparkling wines. In some cases, there…
One of the historical wineries in Italy is Marchesi di Barolo and how they elevated the Nebbiolo grape to the status it now receives around the world. Read about their history and the wines that they will be pouring at the VanWineFest 2024 below. The information below comes from the winery. About Marchesi di Barolo Named after our own town,…
This week we had our first Trade tasting of new wines or new vintages of wines, plus spirits with the IVSA. I decided to concentrate on white and sparkling wines for this event, as I had a shorter time to taste that day. Below are some of the wines that I enjoyed and hope you will find them soon, if…
It’s been two years since we last tasted wines from around the world at the Vancouver International Wine Festival. During COVID grapevines produced grapes and wine was made but may have been a little harder than normal to get workers in the vineyard and in the winery. Below are my Old World wine selections. Most of the vintages are 2020…
Grape harvest time is special. There is the beauty of the ripe grapes and the leaves of the vines starting to change colours and the sights, sounds and smells of the grapes as they are sorted, crushed, and pumped to vat or barrel. And the anticipation of making great wine from the grapes that the winery spent countless months and…
Moon Curser Vineyards is a boutique, family-owned winery on the East Bench of Osoyoos. The Moon Curser name pays tribute to the gold smuggling history of Osoyoos (Is there gold still to be found?). During the gold rush, it was the dark of night that brought commotion to the area. Moon Curser Vineyards has the benefit of a very warm…
Did you know that Italy has more than 500 DOCs, more than 2000 Italian grape varieties, and covers nearly 700,000 hectares of vineyards? That dwarfs BC and all of Canada’s production and grape variety. Recently Wine Meridian, a wine magazine from Italy brought fifteen wineries to Canada to show us about lesser known, smaller wineries that are in the more…
February 20, 2016 is the first day for the Vancouver International Wine Festival this year. We are just about a month away. Did you know that the tickets for events are open to the public? Many events are sold out already, but if you buy sooner rather than later, you still have a chance at other events. One event that…
