Enjoy Wine, Food, and Travel with Karl MyWinePal
Rosé wines are quite enjoyable in the summer while you are on your patio, enjoying a meal, but these wines fit in throughout the year with their red fruit flavours and bright acidity. In BC we are familiar with the rose wines made here and maybe with rosé wines from Provence, but we should also be considering Ontario rosé wines. …
Chaberton Estate Winery is the pioneer winery of the Fraser Valley. It grows 44 acres of estate-grown fruit with other parcels from across the Okanagan Valley. Claude and Inge Violet sold their winery and vineyard in France and moved to the Fraser Valley in the 1970’s. They experimented with different grape varieties to see which grew well here, selected the…
Red wines come in a spectrum of colours, from light and translucent to deep and opaque. The opacity of red wine is influenced by several factors, including grape variety, winemaking techniques, and the wine’s age. Young red wines typically display deep purple, ruby, or magenta hues that show their youthful character. They are usually quite opaque, with dense colour that…
For the past few articles, I’ve been writing about white, aromatic wines and sparkling wines for the summer. But there is more than bright, white, and sparkling wines for the summer. Think red wines for the BBQ. Today I have two red wines coming from the Okanagan’s Gold Hill Winery. They have an excellent reputation for big red wines. The…
I recently decided to review two French red wines that are blends. Blends have the benefit that two or more grape varieties together fill in the weakness of the other grape. For example, one grape may be fruity but lack tannins, while another grape has plenty of tannins but lacks much fruit character. Putting the two grape varieties together makes…
BC’s Township 7 Vineyards & Winery has two elegant red wines that should go well with our beautiful summer plans of a BBQ with family or friends. The wines I received to review are their Township 7 Vineyards & Winery Benchmark Series NBO 2022 and Township 7 Vineyards & Winery Benchmark Series Reserve 7 2022. Both wines are blends. The…
In this video interview, I spoke with Dimitri Matrat from Chateau Monlot about their red and white wines from Bordeaux. Château Monlot is an 8-hectare Saint-Émilion Grand Cru estate in Bordeaux, France, with a 400-year history, specializing in Merlot-driven wines. Listen and watch as Dimitri tells me about their wines, during the Vancouver International Wine Festival 2026.
A Tour de France in Your Glass Food and wine go together, especially in France. I attended the VanWineFest 2026 seminar, A Tour de France in Your Glass. With Moderator, Arnica Rowan, we took an oenological journey through seven classic French wine regions, each with their own unique characteristics and history. We crossed the country from Champagne to South West…
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…
In my earlier article, I reviewed some zero percent alcohol wine products from Jackson-Triggs. These wines were released in part due to a study which showed peoples’ preferences toward lower alcohol wine, or zero alcohol wines. In this article, I am reviewing three lower alcohol wines that Jackson-Triggs has produced. The wines are a non-vintage Cabernet Sauvignon, a Rosé, and…
Video Guide Uncorks the Story of British Columbia Wines. Buy Now.
