Enjoy Wine, Food, and Travel with Karl MyWinePal
With France being the theme country for the Vancouver International Wine Festival 2020, there were many more French wineries in attendance than in other years. And with that many more wines to taste. Which made me very happy. France has a great variety of red, white, rosé, and sparkling wines, from the range of noble grape varieties. I spent several…
This past year I tasted a tremendous number of wines from around the world, but some wines really resonated with me. It may have been the great balance of fruit, sugar, acidity for a white wine, or the fruit, tannins and minerality in a red wine, or something else. Something that made the wine stand above the other wines. Could…
As promised I have enclosed my tasting notes for the wines I sampled at the three International Cool Climate Chardonnay Celebration seminars. Many of these Chardonnay come from Ontario, but there are also wines from BC, California, Chile, France and more. My notes are not as detailed as notes I make from my structured tastings at home, but should give…
This was the second seminar in our three seminars on Day 1 of the International Cool Climate Chardonnay Celebration. This seminar’s goals according to the organizers are to answer the following, “Winegrowers love Chardonnay for its versatility. 10 winemakers will defend the stylistic decisions they make with each vintage, from homages to Old World classic styles to innovative interpretations that stretch the…
Sometimes the best wines around are the ones that are not generally listed in BC Liquor stores. They are known as Spec or Special Order wines. You can find these wines through some private wine shops, or you could order them through these shops, but you may need a minimum order size. I attended Select Wines‘ portfolio tasting and enjoyed…
It is always a special time when a wine agency opens their portfolio of wines for you to taste, review, and recommend. This past week I had a chance to try the wines from Select Wines’ annual portfolio tasting. With any tasting of this magnitude there will always be more wines than time to taste them. I try my best…
One of the definitions in The Free Dictionary of “portfolio” is “A group of investments held by an investor, investment company, or financial institution.” I thought that for a wine & spirits agency those bottles of wines and spirits are an investment to them. They search out and try to find value, and then share these gems with the public. …
