Enjoy Wine, Food, and Travel with Karl MyWinePal
Every Fall we have the Colours Fall Release of BC VQA wines. Over the last year, what changes has there been to our vineyards, grape varieties, and the number of wineries? Comparing the tasting booklet from both years by the BC Wine Institute we know: there are 10 more wineries, and 299 more acres of vineyards. that Merlot, Pinot Noir,…
In early October, the Wines of BC issued a press release and noted “BC’s annual grape harvest has arrived amid cooler temperatures in mid-August and early September. With the long, moderate season, wineries are indicating nice flavour development, beautiful acidity and increased crop levels for an exciting 2018 vintage…Above average Growing Degree Days this spring in BC contributed to an…
Everyone knows about the Okanagan Valley as a wine region, and some may also know about the Similkameen which is on the southwestern edge of the Okanagan, but what about BC’s emerging wine regions, covering the Kootenays, Lillooet and Thompson Shuswap? I had a chance to go on a trip hosted by the Wines of BC to visit Lillooet and…
My journey is complete. After many emails, printing of tasting note sheets, receiving deliveries of BC Pinot Noir, writing tasting notes, locating BC Pinot Noir vineyards, correlating BC Pinot Noir wines with soil and with latitude using a GIS, and making a cool interactive BC Pinot Noir map is complete. But maybe it is also the start of a new…
“It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.” Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness This spring, I took my first step in my journey with the thought that maybe the different soil types in BC affect the aromas and flavours of Pinot Noir grapes. How to…
It has been a long voyage of discovery for me to find out what type of relationship Riesling grapes have with the soils of BC, or as some may say the terroir of the area. As mentioned in previous articles, it started with the idea, then contacting all BC wineries that produce a Riesling wine, to ask for a sample…
“The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step”. Lao Tzu This spring, I took my first step, with the thought that maybe the different soil types in BC affect the aromas and flavours of our grapes. How to test that thought? There are so many different varieties of grapes. I settled upon testing this theory with Riesling. It…
The hard part of the BC Riesling Review is done. I tasted through 35 wines over a period of 3 months. I can say that it has been a very interesting experience. Below are the notes. I tasted each wine two times. The first time was as soon as I poured the wine in my glass. The second time was…
With summer holidays and then the extended power outage due to the wind storm this past weekend, I have finally finished tasting through all the 2013-14 vintages of BC Riesling that I received from BC wineries. Thank you all. My next step is to enter all my tasting notes into a database. The database will be broken down by primary…
I am a lover of Riesling. It allows the wine maker to produce wine in many styles, from bone dry, to a lusciously sweet ice wine. While we here in BC have talked about making very good aromatic white wines, I have not yet seen a systematic analysis of our aromatic grapes, Riesling in particular, and how the wines differ…
