Tag: okanagan

With all our wonderful sunny, warm weather in the Vancouver lower mainland, and the spot prawn festival going on, some nice fruity BC white wines would be appropriate.  Two bottles I received to try from SpierHead Winery in Kelowna are their Pinot Gris and Riesling, both from the 2014 vintage. I’ve been tasting their wines quite regularly over the past…

Harry McWatters is a pioneer in the BC wine industry. He was the founder of BC’s first estate winery, Sumac Ridge Estate Winery in 1980 and founded See Ya Later Ranch Estate Winery in 1995.  He “retired” from Sumac Ridge Estate Winery in 2008, but that retirement still sees him very active, setting up the TIME Estate Winery producing wine…

Red, white, and rose wines, newly released from Okanagan Crush Pad reached my door for tasting.  Just in time for our spring and upcoming sunny summer weather.  The wines in question I received: Mike B Riesling Cabinett 2014 ($24.90) Haywire Gamay Noir Rose 2014 ($22.90) Haywire Pinot Noir 2013 ($24.90) Mike B Riesling Cabinett 2014 This wine is the result…

BC Pinot Noir is well known to some wine drinkers, but maybe not enough.  Probably most people think of Burgundy, or Oregon, or New Zealand. But we do produce some decent Pinots here in BC.  I recently received a bottle of Haywire Canyonview Pinot Noir 2012 to review.  It comes with a screw cap but that doesn’t mean it cannot…

Chinese Year of the Wooden Sheep According to chinesefortunecalendar.com, “…Sheep is one of Chinese favorite animals…2013 is Snake year; 2014 is Horse year. Both of them are in Fire group. 2015 is the last year of Fire cycle. Sheep is the animal on the farmland. Sheep is herbivore. It likes to eat grass. Therefore, in Chinese horoscopes, Sheep contains  Fire, Earth…

Wine grapes from two different vineyards plus native yeasts from each vineyard, produces two unique wines.  The winery in question is Haywire and the wines were made at Okanagan Crush Pad, in Summerland, BC.  The two wines I tasted from Haywire were: Haywire Switchback Vineyard Pinot Gris 2012 Haywire Canyonview Vineyard Chardonnay 2013 The Switchback Vineyard was the first vineyard…

Okanagan Crush Pad seems to be coming up with lots of small production wines, trying different things with different grapes, people, and inspiration.  This article is about two of their latest wines; Haywire Free Form and Samantha Syrah. About Haywire Free Form I was immediately intrigued when I read about this wine as the wine maker’s rolled the dice and…

SpierHead Wines in Kelowna has been producing some quality wines since the first vintage I tasted a few years ago.  At the 2014 National Wine Awards of Canada their 2012 Riesling, Chardonnay, and Pinot Noir Gentleman Farmer all won Silver Medals.  Their 2013 vintage wines have come out now, and I was lucky to receive a bottle of their Chardonnay,…

Okanagan Crush Pad keeps telling us that “Wine is Narrative“.  Every wine tells a story.  Some stories though are more interesting than others.  I think the more specific a place, the more the terroir can speak through the wine.  While there is nothing wrong with wines where the grapes are sourced from widely separated areas, maybe the story is harder…

Haywire Canyonview Chardonnay 2012 is quite different from any other Okanagan Chardonnay that I can remember tasting.  I had to nose it and taste it several times.  What was it that this wine in the glass was telling me?  The aromas straight from the bottle were quite wild and different.  But before I go on to provide you with my…