Enjoy Wine, Food, and Travel with Karl MyWinePal
My last stop on my weekend trip to Lillooet and Kamloops was Monte Creek Winery. I’ve followed along, tasted their wines, and wrote about them since they opened. And as luck would have it, on this visit, they were celebrating their 10-year anniversary of opening the tasting room. People have changed over time, and they planted an additional vineyard, Lion’s…
Gambero Rosso is Italy’s leading authority on food, wine, and culinary culture, renowned for its annual Vini d’Italia guide, which evaluates over 45,000 wines to identify the country’s finest. The prestigious Tre Bicchieri (Three Glasses) award is reserved for fewer than 1% of these wines, marking them as exceptional examples of Italian winemaking. To celebrate and promote these top-tier wines,…
Top Drop Canada is a premier wine festival held annually in Vancouver, showcasing a curated selection of terroir-driven wines from around the globe. The event brings together over 40 international producers, including renowned estates from regions such as Piedmont, Champagne, and the Okanagan Valley. 50+ wineries in total. None from the USA this year. Attendees have the unique opportunity to…
Easter dinner is a time for togetherness and tradition, often centred around comforting dishes like roast turkey, baked ham, or perhaps even baked salmon. No matter what ends up on your plate, choosing the right wine can elevate the meal from simply delicious to truly memorable. Below are some wine pairings, including suggestions from our local BC wineries, that will…
When you pick up a bottle of Champagne or sparkling wine, you may notice that some have a vintage year on the label, while others do not. The presence or absence of a vintage date can have a significant impact on the wine inside. But what exactly does it mean, and how does it affect the taste, aging potential, and…
From my recent tastings of white and sparkling wines from west coast USA during VanWineFest 2025, a few key trends emerge. Chardonnay remains a dominant varietal, showcasing a range of styles from richer, rounder textures with lower acidity in Paso Robles to fresher, more mineral-driven expressions from Oregon’s Willamette Valley. There is a clear emphasis on texture and mouthfeel, with…
We all love to get good value from our purchases, especially in wine when the quality of the wine exceeds bottle price. In this VanWineFest 2025 seminar, “Value & Variety, West Coast Style“, we were introduced to 10 different wineries along the USA west coast. This trio of states offer every climate, terroir, grape, and wine style to tempt wine…
VanWineFest 2025 starts next week and one of the attractions of the event is attending the International Festival Tasting Room where there will be 121 wineries from 15 countries, with winery principals pouring and discussing their wines. Each year there is a different theme country or region. This year it is the United States; specifically California, Oregon, and Washington states. …
Interest in enjoying sparkling wine on a regular basis has been increasing since people started buying prosecco. But there is still Champagne, Cremant, Cava, Franciacorta, pet-nat, and generally termed sparkling wines from the New World. How did sparkling wines capture Canadians’ interest in 2024? I created graphs for various sparkling wine styles using Google Trends. Let’s get into the graphs. …
What is fool’s gold? It is the nickname for a mineral called pyrite that looks like gold, but is harder and does not have much value. I wondered about the naming of the Fool’s Gold Vineyard in the north Oliver area of the Okanagan as there is no fool’s gold. The soil is sandy clay loam soil containing many rocks…
Video Guide Uncorks the Story of British Columbia Wines. Buy Now.
