Tag: terroir

Part three of the Viticultural Bridges panel discussion, was to taste through primarily Riesling and Pinot Noir wines from BC and Alsace, along with a few Pinot Gris wines.  Riesling and Pinot Noir are well-known to present their terroir through a wine’s aromas and flavours.  Some Background About Both Regions Alsace The region covers 15,500 hectares of vines along 120…

In BC we relatively quickly learned that cooler climate grapes, like Riesling, did better in the north Okanagan, and warmer climate grapes, like Syrah, did better in the south Okanagan.  Similarly cooler climate grape varieties in the Fraser Valley and Vancouver Island.  And more.  But we have had a few decades now to further refine these generalized grape growing regions…

Many of us are familiar with the wine regions of Bordeaux, Burgundy, Champagne, and the Rhone Valley, but there are many sub-regions, which have their own Appellation d’origine Contrôlée (AOC) that produce quality wines at reasonable prices.  Many of the wineries are family-run as well, with the vineyards and wineries being passed down through families.  I would like to present…

If you read my earlier article about 2 whites and a rose wine from Rust Wine Co, you would have seen the back label for these wine bottles.  They have very detailed information on the grape clone(s) used, the vineyard and its geographic location, the soil type(s) in the vineyard, picking date, how the must was fermented (e.g. stainless steel),…

What is meant by a “Cru” in wine?  The term “Cru” is most often used for the French classification system, but the “Cru” concept can apply to any vineyard region recognized for their superior wine quality. My last seminar during the Vancouver International Wine Festival was on the topic of “cru”.  What it is and how it is expressed.  We…

Andrew Jefford is an English journalist, radio presenter, poet, magazine editor, a wine writer for Decanter magazine and much more. He lives near Montpellier in France. Why am I telling you this?  Andrew lead our French Terroir Talk during this seminar at the Vancouver International Wine Festival.  If there was anyone with the background knowledge of wine and experience of…

In an earlier article, I wrote about the flight of wines that I sampled with Bernard Duseigneur from his Chateauneuf-du-Pape vineyards.  Before we started to taste his wines together, I asked Bernard a few questions about how he grew into running a winery and his philosophies on how to manage vineyards and produce his wines.  I very much enjoyed hearing…

Who is Pedro Parra? A French-educated Chilean, who looks at the definition of terroir through the use of modern scientific techniques.  The Old World has many hundreds of years to experiment, but in the New World, we do not have luxury.  From my interview at the Vancouver International Wine Festival, find out how Pedro determines terroir and the best grapes to…

From my first article posing the question, “what unique aromas and flavours may be characterized by BC’s Pinot Noir based on soil type“, I’ve led you through my process of tasting the wines, adding the tasting notes to a computerized GIS map, overlaid the tasting notes vineyard locations to a soil map of BC, and finally aggregating the flavours and…

BC’s Pinot Noirs do show unique aromas and flavours according to soil type, as I have found through my GIS analysis of soil type.  But we know that our climate, although considered cool, does show variation from the warmer regions of the South Okanagan as we move northward to Lake Country for example.  A second question I posed besides the…