Enjoy Wine, Food, and Travel with Karl MyWinePal
What flavours and aromas can be attributed to the Pinot Noir grape, what are not? The next step in the BC Pinot Noir Review is to build a database that contains the aromas and flavours I detected in each wine through the tasting notes, but I need to separate out the aromas and flavours that are not from the Pinot Noir grape. What…
Since I published my initial article, How Does BC Pinot Noir Express Terroir?, I have been receiving bottles of BC Pinot Noir from the 2013 and 2014 vintages, with a few from 2012. The wineries who has graciously provided me with their wines for this study are: Thornhaven Estates Sperling Vineyards Burrowing Owl Niche Wine Co. Volcanic Hills Seven Directions…
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…
BC is a cool climate region, but we all know as we travel from South Okanagan northward, the climate does cool down, and that there are preferences for growing warmer climate grapes further south, and more aromatic whites further north. From the BC Riesling Review, we see that Riesling is grown in the Okanagan Valley from the border up past…
“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…
What is Soil? Isn’t that a strange question? We walk on it, build things on it, grow vegetables in it, but what is soil? Soil is a very important part of the BC Riesling Review as this is where the nutrients for the Riesling grapes come from. I will try to keep this article interesting without being too dry and…
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 first met owners Chrstine Coletta and Steve Lornie in May 2011, when they were unveiling the concrete eggs they acquired to ferment a line of their wines at Okanagan Crush Pad (OCP). Jump forward 4 years, and you will see that they have followed a long, slightly windy road, that has brought them to where they are today; celebrating…
I am Terroir. I have been thinking about this for quite a while. The thought has percolated from the sun that has shone on my head, percolating through my brain, through my veins, mixing with the air that fills my lungs, and reaching my toes, where the roots have grown into the ground I stand. Terroir is not a new…
Did you hear last year that Painted Rock’s flagship Red Icon wine was listed in a Beijing restaurant at 5,280 RMB, the equivalent of CAD$900? Quite a statement for a small, but high quality BC winery. The latest red wine releases for Painted Rock just came out, and I was invited to sample them. I wondered how the 2011 vintage…
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