Tag: Upper Bench Estate Winery

The last drops of BC Pinot Noir have crossed my lips, and their wine story has passed to my fingers then notes on paper, and finally this digital review for you.  It has been quite an interesting experience to try all these BC Pinot Noirs, noting all the different flavours and aromas. Of course there are common flavours and aromas, but…

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…

I’ve been tasting Upper Bench Estate Winery‘s wines for the past few years and see the quality in the bottle.  The winery, located just outside of Penticton, is owned by wine maker, Gavin Miller, who has been around for several years in the Okanagan making wines for Poplar Grove and Painted Rock, and his wife Shana Miller a cheese maker,…

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…

Summer is nearly upon us, but the weather feels like it is already here.  Time to spend time on the patio with family and friends. And of course some nice chilled bottles of BC white wine.  Last week I attended the latest BLOOM BC VQA Spring Release Tasting, and tasted the newest BC white wines, and I have a few…

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…