Tag: vanwinefest

This seminar, Challenge of the Red Titans, was fun.  It was held Friday afternoon and we had spent the week preceding with serious discussions of Italian wines.  We deserved a dash of fun, but the seminar still provided us with valuable information about Italian red wines.  We learned a bit about how the big Italian blockbuster wineries are reshaping themselves…

My one and only video interview with a BC winery at VanWineFest 2024 was with Evan Saunders, winemaker, at Blasted Church Vineyards. Blasted Church is located in the Okanagan Falls area if you decide to visit this summer.  Evan talked to me about their sparkling wine, OMG 2016.  Have you ever tried this wine?  Did you know that it is…

While Italy has been known to produce robust, hearty reds, many of the country’s greatest wines offer a lighter touch without sacrificing flavour. This seminar, “Italy’s Lightness of Being”, led by Filippo Bartolotta and Michaela Morris, took us through sparkling wines, white wines with texture, and much more.  Winery principals, Fabio Bosio, Tommaso Chiarli, Daniel Grace, Stefano Inama, Nicola Mazzella,…

Gérard Bertrand Winery is the ambassador of the fine wines of Languedoc-Roussillon around the world. Gérard Bertrand owns 16 estates with their unique terroirs in the region. The Languedoc has been growing grapes for wines for 24 centuries (Greeks planted grapes around 550 BC) and produces 5% of the world’s wine.  Gérard has loved his vineyard land passionately and enthusiastically…

The red wines of Rioja, Spain, are renowned for their rich history and exceptional quality. Produced primarily from the Tempranillo grape, these wines often exhibit complex flavours of ripe fruit, oak, and spice, with a characteristic balance of acidity and tannins. Among the distinguished producers in the region, Marqués de Riscal stands out as a beacon of excellence. Founded in…

The Robert Mondavi Winery is historic for putting California, and New World wines, on the international stage. I was fortunate to have a chance to interview Kurtis Ogasawara, Winemaker for Robert Mondavi during VanWineFest 2024.  I was told, “Growing up in Sunnyvale, California, Kurtis lived just outside of wine country in the Bay Area. When he went off to college,…

The wines from the Veneto region of Italy are still not as well-known as areas such as Chianti Classico in Tuscany but should be.  This region produces the Valpolicella range of wines which are very food friendly.  Watch my video interview with Matteo Allegrini from Allegrini Estates at VanWineFest 2024 as he tells us about the different wines that they…

I enjoy interviewing winery principals during VanWineFest every year.  This year, I tasted the wine Santi Lugana Folar 2021 by Cantina Santi from the Lake Garda region in Northeastern Italy.  It is a white wine made with Trebbiano di Lugana grapes.  This wine is not well-known but has refreshing acidity, minerality, and stone fruit flavours, which make this type of…

I was invited to sit down with Mr. Beppe d’Andrea, Ruffino‘s Senior Global Brand Ambassador, to taste a selection of their wines and talk about the winery and other wine topics while Beppe was attending VanWineFest 2024. In 1987, Beppe began his career with Ruffino and has never looked back. Initially working in the vineyards, he soon joined the winemaking…

The Lake Garda region in Italy, on the western edge of the Veneto region, shares some of the same grape varieties as Valpolicella but is not as well known.  The region makes a tasty white wine blend, known as Custoza, and a red blend called Bardolino, plus a few other types of wines.  I was fortunate to interview winery owner,…