Tag: VIWF

Welcome to Pascual Toso Winery from Argentina. Below is some information from the winery plus the wines they will be pouring at the VanWineFest 2023.  Enjoy! About Pascual Toso Winery When in the mid-1880s Pascual Toso set out towards Argentina from its hometown, Canale D’Alba, in Piamonte, Italy, he could not have imagined that he would become the founder of…

I am sure many of us wine lovers in BC have been waiting to hear about the theme region and wine spotlight for the Vancouver International Wine Festival 2023. Also info on buying tickets and passes. The press release was released today. Read on!~~~~ VANCOUVER, B.C. (December 1, 2022): The Vancouver International Wine Festival is excited to announce the winery line-up for the…

This evening at this dinner we were invited to come taste over 600 years of winemaking history with MASI Serego Alighieri. Six wines from this historic estate were paired with a menu from chef Josh Gonneau of Cibo Trattoria, bringing a taste of Valpolicella to Vancouver. Cibo Trattoria is located downtown on Seymour Street, and is a small cozy restaurant. Mr. Luc Desroches, Sales…

At the Vancouver International Wine Festival 2017, I sat in on some seminars that had wine makers across Canada speaking about their wines.  As they spoke, we in the audience tried their wines.  One thing that struck me is that many of the wine makers from Ontario would say how “mineral” their wines are; and I thought mineral?  But then…

Naramata Bench in the Okanagan Valley (Image courtesy https://winebc.smugmug.com/Other/Okanagan-Valley/) We all can agree that BC’s Okanagan Valley is a special place.  Some of the things noted by winebc.org about the Okanagan Valley is “The Okanagan Valley lies in a rain shadow, between the Coastal and Monashee mountain ranges. This results in very low annual average rainfall. The area between Oliver…

Who is Christa-Lee McWatters-Bond from Evolve Cellars? From the Evolve Cellars website, “Christa-Lee has been part of the BC wine industry since birth. Growing up as the daughter of BC wine ambassador Harry McWatters instilled in her a true appreciation for and love of wine – which included her making wine when she was 9 years old (not for public consumption, of course). She…

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…

Beside the theme country every year in the Festival Tasting room of the Vancouver International Wine Festival, there are all the other wineries from countries around the world offering their wines for you to try.  Below are 15 wines that I thought were excellent.  Some may be in BC liquor stores and others may have only been available during the Festival….

In Part 1 of this article, I covered the comments and insights of wine makers and hands-on owners in BC, Ontario, and Germany on the heartbreak and backache from growing and making wine from the Riesling and Pinot Noir grapes.  In Part 2, I have my tasting notes on the wines from these winery principals. Our Featured Wines Haywire Narrative…

In this seminar at the Vancouver International Wine Festival we had a panel of distinguished wine makers and hands-on owners share their stories and insights on Riesling and Pinot Noir, two notorious cool-climate grapes famed for breaking backs in the vineyard and hearts in the winery. These individuals talked about the challenges in the Okanagan Valley, Niagara Peninsula, and Mosel…