Tag: VQA

If you have not heard of the International Cool Climate Chardonnay Celebration, held in the Niagara region in southern Ontario, it is something not to be missed.  The i4C+ Celebration started in the summer of 2009 with some Ontario wine makers celebrating their success at the 2009 Cellier Wine Awards in Montreal.  These wine makers believe in the renaissance of…

Finally, the sunny, warm weather is with us here in BC. Winter was dreadful, but now we can get out on the patio and enjoy some freshly vinified BC white wine. The 2016 harvest was very good in BC and produced wines with good flavour character and acidity. Recently I attended the Bloom BC VQA Spring Release Tasting and tasted…

I love to support our BC wineries.  I watched over the many years as the number of wineries has grown as well as the quality improved.  Wine critics from here as well as around the world, have tasted our wines, celebrated the quality, and told others.  Now you can find BC wines around the world, from Hong Kong to London….

Perhaps, before I answer this question, I should define what is a cutting edge wine?  In the past, it could have been the use of stainless steel tanks, when none were used before, or the use of cultured yeasts specifically bred to impart particular flavours and aromas in a wine.  But now, these things are mainstream.  What is new and…

Winemakers, just like butchers, bakers, and astrophysicists, have to go to school, in order to learn how things work, why they work that way, and best practices.  In Canada there are colleges that offer wine making training; one such place is Niagara College, located by Niagara-on-the-Lake in Ontario.  I was fortunate to visit the college to review one of their…

Harry McWatters is a leader in the British Columbia wine industry for the past 40+ years. In 1980, he founded BC’s first estate winery, Sumac Ridge Estate Winery, and later started See Ya Later Ranch Estate Winery in 1995.  He purchased and planted vines on his Sundial Vineyard on Black Sage Road in 1993. With Sumac Ridge Harry was able to…

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…

Since Bartier Scholefield started producing their wines in 2011, in the Okanagan, BC, I have been fortunate to try them and write about them for you.  They have been keeping to their “Wine As Narrative“, telling us a story about the terroir, from where it was produced.  Their wines are produced as much without wine maker intervention, so that you…

For those of you who have not heard of the Harper’s Trail winery, they made news across BC as they started the first winery in the Kamloops area.  Not knowing if the vines would last the winter, they tried and were successful.  The weather in Kamloops for the summer and fall is sunny and warm; perfect conditions for grape growing. …

Have you ever felt like you have a daunting task, but persevere with the hope you will discover a few gold nuggets? I’m sure many BC prospectors felt this as they searched for gold in Barkerville and further north. This is also how I feel when I attend the Colour BC VQA tastings. There are so many BC VQA wines…