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Where have you been travelling to in your glass? Recently I travelled to Sicily where I tasted a wine made from a varietal called Grillo. The grapes for this wine were grown on bush-trained vines. The vines are on average twenty years old and they grow about one mile from the sea at an elevation…
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Have you been cooking or baking more while in social isolation? If so, what have you been making? This weekend we made our own pasta, meatballs and marinara sauce and paired it with the 2016 Upper Bench Estate Grown Pinot Noir ($41.40). Upper Bench Winery & Creamery in Naramata is offering free shipping on all…
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Everyone, without exception, is experiencing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, but I am inspired by people’s drive to stay connected to each other and survive these strange days. The wine community is of course not exempt from the negative impact of the virus. In British Columbia many of our wineries are small, family-owned businesses…
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It was recently brought to my attention that Riesling celebrated a Birthday on Friday. March 13th, 1435 is designated as Riesling’s Birthday. This is the earliest recording of Riesling vines and the documentation took place in Germany. One of my favourite Rieslings is the Old Vines Riesling from Tantalus, which is produced from vines that…
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Are you a Merlot fan, or do you find Merlot to be mundane? If you fall into the latter category, I think this Merlot might just change your perception. After two hours in the decanter, the 2016 Upper Bench Estate Merlot offers aromas of ripe blackberries, cassis, cherries, black liquorice and clove. The body is…
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What is a Super Tuscan? The term was apparently coined in the 1980’s and has been attributed to several people, including wine critic Robert Parker. It is kind of a catch-all term for wines that evolved from the frustration of winemakers in Tuscany; they were growing to resent the rules that governed and restricted their…
Continue reading Super Tuscan: 2017 Marchesi Antinori Il Bruciato
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Spring is less than a month away, which means that spring wine releases are just around the corner and I find myself reaching for white wines with increasing frequency. The 2018 Zenato Lugana San Benedetto is made from 100% Trebbiano and is an excellent pick to toast the imminent (at least here on the west…
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How do you celebrate Valentine’s Day? In my household, we use Valentine’s Day as a good excuse to make a nice meal at home and open an extra special bottle of wine, like the 2016 Terroir Series Pinot Noir from Alexana Winery. At the end of last summer, I had the opportunity to sit down…
Continue reading Alexana Winery: 2016 Terroir Series Pinot Noir
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What wine releases do you wait for each year? Each fall I keep an eye-out for the release of the Syrah and Portfolio from Laughing Stock Vineyards – ensuring that I acquire some to cellar. The founders of Laughing Stock Vineyards, David and Cynthia Enns, vicariously fulfilled many wine-lover’s dreams when they left the financial…
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I have been waiting, for what feels like ages, to take this photo. Our home has been undergoing repairs since mid-October, and we are finally at the point where we have flooring. Definitely an occasion worthy of an extra-special bottle of wine, and the 2016 CheckMate Queen’s Advantage certainly fits that bill. I first tried…
Continue reading 2016 CheckMate Queen’s Advantage Chardonnay