What wine lover doesn’t appreciate receiving a special bottle of wine no matter what the occasion? Besides, if you are never quite sure what gift to buy someone, wine makes it easy. I never have a problem walking through a wine shop and selecting wines for my friends. Of course, it helps if you know … Read more
Historically, viognier has been one of the dominant white grapes of the Northern Rhone Valley.
Friday, April 17th is World Malbec Day. Most people tend to associate Malbec with Argentina and for good reason. Argentina produces 75% of the world’s Malbec wine. Most come from Mendoza and the best ones from the higher elevation areas of Uco Valley and Lujan de Cuyo.
I began this event with an informal session on terroir. We were presented with four wines made from four Naramata Bench winemakers – Val Tait from Bench 1775, Gavin Miller from Upper Bench, Stefan Arnason from Poplar Grove and Elephant Island’s Del Halladay. The task was to match each wine to the description given by … Read more
Yesterday was a bit of a whirlwind that ended, eventually, with my first visit to OLO. We started the day in rural Vancouver Island north of Courtenay, made our way for meetings in Nanaimo followed by a trek to Victoria. Our intention was to stop for lunch at either Unsworth Vineyards or Hudson’s on First, … Read more
2012 Viognier Le Paradou Provence, France $16.00 Bronze Medal Lemon yellow in colour with medium intensity. Aromas of lemon, butter, pear and apricot with a hint of hazelnut. Good balance. Clean and refreshing on the palate with flavours echoing the nose. A medium finish with flavours of citrus and wet stones. 2012 Carmenere … Read more
The advantage of an unplanned trip is that you don’t have an itinerary or a schedule to follow you just go where you want to go. So now it’s late Saturday morning and we decide to get out of town (Kelowna) and head over to Naramata Bench. There are dozens of great wineries to … Read more