BC Wine Country
One of the most important elements of creating great wine is where the grapes come from. Factors that influence where the grapes come from include climate, soil, location, irrigation, and age of the vine. The wine industry calls this element that comes out in the flavor, the wine Terroir. The French definition of Terroir is: “a group of vineyards or vines from the same region, belonging to a specific appellation, and sharing the same type of soil, weather...
Read MoreThe History of Wine: British Columbia
Over the next few blogs, I am going to take you on a journey to one of my favourite wine producing regions: British Columbia, Canada. I will kick off my tribute to BC wines by discussing its history. British Columbia was producing wine as early as the late 1850’s, when a monk named father Pandosy set up the first white settlement in the Mission area of Kelowna. He saw the potential for producing wine for the holy sacrament and send word to Vatican to have vines sent to him....
Read MoreBest BC Wineries of 2012
Annually, leading wine experts across Canada group together for the Wine Access Canadian Wine Awards, which judge the best in Canadian wines. Based upon the December 2012 publication of Wine Access, below you will find the winning wineries that hail from BC. I definitely encourage you to pick up a December 2012 copy of Wine Access, as it will go into more detail on the winning wineries. Thornhaven Estates Winery – Summerland, BC – Thornhaven is open throughout the...
Read MoreBest BC Wines of 2012
Wine Access, a publication that discusses wines that are available in the Canadian market, recently published a list of the winners from the Canadian Wine Awards. Below, I share with you the winning wines from BC. The Best Canadian Red Wines of 2012 The BC Choices: BC managed to snag four out of the five awards in this category and all of them where Syrah based wines. As a suggestion, if you can find one of all the wines mentioned below, do a taste off with your friends and...
Read MoreSyrah vs Shiraz: Know the Difference
We can thank James Busby, originally from Scotland, for the Australian Shiraz. Back in 1831, Busby brought a cutting from a Syrah vine home to Australia from a trip to France. This small act not only created Shiraz, but started wine culture in Australia entirely. Now, you might be thinking that ‘Shiraz’ is just an accented pronunciation of Syrah. Or a mispronunciation entirely. You might be thinking that ‘Shiraz’ was all a mistake. Not the case. Shiraz was...
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