Checkmate Artisanal Winery: 4799 Wild Rose Street, Oliver, Okanagan Valley, BC CheckMate doesn’t boast a high-end, architecturally inspiring winery – yet. What it has, instead, is a chessboard of ten, site-specific, small-lot vineyards in the southern region of the Okanagan Valley that provide a fabulously distinct range of Chardonnay and Merlot fruit. If you are a…
Anthony von Mandl’s Kelowna Triple Threat: Mission Hill, Cedar Creek & Martin’s Lane Wineries
If you live inside (or outside) of Canada there’s a good chance you have limited experience with the full breadth of Canadian wine…and by limited I mean not much at all! Protectionist provincial politics, byzantine interprovincial shipping laws, and the generally glacial pace of change in industry regulations mean we have an utter dearth of…
Anthony von Mandl: British Columbia’s God of the Grape (& other fine beverages)
Who is Anthony von Mandl? Let me first admit I haven’t had the pleasure, but visiting British Columbia’s idyllic Okanagan Valley, it’s clear he casts quite a spell both for the international esteem he’s bestowed on the region and for his unprecedented level of investment in the local wine industry. Twice, von Mandl and his…
Harry McWatters: The Force behind the BC Wine Industry
He’s been called a legend, a maverick, the godfather of wine and British Columbia’s Robert Mondavi. As I chat with BC wine pioneer, and Okanagan Valley resident Harry McWatters about the highlights and lowlights of the BC wine industry over the last half century, I can’t help but think he’s the grape growing equivalent of…
The Niagara Escarpment’s Culinary Haven: The Good Earth Food & Wine Co.
It’s Saturday morning and I’m following Lake Ontario and the “Golden Horseshoe” arc that so aptly describes the southwest journey from Toronto to the Niagara Peninsula. Another 30 minutes of drive time, and I can visit one of the world’s most famous landmarks – Niagara Falls. But I won’t be a maid in the mist…
Another Canadian in Napa! Meet James Harder of James Cole, Tank Garage and T-Vine Wineries
It’s fair to say James Harder captured a little of my patriotic, wine-loving heart when his Tank Garage Winery website and sentient IP geo-bot acknowledged our shared homeland. It’s a small thing, but that patriotic nod to his Canadian roots is just one of the many savvy insights that James and his partners bring to…
Canadians in Napa! Faith Armstrong Foster’s ‘Onward Wines’ feature old-school sparkler – Pét Nat
That Napa winemaker Faith Armstrong-Foster harkens from Surge Narrows on the remote Inside Passage of Vancouver Island in British Columbia, should tell you something about her winemaking philosophy. Anyone who grew up amidst the pristine inlets and spectacular wilderness setting of this northern location is going to be on nature’s side. Coast&Kayak Magazine suggests Surge…
Wine-making Canadians in Napa – Meet Ray Signorello Jr.
Over the holidays, I had the pleasure of reading Canada’s #truepatriotlove poster boy, Mike Myers. His memoir, Canada, is the former SNL funnyman’s unabashed love letter to Canada and his critical take on what traits define our country. A “bastion of progressive ideals”, “a country where I am my brother’s keeper”, the “heartland of civility”…
Counter Culture goes Mainstream: The arrival of Weed Wine (part 2)
When 60’s folk icon Bob Dylan wrote “….everybody must get stoned,” he could never have imagined a counter culture drug would be so common, so regulated, sooooo corporate. But here we are at the end of 2017, pot will be legal in California come January and across Canada by July 1st. Riding into the middle…
Coming Jan 1/18: Cannabis Infused Sauvignon Blanc from one “Bad-Ass” California Winery
“This is the first-ever marijuana infused wine,” announces the weed-wine pitchman with a revolutionary fervor that makes my fellow wine writers at the Santa Rosa Wine Bloggers Conference lean in. “Our company is called Rebel Coast and we’re winemakers,” he continues, proudly displaying his green wine. Flowers of the marijuana plant are heated to activate…
Testing our Symmetry Chops: The Rodney Strong Meritage Blending Workshop
I think it’s fair to say if I could hit the replay button on life, I’d come back as a winemaker (….working at a winery with gently rolling hills, south and southwestern exposures, limestone soil, a long growing season, warm climate – where you don’t have to bury the vines, 36 inches of annual rainfall,…
My Bucket List Visit to Napa Valley’s Chateau Montelena: After the Fires
A visit to legendary Chateau Montelena has been on my bucket list since I learned about The Judgement of Paris – the seminal 1976 blind tasting event that pitted new-kid-on-the block California wine against the great wines of France. If it sounds like an epic battle, that’s because it was. At the time, it was…
