You know, we’re both so incredibly busy that getting back to blogging just seems like a chore. Hardly a good time or reason to keep the thing going. We’ve decided to keep the site up though, for reference, for kicks, and so links from Google stay alive. And also to document a lot of the [...]

Probably a fair assumption that there’s a little inspiration from the wildly successful Old Spice campaign (“I’m on a horse,”) Paso Robles Wine Country releases one of the most punchy, effective wine marketing videos I’ve seen! Well done! (via BM)

Tired of repeatedly buying the same bottle of wine because you’re intimidated by the vast selection on liquor store shelves? Know someone who laments their minimal wine knowledge, looking to step it up? This November I’m teaching two introductory four-week wine courses via the AMS Mini-School at UBC, and it’s just $85 (or $65 for [...]

Tired of your room-mate/spouse/friends/drunken-self getting into your the stuff? Franmara comes to the rescue with their new Wine Bottle Lock! For just $14.49 you can enjoy the peace of mind that only the combination-holder will be able to pop that cork! (via HuffPo) (Just in case there’s any confusion, I’m not seriously endorsing this. I think it’s stupid.)

A heads up for anyone looking for professional wine storage at a great price. Pull those dusty boxes from your much too warm and slightly too dry bedroom closet and give those bottles a fighting chance to age. I’ve just handed over some of my wine and I don’t think there’s a better price in [...]

This website began in 2008 as Jake & I were taking the Intro to Winemaking course through UC Davis and were looking to get a little hands-on winery experience. Our friends Tammi & Rob of Van Westen Vineyards were very hospitable in having us to their home and winery, Rob showing us every step of [...]

A quirky personal essay from Scott Hutchins in today’s New York Times on his brief flirtation with being a wine writer: He looked puzzled, but explained that his label was trying to build brand loyalty. A newsletter was a strategy to make purchasers identify as drinkers of his brand. “I can tell you what I [...]

Good ol’ Slate.com offers a generous smattering of magazine articles about wine as part of their partnership with Longform.org. Pieces dug from their archives include a 1934 look at whether wine can become an American (post-Prohibition) habit from Fortune, last year’s Vanity Fair coverage of Burgundian vineyard sabotage and an Atlantic profile of Robert Parker [...]

Thanks to the good folks at Niche Wine Company for alerting me to this! Click to enlarge!

Brad and a big ass bottle of Bergstrom at Pinot Camp. I feel like corkage is all I’ve been talking about since Thursday and even saying the word is starting to give life to a lump of anxiety in my chest (I must have said the word ‘corkage’ this weekend more than in all the [...]

So, as most who visit this site must already know, the BC Provincial Government has allowed restaurants to offer BYO wine to their guests, according to the media release that came out earlier today: LANGLEY – Minister Rich Coleman announced today that British Columbians can now bring their own bottle of wine into participating restaurants [...]

Dude! Whenever I’m presenting a BC wine seminar and I mention that Oliver-Osoyoos literally has a desert climate with cactus, rattlesnakes and so on, I can usually note a few folks mentally calling bullshit. I’m sure there’s an assumption that someone one time saw a small garter snake and dramatically labelled it improperly. Well, check [...]

The very delicious Condrieu from E. Guigal. Why don’t rap stars drink Guigal? Just look at this bottle. Who buys wine from the Northern Rhône these days? When this question came up at the dinner table, many admitted that buying these wines was a rarity, even for ourselves. We’re not talking about the Southern Rhône where [...]

It seems that Penfolds is selling twelve ‘bottles’ of wine made exclusively from Cabernet Sauvignon vines grown on the Kalimna Estate in a section called ‘Block 42′. This is awesome news, as I visited this vineyard a couple months back and the vines are beautiful ancient trunks which most believe to be the oldest living [...]

Wow! Huge congrats to Summerhill Pyramid Winery on receiving their Demeter certification, making them British Columbia’s first biodynamic winery!! Here a great video showing part of the program’s genesis:

Jim Tobler pens a great story in the Summer edition of Montecristo Magazine on one of our best, Sandhill‘s Master Winemaker, Howard Soon: One of Soon’s many talents is the ability to form and sustain relationships with some of the Okanagan’s most respected, key growers. That is how Sandhill is able to make wine, vintage [...]

Nice to see Vancouver’s Sedimentary Wines bringing in the brilliant orange wines from Friuli’s Stanko Radikon. I’d just recently read this brief piece from the Chicago Sun-Times that (unfortunately) just scratches the surface of the unique style’s character and food-pairing potential: Made not from citrus fruit but rather white grapes, crushed and left in contact with [...]

A cool New Yorker story on the ambiguity of the perception of wine quality: But now, in an even more surprising turn of events, another American wine region has performed far better than expected in a blind tasting against the finest French châteaus. Ready for the punch line? The wines were from New Jersey. The tasting was closely modelled [...]

Some good reading material has been floating around amongst the breaking news yesterday that Jay Chambers is stepping down as the head of the BC Liquor Distribution Branch. To refresh about Chambers far-reaching role in British Columbia, this Georgia Straight story from a year ago illustrates the authoritarian stranglehold the BCLDB has had throughout all [...]

While there are particular instruments and exact science to measure sugar and acidity levels in wine grapes and wine, the analysis of phenolics and tannins has always relied on mostly taste and instinct, until now. UBC Okanagan scientists have just cracked the code to help winemakers work a little more intimately with their grapes. From [...]

There’s been plenty of movement in the collective efforts to break down the Prohibition-era barriers that still make inter-provincial wine shipping, or merely transporting it, a federal offence. Towards the end of last year we wrote about the growing movement (posts gathered here,) and this year the issue was brought to Ottawa and the House [...]

A heads-up about something pretty cool for you. I’ve long been a fan of Blue Mountain Winery out of Okanagan Falls, in fact I wrote a pretty glowing piece on them for Wine Access a couple years back. I received this presser the other day, sharing the great news that winemaker Matt Mavety is gonna [...]

NDP leader Thomas Mulcair played political games in the House of Commons yesterday, filibustering the opportunity to pass Dan Albas’ (C) Bill C-311 which would have allowed inter-provincial wine shipping in Canada. The post-Prohibition law remains, making it a federal offence to drive across any provincial border with a bottle of wine in your trunk, [...]

If you’re into exploring a little further into the world of British Columbian wine, this is certainly the time to do so! Not only did we just nab a slew of Gold, Silver, Bronze and Best-In-Class medals at the Decanter World Wine Awards, but there’s a handful of opportunities around town over the next little [...]