Every Monday, discover new wines, regions, and ways to understand this fermenting sea.
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Munching Vidal Blanc on Keuka Lake, New York
Tag Archives: grapes
Wine Review: Torii Mor Pinot Noir Olson Estate Vineyard Dundee Hills 2014
Another day, another bottle to check out. I tumble into my “cellar” (aka crawl space) and pull out a fine-dusted bottle of single vineyard Pinot Noir from 2014. If this virus gets me, at least I enjoyed one more wine … Continue reading
Posted in Oregon, Pinot Noir
Tagged 2014, drink, Dundee Hills, grapes, Oregon, pinot noir, Torii Mor, travel, vineyard, Willamette Valley, wine, Winery
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2020 Harvest Report: Tualatin Valley, Oregon
It’s time. My backyard row of vines survived a week of smoke from Oregon’s fires and now face a deluge of rain. Rains last year waterlogged vines, berries split, fruit flies moved in, leading me to triage the harvest. Luckily, through obsessive sorting, SO2, and a year of lees aging, my few bottles of 2019 turned out pretty crisp, clean, if a bit low in alcohol (10% abv). Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged 2020, drink, DYI, ferment, grapes, harvest, home winemaking, Oregon, pinot blanc, Pinot meunier, pinot noir, Tualatin, vines, vineyard, wine, winemaking, yeast
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A Canadian Winery (and Distillery) Eh!? De Vine Vineyards Wine Review
Wayward Wine continues to ply the uncharted wines of Vancouver Island. It has been rough, but we found some decent Pinot Noir (read here). This marginal-in-the-best-of-times climate manages to counter its Northern latitude by bottling any warmth it can from the eastern straights with its western mountains. The best example: the Butchart Gardens utopia that traps tourists with its improbably lush gardens… Continue reading
Posted in Vancouver Island, WINERIES WANDERED
Tagged british columbia, Canada, Canadian wine, distillery, gin, grapes, Grüner Veltliner, marechal Foch, pinot blanc, pinot noir, spirit, travel, Vancouver Island, vermouth, wine
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Sauvignette Eh!? Wine Review of Unsworth Vineyard Vancouver Island BC
Ok! Vancouver Island wines have given us challenging results. Maybe, the standard grapes Chardonnay (review here), Gamay (here), even Sparkling pinot (here) provide little more than acidity, edge, reflecting regional limits. Maybe a more climate-friendly hybrid grape might work.
Sauvignette. Continue reading
Posted in Vancouver Island, White wine
Tagged Cabernet Sauvignon, Canada, drink, grapes, lees, Oak, Sauvignette, Sauvignon blanc, travel, Vancouver Island, wine
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Canadian Chardonnay Eh!? Vancouver Island Wine Tour #1
Check here over the next few weeks, I am touring Vancouver Island’s wines, ciders, and beer.
Wife, kid, and I (sounds like a musical) have driven a day to Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. And yes, they grow enough grapes here to claim a Vancouver Island appellation or VQA. Sure, vines only started in 1992, today boasting 432 planted acres and 32 wineries (even Oregon’s tiny Willamette Valley claims 19,000 acres and over 500 wineries). But what that youth and extremely small scale means, however, is focus: most wineries are estate only, often organic, and handled by families from vineyard to bottle. Continue reading
Posted in Chardonnay, Uncategorized
Tagged Canada, chardonnay, Cheese, Food, grapes, travel, trips, Vancouver, Vancouver Island, wine, Wolff Estate
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