Author: pxlv_adm

Photo: Hester Creek’s Mark Sheridan Hester Creek Estate Winery near Oliver is one of the first Okanagan wineries to release 2024 vintage wines made with imported grapes. The quality of the wines should comfort all consumers who want to continue supporting their favourite wineries as they navigate the crisis caused by the almost total destruction…

Reading Time: 5 minutes Hester Creek Estate Winery has released four wines from the new Columbia Valley Collection: Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Gris, Viognier, and Cabernet Franc Rosé. Before going to the wine information and tasting notes, here is the background on the 2024 harvest and the “crafted in BC” program. 2024 Harvest Columbia Valley AVA…

2021 Entre-Deux-Mers Chateau Nicot Entre de Mers, France $22.99 Pale lemon yellow with medium-minus intensity.  An interwoven nose of citrus, melon, gooseberry, lanolin, and gunflint with a smoky back end.  Good balance with good mouthfeel.  Juicy on the palate with the fresh aromas reflected on the palate followed by a medium-plus finish with some flavours…

If you’ve never had the pleasure of trying a Nero d’Avola it’s worth a try. It’s a bit of a more rustic grape, less refined or elegant than some. This wine is dark in color with a mild red berry nose. On the mid palate the wine displays firm black cherries along with some mild…

Hester Creek wines With the disastrous Okanagan winter weather, Hester Creek was forced to look south to Washington State for grapes for their 2024 vintage. Their labels call the series of wines their “Columbia Valley Collection.” On their website, they say the fruit was “chosen for the proximity and similarities to the South Okanagan with…

We had venison on the menu so I thought a pinot noir was a good choice, and normally it would be … The LCBO describe this wine as medium bodied and fruity … well they got one half of it right, it sure is a fruit bomb. If someone poured this into my glass and…

By Rick VanSickle A chance encounter online led to the wildest exposure ever for a Niagara winery with 2.5 million views of a quirky video that helped shape the “vibe” at Palatine Hills Estate Winery. It’s a crazy story that has put this family-owned Niagara-on-the-Lake winery on the vinous map far beyond the borders of…

Tonight’s red wine review is the latest vintage of a lovely, vegan-friendly Monastrell-based blend from Jumilla (Spain) that arrived at the LCBO earlier this month in the March 1st LCBO VINTAGES New Release Collection. It is produced by Ego Bodegas, a winery project that was established from scratch in 2011 by the husband-and-wife team of…

As the holiday season set in, Stacey and I had the pleasure of unboxing a truly special bottle: the Nk’Mip Cellars Qwam Qwmt Chardonnay 2021. Delivered in a beautifully branded wooden box wrapped in a red ribbon, this wine was more than just a treat for the palate—it was an invitation to experience the rich…

How a father-son duo turned a lifelong passion for distillation into Maison Le Chêne and its groundbreaking creation, Chambre Noire Admittedly, the LinkedIn message took me a little off guard: “Hi Tod – It’s great connecting with you. My name is Sacha Le Chêne. I’m co-founder of Maison Le Chêne. You wrote a really beautiful…