Photo: Blasted Church winemaker Evan Saunders In a recent email, Blasted Church Vineyards offered a short-term discount on one of its popular reds for a strange reason: the staff like it! “As wine industry people, we are often asked, ‘Which wine is your favourite?’,” the email reads. “This never returns a completely unbiased answer since everyone has their favourites. However, when all of us at Blasted Church are gathered together to raise a glass, the most consistently opened bottle is our Cabernet Franc.” The winery’s 2021 Cabernet Franc sells regularly for $384 a case, or $32 a bottle. Th ..read more

Photo: Miolo export manager Lucio Motta For at least the second year, Brazil’s Miolo Wine Group was among the wineries at the recent Vancouver International Wine Festival. Consumers are more likely to look for Argentina and Chile when searching for wines from South America since producers from those countries have been marketing their wines in this region for the best part of 30 years. I have no idea why Brazil, a large producer of wine and spirits, has not been banging the doors down as well in this market. But I am glad to see Miolo getting a foothold in the market because the wines solid ..read more

Photo: Danielle and Ricky Dhaliwal Rare among Okanagan wineries, Lakeside Cellars in Osoyoos made wine last fall with grapes from its own vineyard, where 2024 production was about 40% of normal. Lakeside’s good fortune is because the estate vineyard has a westward-facing slope almost down to Osoyoos Lake. Because mild weather preceded last winter’s killing frost, the lake had not yet frozen over. The shallow lake is often iced over by Christmas. But the open water last winter moderated the temperatures in the nearby vineyards. Lakeside’s owners, Ricky and Danielle Dhaliwal, supplemented the ..read more

Photo: Clos du Soleil's Michael Clark In a wine release last fall, Clos du Soleil winemaker Michael Clark updated us on the damage his vineyards had suffered from the recent devastating freezes in the Similkameen Valley. But he also added the assurance that the winery, one of the Similkameen’s top producers, had a good inventory to carry the winery over until vines have recovered. (This winter has been a more normal one.) That has been illustrated by the current releases of three red wines from the 2021 and 2022 vintages. The volumes should give some comfort to Clos du Soleil fans. First, he ..read more

Photo: Eugene Kwan Chaberton Estate Winery’s 50-acre vineyard in Langley Township is the largest and oldest vineyard in the Fraser Valley. In previous vintages, Chaberton has also purchased significant tonnages of grapes from the Okanagan and Similkameen Valleys, enabling the winery to produce as much as 50,000 cases a year. In the 2024 vintage, severe winter damage reduced the crop from the interior practically to zero. “To help out our growers, we bought what little fruit they had, but it was minimal,” says Eugene Kwan, the winery’s co-owner. “We brought in approximately 150,000 liters of ..read more

Photo: Label of the first Old Vines Foch wine A year or two ago, I suggested to Quails’ Gate Estate Winery president Tony Stewart that he should consider replacing the Maréchal Foch in the winery’s Osoyoos vineyard with a vinifera red (like Cabernet Franc) which arguably produces better wine. In view of the damage suffered by Okanagan vineyards in the 2023 and 2024 winters, I am glad he did not take my advice. The winery farms about 400 acres of vineyard and usually harvests between 1,100 and 1,200 tons of grapes. In the 2024 vintage, those Okanagan vineyards produced just 75 tons of grapes ..read more

Photo: Mayhem winemaker Ajay Chavan (photo courtesy Mayhem Wines) Fans of Meyer Family Vineyards will be pleased to learn that this Okanagan Falls winery has a good inventory of Pinot Noir to help bridge the production shortfall caused by the 2024 winter freeze. “We have plenty of BC reds in our portfolio, including our 2021 and 2022 Cabernet Merlot plus the Anarchy Merlot 2022,” writes Angela Grant, a sales representative for both Meyer and Mayhem, a sister winery. These, she adds, “will carry us through this year [2024] and next.” However, the inventory of white wines is not so deep. Last ..read more

Photo: Painted Rock founder John Skinner Several times last year, I heard the rumour that Painted Rock Estate Winery had been added to Anthony von Mandl’s stable of top-rated wineries. I never believed the rumour, although I am sure that von Mandl would jump at the chance if it ever came his way. But Painted Rock is still owned by the founder, John Skinner, and his family, with John’s daughter, Lauren, as marketing manager. John was a successful investment dealer in Vancouver when he set out to develop a winery in the Okanagan. Painted Rock opened in 2007. I interviewed John a number of tim ..read more

Photo: Black Hills winemaker Ross Wise MW Black Hills Estate Winery is offering two vintages of its flagship Nota Bene red – 2013 and 2022 – to mark the current Lunar New Year’s Year of the Snake. “As we step into the Year of the Snake, we’re reminded of the qualities this symbol embodies: wisdom, transformation, and understated sophistication,” the winery writes. “Much like the Snake’s graceful movement, this year encourages us to pause, reflect, and embrace moments of growth and renewal. It’s a time to celebrate quiet confidence, strategic thinking, and the beauty of transformation, both i ..read more

Photo: Brenda Hetman-Craig and Layne Craig (courtesy of 40 Knots) Winemaker Kalem Magny joined 40 Knots Vineyard & Estate Winery in the summer of 2023. In the vintage that fall, he stamped his mark on the industry by making a top-flight Vancouver Island Pinot Noir. Pun intended. The winery’s 40-acre vineyard is within earshot of the Comox air force base. It was planted, beginning in 2007, by Bill Montgomery, a retired owner of a tugboat company. He eventually discovered he had taken on more than he wanted to manage and put the winery on the market. In 2014, it was acquired by an energeti ..read more