New podcast!

The Sipsters Wine Podcast Episode 1 is now live! It's my first podcast in 7 years and I'm very excited to be back creating shows again. Listen to it directly on the Buzzsprout site or find it on your favourite podcast platform. I have a new website about the podcast that is available here. So, …

Good-bye social media?

I forgot for a while that I have a website. I used to spend hours and hours on this site - producing podcasts, putting up photos, writing about wine - but that has taken a back seat to other work for the past few years. Sarcastically perhaps, I used to say that blogging was what …

Many Vintages Ago

Front and back labels from Nk'Mip Cellars' 2000 (their first vintage?) of Chardonnay. A strange book appeared in my line of sight after moving some items around in my storage room. There were three books, each containing wine labels that had been soaked off their bottles. Most were labels from Italy, France, Spain, and BC …

Yes we can

Alternative packaging is always interesting. The large bag-in-box format (aka Cardbourdeaux) has been a round for a while and Tetra-Pak has been slowly gaining ground for the environmentally aware wineries. Stainless steel is the high-brow alternative to glass but probably isn't that much better in the long run, though I have no science to prove …

The next chapter: Sipsters

Sipsters represents a new way to communicate about wine that is freed of the limited and technical vocabulary of wine education ("medium acid", "aromas of berries and tar"), the cliches of wine sales ("patio sipper", "pizza wine"), or the manipulative spin of marketers.

George Hanson, Memories

The recent passing of George Hanson, owner and winemaker at Seven Stones Winery in Cawston has left me a little empty since I first heard the news. George was always generous with his time for me, as a fledgling in the wine media writing for Wine Trails, podcasting on this site, and later when I …

A New Door Opens

There hasn't been a whole lot to celebrate this past year so small victories are worth celebrating. After a year of uncertainties with jobs, limited times to gather to play to play music, and the constant spectre of the pandemic, some good news came to me unexpectedly this fall that I felt was worth celebrating. …

Vintage Pooches

Benny from Seven Stones Winery in Cawston, after passing his tractor license. (Photo by Troy Townsin) In touring wineries, I've encountered many wine dogs over the years. I think that it belittles them to call them mascots because they often do a lot more work than any mascot could. Some have real jobs to do …

Naramata: The Board Game

Naramata wasn't the first wine region in B.C., nor is it the largest. But it will be the first B.C. wine region to be the setting for a wine touring-themed board game. If shopping locally isn't enough, now you'll be able to play locally too. The game is the creation of game designer Chris Dias …

Support “Local”

Readers (or listeners, if you go way back like that...) of Wine Country BC will know that supporting our local wine industry has been at the foundation of what I've been talking about on this blog. In the 11 years that has past since I started this site, B.C. wine has both increased in quality …