MyWinePal

As you may have noticed, I was on a Rhine River Cruise starting in Amsterdam, ending in Basel, Switzerland.  But inbetween, I spent many days in German cities.  In one city, Düsseldorf, I signed up for a German Altbier walking tour.  Here is what I learned about this style of beer from a local guide as he brought us to…

Here are my tasting notes for the last few wines I enjoyed on my Avalon Waterways cruise of the Rhine River. I did try several German beers while on excursions during the day and will try to write an article on German beer later. My Wine Tasting Notes Christoph-Seydel-Str 2024 Spätburgunder trocken Reinhessen.  Crystal clear. Medium minus red cherry colour. …

The ship has sailed and I am halfway through this trip on the Rhine River with Avalon Waterways.  I saw many steeply sloped vineyards yesterday south of Koblenz as well as a few castles perched on hillsides. Today we passed by Heidelberg.  Here are my tasting notes for a few more wines I enjoyed during my dinners.  I have been…

Cruising on the Rhine River with Avalon Waterways cruise line, the wine list at dinner changes daily.  Here are a few of the wines I tasted from my first two dinners.  All wines from the cruise are European. Many are from Austria.  None of these wines are currently available through the BC Liquor store, but who know, they may be…

Last year I was tasting through Ontario Cabernet Franc wines, and I adored the wines from Wending Home Estate Vineyards & Winery Estate Vineyard, so I had great expectations when I received Chardonnay wines to review as part of my Ontario Chardonnay Review study.  I was not disappointed.  These are excellent wines.  In case you wanted to know about the…

How often do you drink white Bordeaux wines? Do you know that they range from bone dry to lusciously sweet? Do you know which grape varieties go into white Bordeaux wines? I recently attended a seminar at L’Abbatoir in Gastown, covering these wines and some ideas for wine pairings that was hosted by Wines of Bordeaux.   Our speaker was Emma…

With our brilliant blue sky, green leaves on our trees opening, and robins singing, it is time to enjoy BC white wines.  Here are two that I received from Township 7 Vineyards & Winery;  their Provenance Series, Blue Terrace Vineyard Sauvignon Blanc 2025 and their Provenance Series Pinot Gris 2025.  2025 was a fantastic year for BC grapes and winemaking…

I’ve been tasting and writing about Chardonnay recently, so I thought I would change things up and write about some other wines.  I received several wines from Vancouver Island’s Blue Grouse Estate Winery and decided to start with their Rosé 2024 and their Pinot Gris 2024.  These are from estate grown grapes and select partner vineyards.  Vancouver Island is really…

We had another successful year at the Vancouver International Wine Festival for 2026.   The Festival was a little smaller in size, I think, due to the ongoing political developments happening around the world.  Hopefully, these events will resolve themselves before the end of this year so that next year will have more wines and wineries for us to enjoy at VanWineFest…

You may have noticed that I have been reviewing and writing about southern Ontario Chardonnay wines, from the Niagara Peninsula in particular.  I have undertaken my “Ontario Chardonnay Review” where I review a selection of wines from across southern Ontario, then using the tasting notes and soil maps of the region, to investigate how Chardonnay in the region expresses itself…