Tasting

Evolve Cellars

Three things immediately come to mind when I hear the word “evolve”: Pokemon, Digimon, and evolutionary biology. My childhood aside, let’s add Evolve Cellars to the shortlist for a potential fourth: my favourites among this Summerland quartet are the heftier rosé and red that seem to go against the predictable BC pattern of interchangeable off-dry rosés and the oft-disjointed reds. The red of the vintage prior to the current release won a gold medal at the 2015 BC Wine Awards; the wine’s birth was crafted by Lawrence Buhler, winemaker. Huzzah.

The whites, though, along with the rosé, are part of Evolve’s very first vintage release, the grapes being sourced from the Sundial Vineyard on the Black Sage Bench in Oliver, probably attributing the rounder, denser versions of the grapes.… read more

Life · Quaffing

On Dim Sum, Champagne, and not drinking

dimsumchampagne2016

To be more specific, my shitty New Year’s Resolution is to only allow myself to drink in the company of other people, having only broken this rule (before its inception) on January 1st: a seemingly un-celebratory bottle of Trebbiano d’Abruzzo. We’re only a month in, and yes – it’s been difficult. Of course, the temptation drifts in front of me like a horse and a carrot: I work in the industry, I’ve returned to work hours that demand refreshment, and I study wine frequently. But it’s always the third day of no alcohol that’s the worst, where a sour mood brews and where my perception of the quiet becomes even quieter. Ugh. I’m also catching up on the latter half of Breaking Bad; someone just opened a bottle of Pol Roger and I’m dying.… read more

Quaffing

Why you gotta be so Mavrud?

Don’t you know I’m human too?
Why you gotta be so Mavrud?
I’m gonna marry her anyway- 

k sorry I’ll stop.

Weird Bulgarian grapes. Let’s do it.

zagreus2011vinicamavrudAccording to Wine Grapes, Mavrud is one of Bulgaria’s two best quality indigenous red grape varieties (the other being Shiroka Melnishka or Melnik), with several variants that differ in terms of size and colour. The late-ripening small berries often produce tannic and acidic wines that apparently take well to oak, and this example has indeed seen new French oak for 12 months – and it’s not obvious. This wine in particular sees Mavrud grapes that have been dried for 2 months before fermentation, creating somewhat of an Eastern European answer to Amarone. Very cool stuff.… read more

Life · Quaffing · Tasting

2015 ends and 2016 trends

I’m a bit late to this #bye2015hello2016 stuff! Anyways, I’ve said it way too many times than you care to read: I’m not big on New Year’s resolutions. But this is the first year where reflecting and looking forward to the next year has felt the least forced. Despite my abrupt and perhaps ephemeral positivity, I won’t be superimposing any fortune cookie pieces of advice onto filtered landscapes anytime soon – March seems to be my I-fucking-hate-everything downfall month anyway, so we’ll see how much my outlook relapses.

joshlikeswine2015

At the beginning of 2015, I made the tongue-in-cheek resolution to be a bit more selfish: to not to be guilt-ridden about having a balanced serving of things that make me happy and to give less of a shit about what other people think.… read more

Quaffing · Tasting

Odd Italy

The Vancouver International Wine Fest of 2016 is creeping up slowly – already? I distantly remember my tongue-related worries about trying Shiraz after Shiraz after Shiraz, so a duplicate worry replaced with the acidic Sangiovese grape was the first thing that came to mind when I found out that the theme for 2016 was Italy. And originally I wasn’t super stoked to find out Italy was the featured region, but recent bottles of inspiration have reminded me of grapes and regions I, for some reason, forgot to consider. I’m secretly hoping there will be a seminar on something fucked like a long flight of artisanal Pinot Grigio or “You Won’t Believe These 8 Pinot Grigios That Pair Well With Shitty Buzzfeed Videos”.… read more

Quaffing

Fetească Albă: the Eastern European grape that means “white young girl”

jidvei…according to Wine Grapes.

Originally, I wanted something slutty and decadently atypical like the strawberry jam that is the Meiomi Pinot Noir. I’m ditching a warm mouth blanket for what could possibly be an angular wine, but really, my motivation is that I want to spend $13 instead of $30. Also: diving into the alcoholic unknown. Yes.

My books tell me that Fetească Albă probably originated in the historic region of Moldavia; that it produces small, thin-skinned berries; and that it produces wines that are soft, with Muscat-like aromas of apricots, peaches, and spice. It’s mostly grown in eastern Europe, producing wines that can lack character. Romania, where this particular wine is from, has two different varieties of Fetească: Albă (e.g.… read more

Tasting

16 Wines to Pair with your Disappointing New Year’s Resolutions of 2016

Rarely do I scroll through my phone in the morning (still in bed, furthermore) and decide to go to an event on a whim especially after a slightly pixilated night involving absinthe and a plethora of Real Housewives taglines, but making quick decisions was one of my resolutions for the year – malformed somewhere in the summer – prompting a quick change and a leap out of the door. Were we supposed to RSVP? Yes, says my phone. Whatever.

I remember attending the Annual Champagne and Sparkling Wine Tasting at Marquis Wine Cellars last year: it was a last-minute invite by text after the first Guild of Sommeliers blind tasting seminar held in Vancouver. I remember forgetting my wallet, so I had to borrow money from a friend to donate to the Big Sisters of BC Lower Mainland, the charity who the event supports. … read more

Life · Quaffing · Tasting · Travel

Barcelona: Cava to end the Saga

Spoiler alert: my few days in Spain were better than my two and a half weeks in France. Sorry, France. I was rooting for you, we were all rooting for you. #BeQuietTiffany

Our hostel was superior to the one in Paris: Erin and I helped cook dinner one night, we met a Canadian from Edmonton, and we made a cab driver go through McDonalds after a hostel-hosted bar-hopping session that eventually ended on a club next to a beach. And then drinking on said beach, which was a reaaaaal big blur. Have you ever drunkenly told someone they look like Ygritte from Game of Thrones way too many times?

There’s a story later that night involving myself ejecting the Devil’s Liquids from my soul, but let’s just summarize here and say that I fucking covered that up better than all of the Desperate Housewives would have, combined.… read more

Life · Quaffing · Tasting · Travel

Pain in Champagne

When your only clean shirt is that floral one you bought in Paris, but everyone in this city dresses in understated colours, and then for some reason your ankle is busted in the morning so your swag level dips into the negative as you hobble past some college students who stare at you. I suppose life was finally punishing me for being so seemingly masturbatory on social media despite my lack of #blessed, and I thought sucking it up and drinking a couple of pints of beer in quick succession would numb the pain. But after dinner, we had to cab home not without me drawing more attention by hopping on one foot out of the fucking restaurant, though luckily Theran ran out and bought Champagne, because he is a fucking god.… read more

Life · Tasting · Travel

“Looking to bone in Beaune”

…was the working draft for a Tinder profile in Burgundy.

“Que cherches-tu?”

I hopped off my bike near one of the villages – Pommard, I think – and ran down the road before jumping up onto a short brick wall surrounding some vineyard so that I could see better. I told the vigneron that I lost my friend and he said that the diverging roads would both eventually lead to Pommard. Though actually, I’m totally filling in the blanks with bullshit and I mostly don’t know what he said (except for “tu comprends?” to which I responded with “oui”), but his hand signals sure helped.

Theran and I decided to bike to the other edge of the town and wait, despite the itch to haphazardly bike down the next hill so speedily that my mom would have the sudden urge to slap me all the way from Canada.… read more