Quaffing

I couldn’t come up with a witty title but here’s a cool Sardinian wine I drank made from a grape called Monica

I’m always distracted. If I’m not paying attention in my algorithms lecture, I’m reading about the soils of Beaujolais. If I’m not paying attention in a work meeting, I’m recounting the grand cru vineyards of Alsace’s Bas-Rhin in my head. If I’m actively not putting this presentation together on Champagne producers, I’m typing about a grape I’ve never tried before. Daddy needs some positive stimuli in this gross whirlwind and this wine happens to be today’s diversion.

Picked this up during yesterday’s session of exercise, which literally just involved me walking 30 minutes to an inconveniently located grocery store and back home. Counting the previous night’s steps on an app the day after dancing at a nightclub obviously isn’t going to cut it anymore.… read more

Life · Quaffing · Tasting

24 wines for turning 24

This post serves two purposes: a sincere smile-and-nod to the 23rd year of my life, and a spring cleaning wine dump of, coincidentally, a number of bottles that equals the number of anniversaries since I was pushed out of my mother. Alas. The past prime number of a year has been good to me, and I’m stoked for the next. Beyond this whole becoming-an-adult thing, I’ve done many things including completing the WSET Diploma (i hate to keep mentioning about it – but perhaps the youngest in BC to do so!), changing jobs, travelling to New York, travelling to France, travelling to Spain, and other things that would probably be best not to put on the internet. Heh.

And home. Oh God – connecting to your roots and family – sometimes I dig myself way too deep into wine culture and its countries that I forget where I come from.… read more

Tasting

12 other white Italian grapes for when you’re over Pinot Grigio

It’s clear that we’ve taken a departure from the experimental seminars of 2015’s Australia to the tacit themes of longevity and traditionalism of 2016’s theme of Italy for the Vancouver International Wine Festival. It’s expected that the colossal tasting room is skewed towards the stars of Tuscany, Piedmont, and Veneto, so this leaves the underdogs few and far between. There is not one Dolcetto (yeah I know: who cares) nor one pearl-clutching Franciacorta being poured during the whole festival, nor are there enough Montepulciano for me to make a terrible d’Ab(ruzzo) joke, so last year’s boner for Australian Touriga Nacional would have to be partially satiated by a seminar on all things white and distinctively not Pinot Grigio. I often find the whites of Italy frustratingly subtle – which probably says more about my taste above anything else – but this’ll be a nice opportunity to break things down past this pigeonhole.… read more