Uncategorized | The Demystified Vine

A Wine Shopper’s Guide: Facts & Quick Tips

June 9, 2015

If you are headed to your local wine store to purchase some vino and you’re feeling a bit intimidated, check out these facts & quick tips.

Obviously this is not an exhaustive list, but it is a good starting point to help you feel more confident with your purchasing power.

Remember to try new things, explore, and be open to picking up that bottle that you have always deemed “must not be good”; you never know if it will surprise you. My personal suggestion: avoid buying big producers all of the time. You can often find a wine of much better quality for only a wee bit more coin.

Cheers!

An Infographic: Noble Grapes & Their Key Wine Characteristics

June 4, 2015

There are many winelovers out there who wish they could know more about wine. Consistently, I hear the comment, “Oh, I can’t tell the difference between a white and a red wine.” Okay, let’s start with colour, right? But I get it. It’s not about the colour of the wine. It’s about all that mumbo-jumbo that surrounds picking out key characteristics in wine and how those differentiate one varietal from another.

At that point, I usually find myself wanting to demystify those key characteristics because, well, I’m an educator. As such, I’ve created a quick reference guide for (most) of the Noble grape varieties. Noble grapes are also known as “Key Grape Varieties”. Syrah is considered to be a key grape variety as well, but I couldn’t work it into my web. Shout out to Syrah…you know I love you!

For those of you not entirely well-versed in wine, use this to help you on your wine journey. Please note that this is not an exhaustive list. There are many more characteristics used to describe these individual wines. The characteristics I have included are the most common for each grape and how that grape shows itself in its final product.

Enjoy, and remember to “like” the Demystified Vine on Facebook for fun facts, memes, and other wine-related articles.

Cheers!

The Demystified Vine

All About Bordeaux

May 31, 2015

I am headed to Bordeaux in just over a weeks time to attend one of the largest wine expos in the world. In preparation for all of the blogging and tweeting I am going to be doing, I have been brushing up on my Bordeaux knowledge. I happily created a little graphic with some interesting (and demystifying) facts about Bordeaux. Feel free to share if you learned something new! Enjoy!

Eau Vivre’s Bright Whites from the Similkameen

Valerie Stride, WSET ADV Certified

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May 21, 2015

Eav Vivre is a “family-run boutique winery” that is located in Cawston, BC. They are one of the growing number of wineries located in the Similkameen Valley – an area full of farms, microclimates, and really great soils. Dale and Geraldine are the proud owners of Eau Vivre. To support the unity between the land …

Nugan Estate Poured History in a Bottle at VIWF

Valerie Stride, WSET ADV Certified

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April 12, 2015

At the Vancouver International Wine Festival in February 2015, I had the opportunity to try Australia’s own Nugan Estate wines during the trade tasting. Nugan’s wines are sourced from vineyards situated in New South Wales, King Valley, and McLaren Vale. This estate winery, which has four different labels, is focused on making “premium estate grown …