Arrowleaf, Lake Country

Allison Markin - Jul 22, 2018 / 5:00 am | Story: 231947

Photo: Contributed

Join our wine writer, Allison Markin, every week for a wine review complete with food and music pairings. Featuring Okanagan and Canadian wines, with an occasional international bottle, Castanet celebrates the bottles of our Valley and the diversity of the Canadian wine industry and influences from around the world. For current availability and pricing, consult the winery. Unless indicated, international selections are generally available at government liquor stores or private wine shops.

Wine: Bacchus, 2017

Winery: Arrowleaf, Lake Country

Why drink it? If it’s been a while since you took an afternoon to explore Lake Country, put Arrowleaf into the GPS and go check out the view. Pick up some treats from the bakery, or plan on enjoying the picnic patio for an hour or so. This white wine is not a blend, but Bacchus is a cross between Riesling, Sylvaner, and Muller-Thurgau, producing an aromatic wine with multiple layers of fresh floral notes and herbs on the nose. Peaches mixed with citrus flavours, the palate is light, with a refreshing finish of grapefruit and a hint of elderflower, and a very slight off-dry sweetness.

Price: $16

Pair with: Truly a sipping wine because of the slight sweetness and refreshing finish, you don’t need to think too hard about what to enjoy with this. It’s fruit season. Pick up some apricots, peaches, whatever is fresh your local fruit stand. If you’re ambitious, lightly grill and drizzle with honey.

Music pairing: Slings and Arrows by Moody Blues

Have a wine to suggest? Email Allison at [email protected].

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About the Author

As a kid, Shelley Boettcher often found herself in the back seat of a pick-up, exploring the back roads of the Okanagan Valley with her parents. They’d occasionally leave her and her brother in the car while they stopped at mysterious addresses to buy wine. They would emerge, clearly happy, as they stuck a box or a few bottles in the vehicle. Then they would continue on their journey.

But it wasn’t until a trip to Spain in 2000 that Shelley herself fell in love with wine. She came home from the holiday and promptly told her editor she wanted to become a wine writer.

And she did.

An award-winning food and wine writer and editor, Shelley holds her master’s degree in journalism and her advanced WSET certification, as well as her level 2 International Sommelier Guild certification. A wine columnist for the Calgary Herald, she spent a decade as CBC Radio’s national syndicated wine columnist and she has written three books about wine, including two that were Canadian bestsellers. Her byline has appeared in magazines and newspapers around the world, including the New York Times, The Guardian, The Globe and Mail and Postmedia newspapers across Canada.

Shelley has travelled throughout many of the world’s wine regions and countries, including Niagara, Oregon, Washington, California, France, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Australia, Germany, Argentina and the Republic of Georgia. A few years ago, she even tracked down and visited a winery in Denmark.

Shelley has also served as a professional wine judge regionally and internationally, including the Okanagan Wine Festivals, Vinitaly and the Chianti Classico Consortium. For more than a decade, she has been a restaurant wine list judge for the Vancouver International Wine Festival, too. She still teases her parents for sparking her love for wine, especially BC wine.

And her favourite? Whatever she's drinking at the moment.

You can follow Shelley on Instagram @shelleyboettcher or Twitter at @shelley_wine.

If you have a BC wine you’d like to suggest, email Shelley at [email protected] with the name of the wine and a short note about why you enjoyed it.

Arrowleaf, Lake Country

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