Poplar Grove, Penticton

Contributed - Apr 9, 2017 / 5:00 am | Story: 193981

Photo: Contributed

For Canada’s 150th birthday this year, Castanet is featuring an Okanagan wine each week, celebrating the bottles of our Valley and the diversity of the Canadian wine industry, including suggested food pairings and Canadian music artist to listen to while enjoying a glass. For current availability, consult the winery.

Wine: Pinot Gris, 2016

Winery: Poplar Grove, Naramata Bench

Why drink it? The phrase “easy sipping” is perhaps overused when it comes to wine, and when describing Pinot Gris, when a bottle such as this one is much more than just an uncomplicated white wine. PG is incredibly popular, and this one pinpoints why: enveloping aromas of honey suckle and stone fruits follow up with luscious, bright flavours of guava, citrus, pineapple…yet, for all its complexity, it is an easy sipper that reflects what Pinot Gris is on the Okanagan: aromatic, enjoyable, and just complex enough to start a conversation.

Price: $16

Pair with: The great thing about Pinot Gris? You really don’t need to pair it with anything other than a warm patio and a few friends. But, when we’re in the middle of a 40 degree day, a soft serve cone or tropical fruit salad will be really good.

Classic cancon music pairing: Sweet Surrender, Sarah McLachlan

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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.