Meet Castanet's wine writer

Colin Dacre - Jan 17, 2018 / 2:30 pm | Story: 216558

Photo: Lionel Trudel Photography

Castanet is bringing readers a wine review every week, including suggested food pairings and a song to listen to while enjoying a glass. While we celebrate the diversity of wines from the Okanagan, British Columbia, and Canada, from time to time we’ll throw in a bottle from another country to tempt your palate.

In 2017, our then-anonymous wine reviewer completed 49 reviews of B.C. wines.

Due to popular demand, we are bringing back the feature for 2018 and pulling back the curtain on our wine writer.

Allison Markin has completed her advanced certificate from WSET, the Wine and Spirit Education Trust, and has traveled to several international wine regions in her quest to learn more. You can find many of her bottle shots on Instagram @bcwinetourism, and sometimes she slips behind the tasting bar at local wineries when they need a bit of extra help.

Have a wine to suggest? Email Allison at [email protected] with the name of the wine and winery, and why you like this particular bottle.

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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.