Mirabel, Kelowna

Colin Dacre - Jul 9, 2017 / 5:00 am | Story: 201216

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: 2016 Rosé of Pinot Noir

Winery: Mirabel, Kelowna

Why drink it? If you have scoffed at Okanagan rosé in the past, scoff no more. In this somewhat whimsical bottle is a rosé of Pinot Noir from a small, sun-drenched vineyard east of Kelowna, made with precise care and attention to the wines of Provence, drawing out the essence of what this grape can be in BC. On the nose is an elegant blend of melon, grapefruit, and strawberries that draws you into the glass. On the palate, memories, or perhaps dreams, of a week spent in Southern France, exploring lavender fields, nibbling butter croissants, and sipping a newly discovered, crisp rosé.

Price: $30 (limited production, order online at www.mirabelvineyards.com/purchase/)

Pair with: Sometimes you encounter a wine that has a beautiful, clear expression of the fruit, the style of the winemaker, and the passion of the winery, that all you need is this: two glasses, a close friend, a patio with a spectacular view of the Okanagan, and a warm evening breeze. This is that wine.

Classic cancon music pairing: Peel Me a Grape, Diana Krall

Have a wine you'd like to suggest? Contact us at [email protected], and we will put you in touch with our wine writer.

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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.

Mirabel, Kelowna

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