Hester Creek, Oliver

Allison Markin - Apr 1, 2018 / 5:00 am | Story: 222538

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: Pinot Gris-Viognier, 2017

Winery: Hester Creek, Oliver

Why drink it? Not a blend that immediately comes to mind for white wine, as usually these two grapes stand on their own (though a tiny bit of viognier can give syrah, a red, a nice lift). Unoaked, fermentation took place separately in steel tanks, preserving the characteristics of each grape before they came together in the final product. Bright aromas of lemon and lime combined with honeycomb notes lead to the same citrus flavours, with a bit of melon. Medium bodied, you could almost call this wine juicy thanks to the refreshing fruit-forward finish.

Price: $19

Pair with: This wine doesn’t immediately call for food, but if you have some prawns or mussels on hand, give them a citrus treatment and serve as a light appetizer before the main course. Making brunch? French toast or a nice toasted bread with honey works well.

Music pairing: Buzz Buzz Buzz by Huey Lewis and the News

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.

Hester Creek, Oliver

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