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Wine-Reviews

2019 Fitzpatrick Family Vineyards Fitz Crémant

2019 Fitz Crémant

Wine: Fitz Crémant, 2019 (sparkling)

Winery: Fitzpatrick Family Vineyards, Summerland

Why drink it? In France, crémant sparkling wines are made the same was champagne, but not in the champagne region, and without the champagne price. This Pinot Blanc version tips its glass to Alsace. The grapes come from the slopes of the winery’s Greta Ranch vineyard, are fermented and aged in stainless steel, and as with traditional bubbly, the secondary fermentation occurs in the bottle. There is a sense of fresh baked bread and almonds mixed in with green apple on the nose, gentle but consistent bubbles, and light straw colour in the glass. A fresh minerality rounds out each sip.

Pair with: Holiday dinners are coming up. Start with a glass to toast the occasion, or save it for the main course for a different experience. Will pair well with buttery mashed potatoes, and quite likely a crispy, indulgent deep fried turkey, if you dare.

Price: $25

Music pairing: We Are Family, Sister Sledge



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231997
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. 

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