2019 Stag’s Hollow Winery Dolcetto

Stag's Hollow Dolcetto

Shelley Boettcher - Apr 16, 2023 / 4:00 am | Story: 420975

Photo: Contributed

Castanet has a new wine writer, Shelley Boettcher.

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.

You can follow Shelley on Instagram @shelleyboettcher or Twitter at @shelley_wine.

Boettcher takes over from long-time wine reviewer Allison Markin, who will continue to write her popular Okanagan Taste column on Castanet, but it will now be more focused on food and events.

If you have a B.C. 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.

Wine: Stag’s Hollow Winery 2019 Dolcetto

Winery: Stag’s Hollow Winery

Why drink it? A silver medal winner at the 2022 National Wine Awards, this delicious dark purple-hued wine is made from Dolcetto, an Italian grape that’s pronounced “dol-chetto” and is rarely found in Canada. What I particularly love about it is that it’s incredibly food friendly, a well-balanced red that has notes of plumbs, blueberry and violets. Drink it young, and often.

It’s worth noting, too, that the previous vintage, the 2018, was named one of Decanter magazine’s top red wines of 2022, one of only a handful of Canadian wineries to be recognized at these prestigious awards.

Pair with: Any dish that has tomato sauce or Italian sausage in it. Try it with burgers, pizza, lasagna or roasted Mediterranean-style veggies such as eggplant and red peppers.

Price: $25

Music pairing: Coming up Easy by Paolo Nutini

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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.

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.