Getting geeky with my Wine Chix

I've been running a wine club for about a decade and a half now. It started with friends who wanted to learn more about wine. We'd pick a theme and everyone would bring a wine to try. Over the years it's evolved into having everyone chip in a modest budget of $20 each and I pick the wines based on the theme. This is a fun thing I do, not for profit, so I fit it into my spare time and I get to learn a lot too. I'm often picking wines I haven't tried before because I want to try new wines as often as possible.

I've recently decided to kick up the educational aspect of our get togethers. In the past I've done the research on the wines and made up a booklet so we've all been learning. The time has come to get a bit geekier with it.

Last month I decided to do a terroir comparison using BC wines. I went to my local VQA shop to pick out the selection. It turned out to be harder than I expected to find two wines, same varietal, same vintage, different region. Next time I'll make time to hit more stores. That said, I found two Rieslings, two Pinot Noir and two Cabernet Franc that fit the bill. If it were true 'apples to apples' though they'd also be made in the same manner re: oak ageing/not, similar residual sugar, comparable pricing, etc. I came close enough for our first time and everyone really enjoyed the exercise.

With most wines I was able to find out the soil type and the Wine Chix really dug that aspect. Knowing a wine came from clay soils vs alluvial, for example, helped them identify certain traits that made sense. I enjoyed watching their 'aha' moments.

Pictured is the selection of wines and the three highlighted ones were the overall club favourites.

Here's a link if you want to read up on the various wine regions in British Columbia. http://www.winebc.org/about_bcwi/regions/

Cheers, Luisa