Black Hills Estate Winery always rocks with incredible wines. And now Black Hills rocks with two 2024 “Hiatus Collection” wines, sourced from the Rocks District but crafted in the Okanagan Valley — Nota Bene and Ipso Facto. The B.C. winery’s decision to use grapes from Washington-Oregon was not easy. However, two consecutive winters of extreme cold damaged many of their vineyard blocks, so Black Hills made the difficult choice to source “exceptional vineyards in Washington and Oregon” for their 2024 Hiatus Collection. “The name Hiatus captures this chapter: a pause with purpose.” Both these wines have the wow factor. And as someone who was born and raised in British Columbia, and now lives in Washington, I’m all in!
Category Archives: British Columbia
BC Vintage 2025
Wine Growers British Columbia recently released excellent news about BC vintage 2025, after years of freezes, wildfires, and short harvests. Specifically, the 2025 Vintage Report states: This “lifted an enormous weight off the collective shoulders of the BC wine industry, its plentiful volume and high quality proving a crucial turning point in the fortunes of BC wine after two very challenging and small harvests.” In other words, the story is now of “recovery, resilience and exceptional quality.”
Top 40 Wines 2025
As always, we found it difficult to narrow down a list of our Top 40 wines in 2025, but ultimately we chose those wines that made a lasting impression. Not surprisingly, we tasted hundreds of wines last year. Some, we bought at wineries and retail outlets. Others, we tasted at wine events such as Taste Washington and Swirl Around B.C. Likewise, some fine folks shared their bottles with us, while others kindly sent us samples.
Overall, our 2025 list features 11 sparklers, 13 rosés and whites, and 16 reds, from Washington, British Columbia, Oregon, California, England, France, Italy, Spain, Argentina, South Africa, and New Zealand. Some are on the list because of their exceptional quality (with a matching high price point). On the other hand, others are simply excellent value wines. Moreover, we waited until the beginning of the new year, so we could also include wines we adored over the holidays.
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Swirl Around BC 2025
Last month, we were delighted to attend Swirl Around BC 2025 Wine Expo, an event in Vancouver held by Wines of British Columbia to celebrate BC wine. About 60 wineries participated, and the two of us managed to share small pours from 14 of them. BC wine is indeed worth celebrating. In addition, we talked to several wineries about the provincial program that enables BC wineries to use grapes from outside the province while recovering from the deep freeze in Jan. 2024. We tasted some of these wines with fruit grown from Washington and Oregon, but made in BC. All are delicious!
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