California Dreaming

By: Anthony Gismondi

Places

Thankfully, we no longer have to dream of California, with many of us back flying to wineries in the Golden State and around the world.

Locally, the California Wine Fair has returned to Vancouver, Calgary and Montreal for the first time since 2019. There's also a Premium California Wine Release coming up at select BC Liquor Stores on May 28th. We took the opportunity to get the stories behind four California wineries and their icon wines as told by their notable winemakers. We'll also be releasing two Top: 10 California Wine Lists this month, which we'll link to here when they're published. As always, check our tasting notes for new entries of wines we tasted at the Fair and more.

Video Interviews:

Opus One Winery with winemaker Michael Silaaci (5:32)

Tablas Creek Vineyard with second-generation Jason Haas (4:18)

O'Shaughnessy Estate Winery with president and winemaker Sean Capiaux (4:16)

Chappellet with winemaker Michael Corallo-Titus (6:58)

Top 10 - California Comes to Vancouver

Top 10 - Cool Kids California

2022 California Wine Experience

Written By: ag

Anthony Gismondi

Anthony Gismondi is a Canadian wine journalist and one of North America's most influential voices in wine. For over 30 years, he has been the wine columnist for The Vancouver Sun. The twice-weekly column is distributed across Canada through the Postmedia Network to millions of readers. In addition, Anthony hosts the BC Food & Wine Radio Show, broadcast in 25 markets across B.C. and available as a podcast on major platforms. He launched Gismondionwine.com in 1997, attracting one million monthly users from 114 countries. It continues to be a valuable resource full of tasting notes, intelligent wine stories and videos for the trade and consumers. Conversations with wine personalities are available on his YouTube Channel.