wine culture – The Sipster's Guides with Luke Whittall

Crushing It, Niagara Style

You will hear 2 other voices on this week’s podcast and those will be of Graham Rennie and Matt Loney. Graham is the found of The Niagara Custom Crush Studio in Vineland, Ontario and Matt Loney is the General Manager. They are innovative and pushing the envelope for a new style of custom crush facility. They are just getting started now but they are on track to become a focal point in Niagara’s wine industry, acting as an incubator for new brands to get established and as a home base for their own brands. Graham’s flagship is Rennie Estate Winery, which produces some of the most amazing red wines ever to come out of Ontario, in my opinion. That’s why I featured one in my first volume of the Sipster’s Pocket Guide to 50 Must-Try Ontario Wines. I sat down with Graham and Matt to taste through some of their portfolio and what you will hear now is the discussion that happened at that tasting.

If you have not heard of appassimento styles of wines, you should really check this out because Ontario is really making some beautiful wines using these techniques.

Listen to this week’s podcast here or on your favourite podcast player.

Email me your experiences at sipsterswinepodcast@gmail.com!

Purchase copies of “The Sipsters Pocket Guides” here!

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When Wineries Don’t Get it Right

You never know who you’re going to meet when you work at a winery. This is a recent conversation with Kaila Kliewer, formerly a wine sales professional on the coast with a background in hospitality, who I actually met 10 years ago! (That’s a good story too…) We share a similar interest and appreciation in wine but also a similar point of view over the industry from the perspective of working at VQA stores. She shares some stories about her experience in wine and also a not-so-good recent experience at a winery that left her frustrated.

Out stunt wine in this podcast is the OAK Estate Winery Lavish.

**PLEASE NOTE – The winery that Kaila is referring to was not pictured in her photo nor was it OAK Estate Winery. The actual winery where her experience took place is not important. **

Listen to this week’s podcast here or on your favourite podcast player.

Email your answers to this week’s Big Question, your comments or questions, or your special wine experiences to me at sipsterswinepodcast@gmail.com!

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Thank you for listening!

That One Time in a Tesla

If it’s one thing I’ve learned from my years of producing a podcast, it’s that I can plan anything I want to, with as much detail and precision as I am capable of, but in the end the results are usually out of my control. I don’t have a journalism background and therefore, no training about how to maintain perspective or ask the tough questions or anything like that. Sometimes, I just have to go along for the ride and see where it takes me.

This is literally what happened with I met Jess Hopwood and spent the afternoon zooming around in her Tesla talking about wine touring. Jess owns and operates Farm to Glass Wine Tours, an extraordinary eco-conscious wine tour venture offering high-level private tours all through the Okanagan and Similkameen valleys.

Jess with a recent vintage, Chateau de Laine perhaps?.

My original plan was to drive around, chat about wine touring, and maybe get a little of that Tesla road ambiance at the same time. Jess, whirlwind of enthusiasm that she is, had more ideas. In this podcast, we talk Tesla’s, EV’s, emissions, visit a winery, and then taste a wine back at Sipster’s HQ. It is a fantastic conversation and, like the tours that Jessie offers, an amazing experience.

She also has a special offer for listeners of the Sipster’s Podcast. Listen for the special code to get 15% off any wine tour from Farm to Glass Wine Tours. She even made a special Sipster’s page on her website that has more of a backstory about how this podcast came to be.

Listen to this week’s podcast here

The Other One with Laura Milnes

This is Part 2 of my conversation with the one and only Laura Milnes, she of Crushable Wine Club fame and persistent purveyor and steadfast supporter of Canadian wine and wine culture.

Listen to this week’s podcast here

The One with Laura Milnes

I first met Laura in early 2018, I believe through social media (although it was a bit of a blurry time in my life at that point so I might be wrong). In any case, we spent the afternoon chatting about wine and looking at the lake in the warm spring sun. Laura was not like other people that I had talked to about wine. Her questions to me where very different and I liked that immediately. We stayed in touch and I always thought back to that conversation and how great it would have been to capture it for a podcast. Problem was, I wasn’t doing a podcast at that time.

However, within the year she created a vlog to accompany her blog, called Silk and Coupe and she invited me to be a guest on it. She interviewed me about my first book, which hadn’t even been released at that point) and we again went our separate ways. But we stayed in touch casually over the years and when I found out that she was going to be in the Okanagan visiting family, I jumped at the chance to finally get a podcast interview with her.

Her evolution as a wine personality is unique in that she has experience with all of the major wine producing regions in Canada. In this chat, we get into Dad Wines & Natty Bros, and how she learned to hold a wine glass properly. Of course, the infamous Titty Tees will make an appearance too. She’s outspoken, opinionated, very well spoken, and informed. Enjoy part 1 of my conversation with Laura Milnes.

Crushable Wine Club

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The One Where Luke Disappears

Uh, hello? Is there anyone producing this podcast?

Ok, I’ve been busy. The late spring and summer have been a bit abnormal for me and I had to step away from the podcast world for a short time. But, I’m back and plan on bringing more crisp and refreshing podcasty goodness to your app in the coming months.

Officially, this will be the beginning of the end of Season 1. I have noticed that the word ‘season’ when referring to podcasts is a little vague. Some podcasts have seasons that are 6 months long. Others produce 6 episodes, release them in one shot, and then call that a season. Some produce constantly throughout the year and declare a new season when they reach their anniversary. Prolific YouTubers seem to do that.

That’s also what I did for my old podcast, which lasted 5 ‘seasons’. And then I burned out. And stopped for 8 years. So maybe I won’t do that with the Sipster’s Wine Podcast. The first Sipster’s podcast was launched in October so I will keep to that anniversary date but I think I’m going to take some time off now and then.

That’s what I did in the past couple of months. Listen in to find out what happened…

Listen to this week’s podcast here

Episode 27 – It’s Here!

It’s here!

What’s here? The Sipster’s Pocket Guide to 50 Must-Try BC Wines, Volume 2 is now out!

Buy it at Mosaic Books in Kelowna!

Buy it at Munro Books in Victoria!

You can buy it here! You can buy it there!

You can buy it everywhere!

You can also buy it directly from me by sending me an email. Let me know how many you’d like, if you’d like them signed and personalized, and where they are shipping to and we will work something out using e-transfer. Also, if you are in the Okanagan, I can also arrange to personally hand you a copy somewhere. (Now, THAT is customer service!)

Oh, and there is also wine touring information on this podcast too.
The Okanagan Wine Tour Guide by John Schreiner and Luke Whittall
Uncork BC (not a paid partnership or affiliate link – I’m not smart enough for that yet I guess…)

Listen to this week’s podcast here

Episode 26 with DJ Lady of the Mist

DJ Lady of the Mist, aka my friend and occasional musical partner Misty Rose. I’ve known Misty for about 7 or 8 years now and together we form the guitar and flute duet called Pairing Notes. Sadly, it took a long time for us to come up with that name. (For some reason, she didn’t like Flutar, which was one of my suggestions – don’t know why. Weird.) Anyways, Misty and I talk about all kinds of cool things including the disturbing lack of night life in the Okanagan and what wineries can do to help bring it back. She absolutely dazzled the crowd at a winery event last summer and got a lot of people talking because along with spinning tracks, she plays ridiculous flute riffs over top which makes for an amazing performance that you really have to see for yourself.

Catch Misty’s stream on Twitch.

Listen to this week’s podcast here

Episode 25 with Blair Gillingham

Blair Gillingham is the winemaker now at Howling Bluff Estate Winery in Naramata but for has been in the wine business since he was a teenager. There aren’t a lot of people in their early 40s who can say that they’ve experience well more than 20 vintages, which he’s done in many countries around the world, which he’ll be talking about. Blair is super down to earth about wine and winemaking. He was a hard-core listener to my old podcast, Wine Country BC back in the day – even remembering things about them that I’d forgotten about. He brought along a couple of tank samples to try as well, which was really cool. Enjoy my chat with Howling Bluff winemaker Blair Gillingham. Cheers!

Listen to this week’s podcast here

Social Media is Dead

Wine and social media used to be a classic pairing. Wine enthusiasts found an outlet for their passion and generously shared their experiences on social media platforms like Twitter and Instagram to share with their friends and learn about others’ experiences at the same time. But something has changed. Is social media still the place for wine lovers to congregate? Is it a constructive and beneficial element in our lives?

This podcast is an exploration of social media as I’ve been observing it in 2023, after 15 years of taking part in it.