Wine

The Wine List: 3 Garden-Inspired Summer Pairings

Three organic garden wines made by good stewards of the land.

By Neal McLennan /

I’m not going to try to improve on the picks with B.C.’s amazing Burrowing Owl. Instead let’s take the active garden theme as an alternative tangent. It goes without saying—although I’m saying it anyway—that wine comes from grapes, that are grown in vineyards, that are just really big gardens. And while bees don’t directly pollinate grapevines, they’re invaluable to fostering an ecosystem for thoughtfully made wines. (It’s why you’ll see many wines listed as “bee-friendly,” meaning they eschew the use of pesticides harmful to our winged friends.) So I like pairings that embrace the ethos of place if not the exact dish: organic, back-to-basics, made by good stewards of the land.

READ MORE: 3 Wines for Your Next Backyard Barbecue

CedarCreek Sparkling Chenin Blanc — $42

Sparkling wine pairs wonderfully with almost everything, as does chenin blanc—so sparkling chenin is like a flipping silver bullet of wonderfulness. And I’m choosing it here because chenin has a rare ability to express a honey note without imparting cloying sweetness in a way that defies logic. And if the bees could choose, trust me, they’d ask for chenin from the organic vineyards of CedarCreek.

Béatrice et Pascal Lambert Chinon — $35

Cabernet franc is a wonderful chameleon of a grape. In the Okanagan, producers like Poplar Grove uses it to create fragrant, muscular wines; in Bordeaux, Cheval Blanc uses it for amazingly age-worthy reds—but it’s the Loire where it embraces both the crunch and the greenness of the garden. This bottle from Chinon has the vinous equivalent to a fresh picked cucumber sprinkled with cracked pepper and makes a light but concise pairing with both the bison and the duck.

Danubiana Is This It Grüner Veltliner — $17

Full disclosure: I bought this wine on a Hungarian lark as my book club was reading the Booker prize winner Flesh by David Szalay (#literaryflex). But what happenstance with this wonderfully expressive bargain of a wine: nice stone fruit, but also celery, maybe even radish? So much more garden-y fun and complexity than the normal sub-$20 import—love. Also, props for what I pray is a Strokes reference.

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Neal McLennan

Neal McLennan

Neal McLennan is the wine and spirits editor for Vancouver and Western Living magazines, where he susses out the wonderful (and occasionally weird) options for imbibing across Western Canada.