Pairings

Pairing Afritada Manok and Wine: on Start-ups, Songs, and Scents

Looking at a timeline of top Billboard hits is such an absolute trip because the journey back to seemingly vapid bops aligns perfectly with particular stages of my life, bringing back such vivid memories. Rihanna’s Only Girl in the World always sends a jolt down my spine as I recall how it woke me up on the radio alarm during my first year of university; the rise of Lady Gaga’s Poker Face brings back that mandatory intro to info tech course we took in high school, where a classmate introduced me to the song as we did our dreadfully easy typing assignments; and Rihanna’s Work immediately became my theme song during that first month in San Francisco when I co-founded a company.… read more

Pairings

Pairing Pinakbet and Wine: on Limp Wrists and Verb Forms

With all of the American high school drama and college rivalries that we saw on TV which left something to be desired in real life for us Canadians (but that I no longer crave for particular reasons), there were some moments of tension between some local schools when I was a kid. There might’ve been the school labeled as the “artsy” one, or there might’ve been that one school who thought they were hot shit because they had that one famous actor who was in that one show for a hot second. Compared to a lot of my friends’ parents, my mom and dad immigrated to Canada a little earlier in their lives, so they ended up attending high school in Vancouver and became familiar with its networks and stereotypes.… read more

Pairings

On Filipino Food and Wine Pairings: an Experiment

I never thought it would feel this quick, but I’ve spent almost 10 years in the wine industry, accompanied by all types of grapey gripes. They range from folks who think red wines are served too warm (which is a perfectly reasonable thought that I also vibe with), to those who decry Chardonnay as if it was Satan manifested into a liquid. Some are oddly offended by the slightest hint of sugar to the point where anything remotely sweeter than battery acid is considered a flaw. I’m not here to yuck anyone’s yum (even when said yum yucks other yums), but damn. Let’s loosen our sommelier pins just a smidgen.

Onto what Lagrein-ds my gears: I fucking hate pairing suggestions that generalize off-dry wines into super generic categories for particular cuisines, like this line: “try this German Riesling with Asian food”.… read more

Tasting

An Albarin-ho tastes Albariño

The new season of RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars 3 means that me and my friend from Barcelona are starting up our weekly podcast again, y’all. He’s originally from Northwest Spain, so when I’m drunk and drinking Rías Baixas – made from the Albariño grape – I always send him a message that I’m drinking juice from his birthplace, even though I sense his mild exasperation when he reminds me he’s not exactly from the region the grape is grown.

My excitement for this Wine Bloggers Conference seminar very much stems from the fact that my access to any extensive selections on these wines was cork-blocked back in Canada, where vintages were not fresh, options were few, and prices were inflated. … read more

Tasting

Jerez-ted Development

In my early 20s, I once brought a bottle of Lustau’s “East India Solera” Sherry to a house party – and to sincerely enjoy it while sharing recent revelations on the tipple rather than for its elevated alcohol. I’ve slowly started to bring less and less esoteric things to these types of shindigs and my choices have devolved from cool sherries to anonymous six-packs.

Stumbling upon Lustau’s Certified Sherry Wine Specialist course, I couldn’t not awaken a category I’ve put on hold, especially after a recent hoo-ha at work involving a Manzanilla that everyone hated but which I gladly paired with a Saturday morning American Horror Story binge. Within the past few years, the fortified wines from the southwestern corner of Spain have shed their reputation for drinks that only grandmas consume (and no seminar on sherry is complete without any mention of this), and they’ve graduated from unfashionable status to hipster status, and with newer energy flowing through their soleras.… read more

Quaffing · Tasting

Sissy That Wine: Trixie Mattel and Katya

My current journey has led me to San Francisco’s tech world, where the constant and profuse flow of genius rarely wanes. This city has drilled its tech life into me so viciously that I regretfully find myself trying to turn every non-work situation into a slightly more productive one. Did I buy a bottle of Dolcetto to enjoy before going to see Trixie Mattel’s drag show, only to force myself to write a detailed draft blog post on the grape? Possibly. Did I hand out two sets of business cards to four people I met in line for Katya’s drag show? Maybe. Did I use the 60 seconds I had, meeting Trixie and Katya, to ask what their favourite wines were?… read more

Life · Quaffing · Tasting

24 wines for turning 24

This post serves two purposes: a sincere smile-and-nod to the 23rd year of my life, and a spring cleaning wine dump of, coincidentally, a number of bottles that equals the number of anniversaries since I was pushed out of my mother. Alas. The past prime number of a year has been good to me, and I’m stoked for the next. Beyond this whole becoming-an-adult thing, I’ve done many things including completing the WSET Diploma (i hate to keep mentioning about it – but perhaps the youngest in BC to do so!), changing jobs, travelling to New York, travelling to France, travelling to Spain, and other things that would probably be best not to put on the internet. Heh.

And home. Oh God – connecting to your roots and family – sometimes I dig myself way too deep into wine culture and its countries that I forget where I come from.… read more

Quaffing · Tasting

The good, the bad, and the bubbly: 9 bottles to bathe in

Okay – not literally, obviously, but I’m waiting for Gwyneth Paltrow’s new beauty regime that involves using a specific wines as exfoliants and face mask ingredients. Chardonnay from Puligny-Montrachet? Fuck that, she would say, with the flick of a finger. Chassagne-Montrachet is where it’s at. Or blanc de blancs Champagne, only from the 1996 vintage. And, of course, cucumber slices. Maybe an avocado.

Anyways, here’s a random collection of bub. I’ve finally tried a legit sparkling Nebbiolo after having joked about it for so long, and then there’s also a birth year bottle of Dom Pérignon, a stunningly electric sparkling British Columbian Riesling, and a collection of other cool and uncool bottles. It’s become suddenly warm in Vancouver, and I broke the summer hiking seal on the last day of March.… read more

Life · Quaffing · Tasting

2015 ends and 2016 trends

I’m a bit late to this #bye2015hello2016 stuff! Anyways, I’ve said it way too many times than you care to read: I’m not big on New Year’s resolutions. But this is the first year where reflecting and looking forward to the next year has felt the least forced. Despite my abrupt and perhaps ephemeral positivity, I won’t be superimposing any fortune cookie pieces of advice onto filtered landscapes anytime soon – March seems to be my I-fucking-hate-everything downfall month anyway, so we’ll see how much my outlook relapses.

joshlikeswine2015

At the beginning of 2015, I made the tongue-in-cheek resolution to be a bit more selfish: to not to be guilt-ridden about having a balanced serving of things that make me happy and to give less of a shit about what other people think.… read more

Tasting

16 Wines to Pair with your Disappointing New Year’s Resolutions of 2016

Rarely do I scroll through my phone in the morning (still in bed, furthermore) and decide to go to an event on a whim especially after a slightly pixilated night involving absinthe and a plethora of Real Housewives taglines, but making quick decisions was one of my resolutions for the year – malformed somewhere in the summer – prompting a quick change and a leap out of the door. Were we supposed to RSVP? Yes, says my phone. Whatever.

I remember attending the Annual Champagne and Sparkling Wine Tasting at Marquis Wine Cellars last year: it was a last-minute invite by text after the first Guild of Sommeliers blind tasting seminar held in Vancouver. I remember forgetting my wallet, so I had to borrow money from a friend to donate to the Big Sisters of BC Lower Mainland, the charity who the event supports. … read more