Three things immediately come to mind when I hear the word “evolve”: Pokemon, Digimon, and evolutionary biology. My childhood aside, let’s add Evolve Cellars to the shortlist for a potential fourth: my favourites among this Summerland quartet are the heftier rosé and red that seem to go against the predictable BC pattern of interchangeable off-dry rosés and the oft-disjointed reds. The red of the vintage prior to the current release won a gold medal at the 2015 BC Wine Awards; the wine’s birth was crafted by Lawrence Buhler, winemaker. Huzzah.
The whites, though, along with the rosé, are part of Evolve’s very first vintage release, the grapes being sourced from the Sundial Vineyard on the Black Sage Bench in Oliver, probably attributing the rounder, denser versions of the grapes.… read more
According to Wine Grapes, Mavrud is one of Bulgaria’s two best quality indigenous red grape varieties (the other being Shiroka Melnishka or Melnik), with several variants that differ in terms of size and colour. The late-ripening small berries often produce tannic and acidic wines that apparently take well to oak, and this example has indeed seen new French oak for 12 months – and it’s not obvious. This wine in particular sees Mavrud grapes that have been dried for 2 months before fermentation, creating somewhat of an Eastern European answer to Amarone. Very cool stuff.… 
