Ask a Wine Expert: 11 Wine Recommendations for 11 Very Specific Wine Problems

Sometimes, you have wine questions that go beyond “can I have some?” And that’s when we call up Neal McLennan, our esteemed wine and spirits editor, who is always happy to dispense advice along with a heavy pour of something very nice. With his specific wine solutions to your specific wine conundrums, you’ll never burst into tears at Legacy again. Cheers to that.

Wine conundrum #1: A Carnivore and a Herbivore Sit Down to Dinner

I’m having steak and potatoes; my vegan partner is eating some sort of raw lentil pie. We’re from two different worlds but we’re making it work. What’s a bottle of wine we could share?

THE SOLUTION: Bodegas Peique Ramón Valle

We’re gonna let you in on a  secret: wine pairing is inexact and overrated. So instead of seeking a bottle that pairs perfectly with one specific dish, move toward choosing a style of wine that works across the spectrum—like lighter reds with high acidity. This bottle of Bodegas Peique Ramón Valle ($28) is from the Bierzo region of Spain, where they grow the mencia grape. It’s lively enough to cut the richness of the steak, but juicy enough to lift the lentils—plus it’s vegan and costs about a fifth of what the Cali cab most red meat eaters would reach for.

Wine Conundrum #2: Buying Wine for the Boss

What’s the best bottle to give my boss at Christmas? Something that says both “I respect you but I’m not sucking up” and “this is actually a thoughtful choice and not just a last-minute panic buy at the liquor store.”

The Solution: 1 Mill Road

You’re looking for a bottle that represents all of the things you are to the company: forward-thinking, unique, focused on quality, passionate. 1 Mill Road in Naramata is still a young winery, but its chardonnay ($48) already is at the pinnacle of the Okanagan and can stand toe-to-toe with wines that cost double (or more) from Sonoma or Chablis. It’s restrained, elegant and age-worthy, and if a wine nerd sees it in your boss’s cellar, they’ll give them props for serious discernment. And the kicker: it’s under $50 and there’s a small amount available at the BCL.

Wine Conundrum #3: Impressing My Date (and the Somm)

I’ve scrimped and saved to take the person of my dreams to a Vancouver Magazine Restaurant Award–winning spot renowned for its impressive wine list. I want to show them that I’m a thoughtful sort worth investing in… while staying within spitting distance of the “second cheapest bottle” rule. What’s an area to explore that will get the somm to endorse my interesting bona fides?

The Solution: Vassaltis Assyrtiko

Let’s talk about another somm passion: changing people’s expectations about a certain wine or region. Thanks to years of retsina-derived fever dreams, it takes some confidence to use the words “Greek” and “wine” in the same sentence, but order an assyrtiko from cult producer Vassaltis ($76) and watch the pro beam at your inspired choice. It hails from the famed island of Santorini, where assyrtiko has been grown for generations but has lately come under threat as land prices spiral upward in the tourist mecca. But one sip of it—grippy, tropical, clean AF—and all involved will agree that land can have no higher calling than producing wine of this magnificence.

Wine Conundrum #4: Pasta Night Pressure

I’m going to dinner at my friend’s house and she’s a certified somm. The pressure is on. What’s the best bottle to impress a wine nerd (on a just-a-casual-Wednesday-night-pasta-dinner kind of budget)?

The Solution: Los Bermejos Lanzarote Malvasia Volcanica

Well, this is a loaded question, isn’t it? The heart of the somm is deep, but fickle: 30 years ago it might have been a bottle of Priorat from Spain; 20 years ago a Sonoma Coast pinot; 10, a Cru Beaujolais. But today? How about a wine that’s relatively new here, but has a storied history, an intense saline and stony flavour profile that calls to use the loved descriptor “minerality” and is grown on volcanic soil (somms love volcanos)? All this esoterica is available for only $36 in Los Bermejos Lanzarote Malvasia Volcanica from the Canary Islands: a unicorn of a wine weirdly hiding in plain sight at the BCL.

Wine Conundrum #5: An Alpine Proposal

I’m going on a hike with my partner (brag) and I’m going to propose when we get to the top! What’s celebratory, but can also handle being shuttled along in a backpack for four hours?

The Solution: Taittinger Champagne

Ok, lots of vectors at play here. While red wine doesn’t need chilling and can hold up to jostling, do you really want a plastic cupful of barolo after sweating it out climbing the Chief? So let’s lean into convention here: in this case, a half-bottle of Taittinger champagne ($80), cooled by a mountain stream, seems like the perfect vignette to remember. It’s also a bottle that’s available widely throughout the world, so after you’ve come down from Kilimanjaro on your 25th anniversary you can have dinner in Nairobi and revisit your romantic past.

Wine Conundrum #6: An Australian-Themed Birthday Party

I’ve been invited to a 30th birthday bash in Whistler and the theme is, quelle surprise, “All things Aussie.” I’ve been asked to bring a bottle of red but I don’t love big,  bold shiraz. How can I go Down Under but still satisfy my minimalist palate?

The Solution: Koerner The Clare

Honestly, this is easier than you think because while most of  our Southern doppelgangers do still like a good ol’ fruit bomb, there’s a growing cadre of really dedicated experimental types who are pushing more boundaries than Guy Pearce in Priscilla. Like the Koerner brothers, who are on a serious purity quest. Their take on Bordeaux, The Clare ($47), is like Christmas in summer: a revelation. It’s intensely floral and herbaceous and the opposite of leaden in the glass: you might just convert more than a few mollydookers with this bottle.

Wine Conundrum #7: Booze for the Babysitter

I’m stocking the fridge for the babysitter. What’s a wine that says “have fun and thank you” but also “please don’t get too loaded”?

The Solution: Bartier Bros. Piquette 

To be clear, this is a 19-plus babysitter, right? This sounds like a job for piquette, the wine cousin that’s made by re-using already-pressed grapes, resulting in a fizzy, low-alcohol bevy originally drunk by field workers but that has now, like Carhartt, been co-opted by people with exceedingly soft hands and statement headgear. But that doesn’t mean that a rosé version from Bartier Bros. isn’t a stone-cold winner for its ultra-low alcohol (4.2%), keepin’-it-real price point ($4 a can, important given that you’re legally obligated to pay this young-but-not-too-young adult $17.40/hour) and its juicy cranberry-and-orange crunch of flavour.

Wine Conundrum #8: Broken-Hearted and Afraid of Pinot

I just got dumped. My true love was a pinotphile and now I can’t drink it without crying. Where do I go for my light red fix?

The Solution: Blue Mountain Gamay 

No one said living with a pinot fan was going to be easy (those thin skins and all). But I have a solution: really good gamay. When treated seriously, the grape offers plenty in common with pinot: pale red colour, light body, tart delivery, better with the tiniest chill. We have some serious gamay producers in B.C., like Orofino and Haywire, but let’s opt for the gamay OG, Blue Mountain ($34), which is a dense, spicy and complex take on the grape and can age like a fine grudge. In one word: brooding (both you and the wine).

Wine Conundrum #9: Your Farmer Uncle Is in Town

Uncle Ernie is visiting from his farm in Estevan, Saskatchewan. I want to highlight our local wine scene but ol’ Ern ain’t interested in supporting any “big city millionaires with their hobby farms.” Where do I turn?

The Solution: Foret Berens Cabernet Franc 

Get a map of B.C. and ask Ernie to follow you north up Highway 99, past Whistler, past Pemberton, and, when you near the tiny town of Lillooet, tell him about how a pair of dreamers named Rolf de Bruin and Heleen Pannekoek came to this remote spot—the nearest Starbucks is a two-hour drive—and set up a winery in a place with no history of grape growing. Then have him taste their Foret Berens cabernet franc ($46), a smoky, crunchy, vibrant glass of wine that’s both bold and refreshing (like Ernie’s freely shared views on Trudeau) and let’s see if he doesn’t order a case on the condition that it be illegally shipped back home.

Wine Conundrum #10: Quench Your Cousins

I told my mom I would bring the wine for Thanksgiving and now it turns out that all 16 of my cousins are coming. What’s the best bulk buy?

The Solution: Monte Creek Hands Up White 

The normal math of three-ish people to a bottle of wine doesn’t work with cousins, who drink like fish. But how to bulk up without looking overly thrifty? This box of Hands Up White from Monte Creek in Kamloops is a large-crowd godsend—for $49, you get the equivalent of four $20 bottles, so you’re already ahead, financially speaking. And the juice inside is crowd pleasing: an out-of-the-box (get it?) blend of six grapes, some of which are familiar (chardonnay) and some of which are definitely not (you get Frontenac gris and blanc!). The end result delivers ample fruit—ripe apples and mangoes—while still offering cool-climate freshness to literally cut through the gravy.

Wine Conundrum #11: Judging a Bottle by Its Cover

I only want to buy a bottle of wine if the label is also beautiful. (I’m shallow.) What has pretty packaging but is also not total swill?

The Solution: A Sunday in August 

For starters, don’t beat yourself up—while it’s not scientifically proven that there’s a connection between good graphic design and good winemaking, more often than not you can glean a sense of where the winemaker is going with their cover art. Case in point: natty wine pioneer A Sunday in August makes big-hearted, open-armed wine that’s organic and juicy and then adorns the bottles with original commissions for local artists like Claire Milbrath and Celia Duthie that run the gamut from Fauvism to slightly less Fauvism—making for a big wine/artist love-in that’s very… natural.