I have been quite fortunate to be on a summer sabbatical from my Vancouver home, swapping condo life in the Main & Broadway area for a tiny cabin on Old Main Road in BC’s Naramata wine country. It has been quite fun, an incredible learning experience and chock full of surprises. Let’s just say that I have never had to deal with bears and rattlesnakes in East Vancouver, but now am educated in how to avoid certain death when encountering either.

This month my sipping and nipping has revolved around Oregon andBC. As I've pottered about the Willamette and Okanagan valleys with mydrinking buddy Mr. S, we've revelled in cool-climate, lettuce-crispwhites and reds. Some really, really good grub too.

The pinot family is obviously well represented both sides of theborder, but with marked style differences. Pinot noir seemsparticularly pleased with the fringe conditions both valleys share...short growing season, hot days and cool nights, the threat of summerdrought and autumn rain.

Do more expensive wines taste better? This was the question posed in a recent fascinating study on the perception of wine quality carried out by the American Association of Wine Economists. Once you finish chuckling about the fact that such as organization actually exists, check out the results - they may save you a lot of doug