2024!
Singletree Winery wines
Max says: When my whisker-twitching friends and I launched our own wine tasting group a few years back, we sampled a huge array of different bottles from around the world. But the Feline Saucer Sippers Club––yes, that’s our name––has since become far more discerning, and we now focus almost solely on B.C. wines.
Aside from the amazing variety available in our own backyard, we love the fact that locally-produced beverages have a smaller footprint than syrahs or merlots from halfway around the globe. And we’re huge fans of small footprints––just ask club secretary Tiddles, who only has two legs (plus a cool harness with wheels that makes him by far our fastest member).
The club meets every week in the basement of Snowy’s Strathcona home. His owners (we prefer to call them “The Can Openers”) rarely come down here, so we’ve created a comfy little den with two old sofas, a stack of clean saucers and some scorecards for marking our assessments of each wine.
We often disagree (the less said about Frankie’s love for nettle riesling the better). But when Eustace––our only Sphynx member––arrived one chilly evening, peeled off his multiple cat sweaters and began pouring a selection from the Fraser Valley’s Singletree Winery, the room soon echoed with purrs of delight.
We tried three of Singletree’s white wines, starting with the 2020 Pinot Gris. Our expert sniffers spotted pineapple and tangerine plus flavours of Asian pear and honeysuckle. The verdict? It would be easy to slurp a large bowl of this crowd-pleaser at a dinner party––and it would pair perfectly with either fish or chicken (in kibble or freshly-cooked form).
​
Next, Eustace introduced us to the 2020 Grüner Veltliner. This crisp tipple––cool-fermented in stainless steel––has flavour notes of apple and Meyer lemon. Slinky thought it would be a great after-work rescue remedy when you’ve had a tough day chasing mice that are just a little too fast. It would also make an excellent host gift if you’re invited to a holiday turkey dinner.
​
By this stage Eustace was looking quite smug and superior. Although, to be fair, he always looks like that so it was hard to be sure. Filled with anticipation, we nibbled some Friskies Party Mix as a palate-cleanser and prepared for the finale. The 2020 Farmhand was my favourite Singletree libation of the evening. Beautifully dry, with delicious sparks of lemon and grapefruit and a velvety honey undertone, it prompted me to almost lick the pattern off my saucer.
Agreeing that all three Singletree wines should be on our Picks of the Year list, we listened as Eustace told us a little more about the winery––a family-run operation based on a bucolic 12-acre Abbotsford farm. We also yowled in surprise when he revealed that each of tonight’s bottles was around the $20 mark. That’s a great price for such appealing beverages––and a handy reminder that B.C. wines like these can be excellent value as well as utterly delicious.