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Wine-Reviews

2021 Beaumont Family Estate Smoke & Mirrors

2021 Smoke & Mirrors

Wine: Smoke & Mirrors, 2021

Winery: Beaumont Family Estate, West Kelowna

Why drink it? Car afficionados? You need to have a bottle of this on hand for the cool label, both front and back. Not many wineries (maybe no others?) can use the phrase “geared down” and have it make sense. An organic Pinot Gris, the pale pink colour comes from skin contact and has a slight golden hue when touched by sunlight. That contact also adds just enough backbone and body to make things interesting. Aromas of stone fruits, lemon peel, and apples fresh from the orchard, followed by matching flavours (the ‘mirrors’) that lean a little more towards a mix of citrus.

Pair with: Chill a bottle for a discussion of the new Elvis movie when you get home from the theatre, perhaps with leftover movie snacks. Smooth goat cheese on crackers with a dollop of apricot jam. Paella might be an intriguing choice, or a lemon chicken dish.

Price: $27

Music pairing: Spinout, Elvis Presley



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About the Author

As a kid, Shelley Boettcher often found herself in the back seat of a pick-up, exploring the back roads of the Okanagan Valley with her parents. They’d occasionally leave her and her brother in the car while they stopped at mysterious addresses to buy wine. They would emerge, clearly happy, as they stuck a box or a few bottles in the vehicle. Then they would continue on their journey.

But it wasn’t until a trip to Spain in 2000 that Shelley herself fell in love with wine. She came home from the holiday and promptly told her editor she wanted to become a wine writer.

And she did. 

An award-winning food and wine writer and editor, Shelley holds her master’s degree in journalism and her advanced WSET certification, as well as her level 2 International Sommelier Guild certification. A wine columnist for the Calgary Herald, she spent a decade as CBC Radio’s national syndicated wine columnist and she has written three books about wine, including two that were Canadian bestsellers. Her byline has appeared in magazines and newspapers around the world, including the New York Times, The Guardian, The Globe and Mail and Postmedia newspapers across Canada. 

Shelley has travelled throughout many of the world’s wine regions and countries, including Niagara, Oregon, Washington, California, France, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Australia, Germany, Argentina and the Republic of Georgia. A few years ago, she even tracked down and visited a winery in Denmark. 

Shelley has also served as a professional wine judge regionally and internationally, including the Okanagan Wine Festivals, Vinitaly and the Chianti Classico Consortium. For more than a decade, she has been a restaurant wine list judge for the Vancouver International Wine Festival, too. She still teases her parents for sparking her love for wine, especially BC wine.

And her favourite? Whatever she's drinking at the moment.

You can follow Shelley on Instagram @shelleyboettcher or Twitter at @shelley_wine. 

If you have a BC wine you’d like to suggest, email Shelley at [email protected] with the name of the wine and a short note about why you enjoyed it. 

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