Get the best of Vancouver in your inbox, every Tuesday and Thursday. Sign up for our free newsletter. It’s the one holiday where the problem of what gift to give solves itself—especially if the person who raised you proudly identifies as what the internet likes to call a “Wine Mom”. Admittedly, at first blush, that moniker can seem like not only a vaguely snarky put down, but also outrageously sexist. After all, it’s not like anyone refers to a 24-cans-a-day father as a Beer Dad. We’re going to argue, however, that the term Wine Mom is something to be celebrated, and not just because Wikipedia defines it as “used to describe a typically upper middle class mother, often with young children, who turns to alcoholic drinks to cope with being over-worked or fatigued from parenting”. You’re darn tootin’ that parenting is fatiguing, whether it’s making three square meals a day, begging 29 times in a 60-minute window for someone to unload the dishwasher, or driving the kids to crab soccer, donkey basketball, and underwater hockey practices. Your mom needs something to help her cope, and flowers, chocolates, and the 25th-anniversary edition of Ernest Matthew Mickler’s White Trash Cooking isn’t it. Instead, give your favourite mom one—or all of—the following Straight-sampled bottles this Mother’s Day. Don’t forget to sign the card with “To My Favourite Wine Mom”, letting her know that you not only love her, but understand there’s a reason she needs a minimum of a glass or six per day—that reason, obviously, being you. Blasted Church Unorthodox Chardonnay 2023 Along with West Coasters wearing flip-flops and tank tops to their office jobs, nothing quite says summer like a glass of Chardonnay, in this case on a Vancouver (or Okanagan) patio. Seemingly rising from nowhere to explode in popularity in the ’90s—hell, even Alanis Morissette namechecked it in “Ironic”—the world’s most ubiquitous white has waxed and waned in popularity over the decades, but remains a standby for its versatility. Billed by Blasted Church as a wine that will appeal to everyone (including those who don’t love Chardonnays), Unorthodox Chardonnay starts with grapes harvested from two Skaha Bench blocks, one of them 35 years old, the other considerably younger. Pair this with homemade crab cakes or a roasted corn with romaine and feta salad, and get ready for a rush of Meyer sweet lemon, crisp kiwi, green apple, and crushed green rhubarb. And, while no one’s going to judge you for knocking back a glass or three on a patio wearing flip-flops, maybe opt at least for a pair of Vans and vintage Evaporators tee. Laughing Stock Vineyards Pinot Noir +24/10 2022 About a million years ago, just after the world had discovered the genius of a poor white-trash kid from Aberdeen, Sub Pop became the coolest record label on the planet. To celebrate that, it began printing T-shirts, stickers, and hats emblazoned with a simple one word: loser. The joke was that, if you had the guts to wear the label’s swag in public, you probably weren’t one. On that note, we’ve long loved Okanagan’s Laughing Stock Vineyards for this mission statement: “Laughing Stock Vineyards is a serious enterprise with a most unfortunate moniker. We wake up every day with the constant motivation of not living up to our name.” Laughing Stock Vineyards Pinot Noir +24/10 was aged for 20 months in French oak barrels after grapes were sourced from Thomas Ranch, Bullpine, McIntyre Bluff, and Bearcub vineyards and then whole-berry fermented in stainless steel tanks. If you’ve been thinking about blowing this month’s food budget on fresh Fraser Valley duck and orange-glazed acorn squash, this is a bold wine that’s going to hold its own—think homemade blackcurrant preserves, unsweetened dark chocolate, and Okanagan skeena cherries. In other words, slap a circa-’92 Sub Pop Loser sticker on this one, and you’re pretty much making it clear you’re in on the joke. Chronos Carpo 2022 Named after the Greek goddess of the earth’s fruit crops, Carpo certainly lives up to expectations, delivering a jammy wallop of fresh raspberry and bruised choke cherry with blackberry preserve and plum fruit leather. The journey starts with a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon (30 percent), Merlot (25 percent), Syrah (20 percent), Cabernet Franc (15 percent), and Malbec (10 percent), with the Starburst pops of fruit balancing out the up-front tannins. If you can’t wait, give it 30 minutes to open up, but if you can Chronos Carpo 2022 is only going to get better with age, kind of like that Carpo vintage T-shirt you picked up in Greece circa-2000—impressing everyone, including yourself, that you were able to identify the Greek goddess of all things fruit-related on sight. See Ya Later Ranch Gewürztraminer 2024 Not that anyone needs to be extending an olive branch to the red hat brigade down south, but isn’t it nice to think back to a time when we all got along? Add to that the reality that, if you really think about it, Vancouverites probably have more in common with the progressives in Seattle and Portland than they do with the yahoo separatists of Edmonton and Calgary. See Ya Later Ranch Gewürztraminer suggests that, when it comes to cross-border relationships, there’s still some vague sense of civility left. After a vicious February 2024 cold snap devastated crops, the Okanagan winery with the best name this side of Blasted Church and Laughing Stock Vineyards got proactive, teaming up with grape growers in Washington State. Honey-suckle sweet with gentle washes of orange blossom, fresh pineapple, and syrupy lychee, See Ya Later Ranch Gewürztraminer is made for nights when the spring already feels like summer and the tandoori chicken is ready for the barbecue. Those all-in on the elbows up movement can take comfort in the fact that, once the grapes were sourced down south, everything from finishing to aging and packaging was done in Canada. Oh Canada—and its proud Wine Moms—we stand on guard for thee.