PlanitBC

After the wine festival and into your cellar

2012-03-08T14:21:00.000-08:00

Once the tasting room doors are closed, it's time to put all that hard work to good use - buying wines you loved and coveted and wines that deliver the sometimes elusive 'good value'. You know where to begin!

You will have carefully saved your notes and comments about the wines as you tasted them as well as any reminders from speaking to the winemaker ("Come visit us and see what makes our wines unique"), your friends (Tim heart!) or listening to a speaker at one of the tastings you attended ("the 2002 - yum!"). Now take those notes and bring them to your local retailer and stock up.

I've always found that it's right after an event while memories are still fresh that I can buy wines with enthusiasm rather than just searching for a Tuesday wine based on old habits. And it's then that I can best relate the stories to the family or friends or make cellar notes on when to best drink the little gems.

My tastes are eclectic and international. I love wines that say something different to my nose and palate. I'm now keen on Spanish whites (Viura and Albarino and new Chilean reds, but it was after our trip to Spain last fall that I really began re-looking at European options. A renewed interest in French wines - such great value these days - e.g. Louis Latour's Chardonnay, a long time favourite is back on my table as well as some old favourite Rhones - and the Sicilians are producing delicious wines. Not to mention stunning new BC wines!

So, take out your tasting notes and get shopping - now's the best time!

A World of Wine in Vancouver

2012-02-28T16:59:00.001-08:00


A world of flavours in your glass

Hosting the world of wine in one place for so many to enjoy is not an easy task. The many organizers of the Vancouver Wine Festival, properly known as the Vancouver Playhouse International Wine Festival, do just that in spades.

Restaurants will host dinners and luncheons, seminars and workshops will be led by experts, lounges will keep the younger crowd hopping til late and 30,000 bottles of wine will be opened this week as passionate winery principals wax poetic as each cork is pulled or even as each screw-cap is torqued at all of the festival tastings. It's quite a scene.

Chile is the theme region this year and Cabernets the featured grape varietal opening up all sorts of potential for exploration to guests who may have not had the chance to travel or reach beyond their usual choices on the liquor store shelves.

I love the Festival and have been involved for over 25 years in some capacity or another, and have been fortunate to meet some of the world's finest palates, winemakers and marketers. What makes it a unique wine event from a taster's point of view is just simply the overwhelming variety and quality of wines produced and the winery principals who must attend by Festival decree. Though I suspect that showing wines from exotic regions in China and India is not too far away, we are introduced to wines from almost every other grape growing region around the globe.

So, how to go about traveling the globe with a wine glass in your hand? Simple.
     1. Make a plan - visit playhousewinefest.com to see which wineries are attending and what regions you'd like to explore. Maybe you are planning a trip to Spain or Chile next year and want to meet a few winery representatives who can help introduce the wines and foods to experience while you are visiting. They may even invite you to the winery for a tour and tasting - often a rare opportunity in some regions.
     2. Keep notes on the wines you like - even if it's just a 'thumbs up' or 'thumbs down' - and buy a couple of bottles in the onsite BC Liquor store so that you can share them with friends at your next dinner party.
     3. Make sure that you don't just ask for a taste, but that you make the time to speak to the person behind the table. They have come a long way to speak to you! They know their wines and are passionate about their region, their terroir and the food that is best served with their wines.
     4. I know that it will be difficult because of the number of people in the tasting room, but take time to taste. At least try to. There will be hundreds of other enthusiasts, lots of noise and lots of distractions - including friends trying to drag your elbow over to their latest find. Resist for a few seconds before moving on.
     5. Keep an open mind. Your taste changes and develops through opportunities to explore flavours, textures and aromas.
     6. Have fun! Wine's not serious, it's a way to travel the globe with friends. Swirl, sniff, sip, spit and take a cab.

These few suggestions aside, the Playhouse wine festival is an event that bring friends together to experience the flavours of our shrinking world, but with a glass in hand and curiosity and enthusiasm by your side, your festival memories will serve you well the next time you open a bottle of wine. It has for me for over two decades.

Thank you to our theme region Chile, the Cabernet producers, all the visiting wineries, the volunteers and wine agents and everyone who has made this one of the best celebrations of the grape in the world!

Salut!

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Food and drink bloggers are everywhere

2010-12-15T13:08:00.000-08:00

Does everyone have to blog?

I love sharing and understand that we all eat and drink in various quantities and qualities, and I also understand that we are at our computers a lot these days, and that we love to dream of other things while we sit and try to get work done, but does everyone have to blog about it?

Did Julie Powell make it OK for anyone interested in cooking to start to blog?

There are more bloggers about food and drink than just about anything. You just have to imagine an ingredient or a wine component and it seems that you can find an opinion or story online. What's with that?

Call me overloaded, but I like the fact that we have friends to share our favourites with, but I have the feeling that I now have too many people to report to. Close friends are ones we eat and drink with. The rest of the world doesn't need to hear what we thought about last night's cocktails, first or last courses or which restaurant we ate at. Enough already!

There are blogger communities and forums enough to fill your day reading, never mind doing your own research on the street or speaking to your neighbourhood bartender or server.

I'm on my way out to do some Christmas shopping and I'm not going to research myself at the computer all day - I'm just going to do it. And if I come across a warm, welcoming little cafe, I might just stop for a bowl of soup and not tell anyone about how tasty it was.

I'll keep the simple pleasure to myself. It'll keep me warm on this drippy, west coast day. Shhhh...

South Africa and the World Cup in the spotlight

2010-06-04T10:33:00.000-07:00

If you've ever been to South Africa, its beauty strikes you first. Contrasts in geography, diversity in wildlife and peoples, and not least of all, a superb food and wine scene helps a little bit to ease any discomfort over politics.

The winegrowing regions of the Western Cape produce wines of considerable quality and variety. Their popular classic chenin blancs, chardonnays, sauvignon blancs, cabernets and shirazes keep company with viognier, pinotage and a bit of merlot while chefs make dining out an extension of the vineyards and farm lands and the flavours of the country.

Now, what's happening during the World Cup, surely an event to unite the whole country?

Not to outshine the games themselves, but every restaurant, bar and street stall will have a special menu item or two during World Cup - flags a-flying! From World Cup cupcakes to soccer ball chicken and special cocktails, there will be something for all tastes and imaginations. Locally, to capture the spirit and flavours, the BC Signature Liquor Store will be hosting a wine tasting at the 39th & Cambie store on June 11th. Light hors d'oeuvres will be served from the Hart House kitchen.

In my minds eye I can see fields and fields of kids playing soccer, and gynormous stands filled with very noisy crowds, but for me, the food and wine and energy will be the best thing about being in South Africa this month.

Oh, and the scenery.

What Volcano?

2010-04-26T22:07:00.000-07:00

It just seems like last year that we used to visit San Francisco to check up on it's dining scene and especially it's wine scene. Hot places like One Market, Stars, Postrio and so many others served up the latest and we were there to report back to our restaurant accounts on trends. The West Coast was hot, especially south of us.

We were all learning and teaching at the same time. Being in the wine business and repping meant sadly... travelling to vineyards, talking to winemakers and chefs, learning the ropes and then coming home to transfer all the enthusiasm we had absorbed while away. Such fun. Those were the halcyon days of the industry, we thought.

Now, so much is so rapidly taught and learned; classes bring knowledge by the roomful - in culinary schools, wine and sommelier classes, hospitality management courses (what's that!?), and all the arts of the table. So close. So easy. So accessible.

Not to take anything away from the way it is now. It's just different. Fresh. Enthusiastic. Everywhere. At the table, online, in forums, blogs and between friends. I love that it's so easy. We are spoiled. Friends now know so much and can share so much. Restaurants can (mostly) be relied upon to recommend the right wine for the right dish for the right price and rarely miss the mark. It wasn't always so.

I'm just learning how to upload videos on PlanitBC to share our travels with friends and colleagues. It never stops. Wonderful. Exciting. And just when you think that you'd just like to sit down with a glass of port, there's another wine to try, another winemaker to teach you more, another chef to share their techniques, and heaven knows another bit of technology to learn.

And we were worrying about a volcano and how it would 'ruin' our trip. Not to be. It sent us to California where we enjoyed great restaurants, the beautiful Sonoma Valley and it's so close to home, so different.

And so familiar...

Perbacco's Kitchen

Good food and memories, well served

2010-03-15T16:21:00.000-07:00

We were invited for dinner at Chambar the other night - a warm, welcoming space with a high degree of energy and spirit.

We arrived early and our hosts were already there, greeted us and showed us to our table. We were going to be six and the other hadn't yet arrived. Cool drinks were ordered and my favourite gin of the moment - Hendrick's, delivered. We were seated in just about the noisiest table in the house and, as it was pointed out by Robert, the one and only consistent complaint about Chambar was handled efficiently by a move to a quieter (slightly) table in the back room. The others arrived and the evening rolled on. Funny how things go smoothly when good company is paired with inspired drinks, excellent food and attentive service.

Our Saturday night out came after a short day skiing at Whistler with a warm, mellow, Olympic ambiance in the village. Still glowing and with an easy familiarity with the scene, people were just enjoying being there. Lift line ups, and disappointing fog brought us to the valley and to the Dubhlin Gate for lunch, then that was it for the day. Spring break and the promise of new snow had brought the skiers and riders from the city who mingled with the Olympic fans - a different mix than when just the Olympics brought people to the village squares.

I'm going to vote for letting the Olympics go. We hear the cries to try again or keep it going, that we'll miss it when it's ALL gone, but you know, it's better to have brief, happy memories than have the memories become permanent residents, sort of like overdone visiting relatives. It's been a blast and great memories will last forever. Our evening with friends was just the beginning of the story telling.

Devastating earthquake in Chile's major wine region

2010-03-01T12:38:00.000-08:00

I can't help thinking of the friends I made while working for Wines of Chile and how they are faring there now after the earthquake. I see an article in WineBusiness.com that says that some wineries have just lost some bottles, others have lost all their inventory and some are flattened. No matter what, it's awful.

Some wineries are so damaged that they do not know what to do with the upcoming harvest which is just around the corner with no tanks to store the juice. Some have 'cancelled' harvest! I can't imagine! I hope that other unaffected wineries come to their aid as we have seen in other regions when disaster has struck. This might be too much to handle for the 2010 harvest.

I'll keep watching and see what comes from it. In any case, they will have to take some time to regroup and cleanup. Chileans are resourceful, focused and energetic and won't let it get them down...but still, so sad. They'll recover and move on. Makes you wonder how our communities would fare with such a disaster.

And this is the county's 200th anniversary of independance - September 18th is their 'birthday'. Let's hope they'll be ready to celebrate by then.

Olympics, naturally...

2010-02-24T12:11:00.000-08:00

It seems like the local press is listening to the servers at Whistler and Vancouver who aren't benefitting from the international crowds not used to tipping. Glad to hear that some are adopting 'gratuity included'. Makes way more sense than trying to coax a 15% tip out of overconsuming customers. The usual weekend Whistler crowd makes a server's life worthwhile for the season, but the lessons of the Games might be that it may be time to bring a better wage to servers or 'include' the grat and share the Games' success...and beyond.

We hit the Swiss House at Bridges on the weekend and were happy to see 'Included' on the grat line! Well done and much appreciated.