Heidi Noble and Michael Dinn ... to the next level, TP photo Time to catch up on some housekeeping. Here's our column from the North Shore News a couple of weeks ago. As you can tell, we're a big fan of Joie Farm (and—full disclosure—a longtime friend of Heidi and Michael.) The piece [...]
Gold medal weather accompanied our judging at Manteo Resort If you’re a BC wine lover, the line-up of the 24 gold medal winners of this year's British Columbia Wine Awards (a key part of the Okanagan Fall Wine Festival) adds up to a pretty serious shopping list. (Most of these wines should still be [...]
Sea Cider: a wide range of styles, Tim Pawsey photo My first encounter with real cider happened at a relatively youg age. Not long after my 16th birthday, in a misguided attempt to beat the summer heat, I downed an ice cold pint of draught Somerset scrumpy—which was probably around 8 percent ABV, [...]
Smart decor, covered patio, Golden Mile vista. Works for me... TP photo Beyond test driving our Zagat equipped Acura, the main reason for last week’s Okanagan swing was to take in the Vinos and check out Black Hills snappy new tasting room—aka Black Hills Wine Experience Centre. Black Hills president Glenn Fawcett, [...]
Grant Stanley: one of the Okanagan's best One of our favourite tastings of the year is an action packed hour or so spent with Quails Gate winemaker Grant Stanley. We’ll get to the wines shortly but much of my enthusiasm stems from the fact that Grant—aside from being a superb winemaker and one [...]
Our recent nod to the BC Liquor Stores Alsace promo just happened to coincide with the release of Joie Farm's latest crop of whites and ever popular rosé. And, as usually seems to be the case, right out of the gate, the Joie wines are an indication of what to expect for 2011 (overall, a [...]
Up in the lofty surrounds of a marble clad tower high above downtown Vancouver, HiredBelly.com’s cutting edge IT department is still grappling with the challenge of how to present our ongoing Belly’s Best wine picks in a timely and easily accessible way. We’ll let you know when they finally get it figured out. (If they [...]
Another Vancouver Playhouse International Wine Festival done! But what an action packed week, with an amazing array of events, most of which went off without a hitch. Kudos to the tireless Playhouse team, to the legion of unsung volunteers who make this thing work, and especially to Wines of Chile, for truly raising the [...]
Vancouver’s classiest cocktail salute is back with a vengeance this week. Judging by the weekend pre-show and first day’s activities, it promises to far outshine last year’s inaugural event, which was impressive—even more so considering it was the first run. Where cocktails and bartenders mix, even the most functional of activities is likely [...]
It’s entirely possible that the impressive Sidecut / Painted Rock 4 x 5 course winemaker dinner (that’ll be four courses each of five plates or accompaniments) that we enjoyed at just concluded Cornucopia entailed the most food we’ve seen at one sitting! Much like the winery with whom they partnered, it's apparent [...]