Natural wines. Coming to a glass near you, soon. Natural Wine Defined What’s a natural wine, you might ask? It means the wine in your glass is in the purest possible form. It's the closest it can be to the fruit that was in the vineyard, preferably organically or bio-dynamically farmed. Most likely it’s made with [...]
Amovino is the name of a new agency making its mark on the BC wine scene. It’s the brainchild of Jessica Luongo and Marisa Varas. They're a couple of smart, young women who decided to pool their experience and resources. I’ve been following this new enterprise with interest. I got to know Jessica Luongo during [...]
At Garagiste North: "The Small Guys" Wine Festival, you'll find only wineries making under 2,000 cases a year.
Nightingale is the latest undertaking from David Hawksworth, Vancouver’s acclaimed culinary star. Hawksworth first arrived on the scene when he opened West Restaurant. At the time he was a virtual unknown. The West Van raised chef had been busy polishing his skills elsewhere. He worked in such esteemed kitchens as Le Manoir aux Quat’ Saisons [...]
This week sees the return of Top Drop Vancouver (Sept 10-11), a "wine and more" festival that focuses very much on smaller wineries and other craft producers. Last year’s debut was rightly well received—likely because the selection of wineries did indeed appeal to a more curious taster, as well as to sommeliers looking to tweak [...]
No, they weren't on the menu. But isn't everyone mesmerized by jellyfish? There's something very reassuring about walking into Stanley Park on a perfect, almost Spring evening. This night was spectacular. A crystal clear partial eclipse of the moon was framed by a cascade of brilliant stars, Venus and Jupiter. I was on my way [...]
ChocolaTas: Looking as good as they taste UPDATED, Sept 9th, 2015 CHOCOLATAS OWNER WIM TAS NAMED TOP ARTISANAL CHOCOLATIER There is plenty of gold for ChocolaTas THE NEWS Master Chocolatier Wim Tas, with his wife and business partner Veve, are positively beaming GOLD. Named Top Artisanal Chocolatier and Most Gifted Chocolatierat the recent International [...]
Fat Tug and a whole lot more ... I’m intrigued by the notion of the “public palate”—the way in which ‘normal’ people grow into and adopt new ideas and tastes, as opposed to the geekery into which most of us food and wine types fall—because we’re immersed in it every day. A story [...]
Faubourg Paris' Franck Point: croissant crusader Franck Point is fanatical about croissants. In fact you could call him a ‘croissant crusader’ and he likely wouldn’t object. Point is the man behind Faubourg Paris, those pretty swish looking, chandelier-trimmed artisan bakery-bistros popping up all around town (there are three so far, all busy), where you [...]
"Mr. Mezcal" Eric Lorenz and an array of Mezcal Updated, April 9, 2014. This year's Vancouver International Tequila Expo runs May 26-31. Full details here: Much more to come soon... When we first met Eric Lorenz a few of years ago, Tequila was something you made margaritas with and, well, who had even heard [...]
