Penultimate Post - from beautiful Vancouver

Time flies when you're having fun! I arrived in Vancouver about eight weeks ago and it's become one of my absolute favourite cities. It hasn't hurt that the weather has been perfect for most of that time, although a quick link back to my first post in BC shows me moaning and groaning about the rain.
We leave tomorrow for a grand drive back through the Okanagan Valley, up to Banff, Jasper, Edmonton, on to Calgary and then home, by plane, to hot, sticky Ottawa. That journey, in all its glory, will undoubtedly produce another post, especially since the Central Okanagan Valley and the rugged Rockies come into play.
But before I leave Vancouver, here's a spectacular, mostly pictorial peek at some of the wonderful things this city has to offer. Vancouverites - you have it all!
Deep Cove
In North Vancouver, on Indian Arm, this beautiful bay is a great place for paddling, or hanging out on a hot day. The Baden Powell Trail starts here and the first leg, like many trails in the area, is generally upwards. Spectacular views await.

Grouse Mountain
Definitely a tourist attraction, but big enough to handle the crowds, the mountain is less than half an hour from the City Centre. Apart from the famous Grouse Grind, which allows you to clamber your way to the top and arrive all hot, sweaty and fulfilled, the gondola will also whisk you to the top, where various activities await -
 
looking at the views, eating, drinking, hiking, watching lumberjacks, watching raptors, looking for grizzly bears,
 
taking another lift to the Eye of the Wind and popping into the 'highest point in Vancouver' viewing gallery;


or wishing it was winter so you could be skiing on awesome trails right in the city. From the Eye of the Wind, you'll have  a spectacular view of distant Mount Baker in Washington State.

Kitsilano Pool
 
Vancouver has a number of outdoor pools. This is the one that we frequented. It's 137.5 m long, pristine, heated enough, part fresh part salt water and utterly beautiful. 
Capilano Suspension Bridge
Close to Grouse Mountain, famous, and completely packed with tourists on a warm day, nonetheless the bridge has to be crossed.

You'll stagger around like a drunk as you make your way to the other side, where various activities await, none of them including peaceful solitude, but all of them delightful. You can pace behind a knowledgeable guide who will show you wonderful old trees.

You can see more raptors, up close and comfortable.

You can learn interesting facts about rainforests.

West
In the summer, there's no end to the number of plays, shows, festivals, music and art you can take in. On our way to see Dream Girls one evening, we popped in for cocktails to a great bar and restaurant on Granville Street  at 13th called West. The cocktail list was a mile long, their Scotch selection was more than impressive and the diners looked very happy.

Bard on the Beach
I mentioned Twelfth Night in a previous post. It was so good that we bought tickets for the other plays at the festival.

Measure for Measure took place on the studio stage, as did Elizabeth Rex, a super play by Timothy Findley, whose characters include Shakespeare and Elizabeth 1. The acting and staging were brilliant. I highly recommend seeing E Rex if you're in this city.

Hamlet, set in 2013, was unforgettable, mesmerizing and fantastically staged and performed. I sat in the front row, within spitting distance, and was completely captivated. Worth coming to Vancouver in the summer just to see this festival.

We visited a few restaurants in the last couple of weeks. VIJ's is a superb Indian food restaurant, a bit of a Vancouver institution, and voted Vancouver's best Indian food restaurant 2013 by Vancouver Magazine. Amazingly, I didn't take any photos, but the food was excellent.
Wildebeest was voted best new restaurant and also won best new design in the Vanmag ratings. The vibe is noisy, the chairs hard, and many of the tables are communal. I liked it more than my dining companion, and I absolutely loved our starters which consisted of bacon wrapped rustic paté and pulled pork polenta rissoles with a  jam that could have been rhubarb/redcurrant. Yum.

We selected mains featuring salmon and beef short ribs, but both dishes had too much sous vide treatment for our liking. Perhaps I'm too much of a traditionalist, but I like my beef short ribs slow cooked and falling off the bone, not slow cooked sous vide and pink with too much uncoagulated fat.
Tableau Bar Bistro on Melville won Gold in the best casual French restaurant, and I loved it for a lunch involving a fabulous duck confit salad and some Joie Farm rosé.
Last Friday, we spent the evening listening to a lecture on the Mysteries of the Quantum Universe at Science World. Do I know how to kick off a weekend or what! It was utterly brilliant, though, and Dr Hitoshi Murayama is a brilliant speaker, who makes hard stuff accessible and awe-inspiring. Afterwards we attended a reception on the balcony at Science World with this view.

The following morning, bright, early and festooned with a  magical bib number, I ran a road race, which took me through Pacific Spirit Park at UBC. Inspired by Dr M the previous evening or the beauty of the park or something, I managed to come in first in my age category and 6th out of an overall field of 83. Yeah!

Five time Olympian, Hayley Wickenheiser was the inspirational speaker, and the main thing I heard her say was " go celebrate", which we did at the Kitsilano Arts and Music festival, eating great street food, before walking down to watch Hamlet. On the way, we passed Kitsilano Pool, where hundreds of folks were seated watching a brass band play.

What a backdrop! What a city!
But now, I must go pack for the trip. We have one day in the Okanagan Valley, where it's 30+C, sunny, and still filled with wineries. In an attempt to be sensible, we're going to taste at five wineries around Kelowna, so check back later for updates on Tantalus, Cedar Creek, Quail's Gate, Mt Boucherie and Mission Hill.
Thanks for following along.

Au revoir, Vancouver. You're beautiful!

South Okanagan - 5 days of bliss

Following the Thompson River

To be perfectly accurate, the five days of bliss included a couple of travel days from and to Vancouver, but the scenery en route is so stunning that I've included those days in the bliss category.
On day 1, Gerald and I took the fabulous Highway 3 from Vancouver to Osoyoos, stopping in Princeton for coffee and a brief reunion with a colleague and friend I hadn't seen for over a decade! We power talked, assured each other that we hadn't changed a bit, and continued in opposite directions. It rained a good part of the way so we didn't stop to take photos, but the Crows Nest Highway is truly magnificent with majestic views, twisty roads, mountain passes, provincial parks, and many miles with no cell coverage or gas stations.

Day 2 started with a visit to Nk'Mip (Inkameep) Cellars, right in Osoyoos. Nk'Mip is North America's first Aboriginal winery, and a huge success story since the first harvest in 2002, consistently producing many award winning wines. The winery itself is a stunning building, where visitors can taste a wide range from the Winemakers Series and the higher end Qwam Qwmt Series - loosely translated to 'achieving excellence'.
Randy Picton is the very capable Chief winemaker, and Justin Hall, Assistant Winemaker and a member of the Osoyoos Indian Band, dreams of becoming a Chief Winemaker some day. According to Moss at the winery, if that happens in the near future, he will be the first First Nations Chief winemaker in the world. Pretty cool!
Once you get past the coffee and toothpaste flavours, there's nothing to beat a morning tasting, and this one was splendid. Ably led by Moss, a knowledgeable taster, who works in the tasting room in the summer and teaches high school during term, we tasted some very impressive wines.
Most of the wines in the Winemakers series are under $20 at the winery and are tasty and good value. I particularly liked the bone dry 2011 Riesling.

The Qwam Qwmt series, priced between $25 and $35, included a well balanced 2010 Chardonnay, big on aromas and flavours; a lovely 2010 Pinot Noir, a Silver medalist in the Decanter World Wine Awards, and a bottle of which is awaiting consumption before we leave BC; a 2009 Merlot; and heavily awarded 2008 Syrah and Meritage. The 2009 icon wine Mer'r'iym (Marriage), $50, is a Bordeaux blend and a Gold medal winner at the Canadian Wine Awards. A visit to Nk'Mip should be on every trip through the South Okanagan.

Next up was a fabulous tasting at Burrowing Owl, the subject of my previous post, followed by a great lunch at the Mica Restaurant at Spirit Ridge.
After lunch we popped into Church and State, with its fabulously designed tasting room, Road 13 and Inniskillin. 

Of the various wines I tried at Church and State, I was most impressed by the 2010 Coyote Bowl Merlot. Sadly, I was unable to try the 2009 Syrah, which, according to the winery, was named best red wine in Canada 2013, by Jancis Robinson. My understanding is that she was sent 50 of Canada's best wines from four provinces, presumably also including whites and ice wines, so the sampling would only reflect a fraction of the many wonderful reds in the Okanagan Valley. But that's always the issue with wine awards and accolades. There's no competition or evaluation anywhere in the world that rates everything. It's entirely dependent on what is sent for review.

The winery at Inniskillin is much smaller than the Niagara version, but there is still a wide range of wines on offer at every price point.

On Day 3, we headed to Penticton, twisting and winding our way through the valley and driving past too many great wineries. Three days in the Okanagan Valley doesn't quite cut it! Still, we soldiered on. The first stop was at Hester Creek Estate Winery.


Like so many wineries in the Okanagan, this is a beautiful facility, with a lovely tasting room, shop and restaurant. I particularly liked the 2012 Pinot Gris, the Selected Barrels Merlot and the Character Red, a blend of Merlot, Malbec, Syrah and Petit Verdot, all under $20. I didn't call ahead to set up any kind of special tasting, so couldn't persuade our tasting host to crack open a bottle of The Judge, their icon wine at $45. I call this the Chilean syndrome, but it's probably just sour grapes on my part. Production levels of The Judge are small, they sell out every year, so they really don't need to open it for every Tom, Dick or Carol that turns up. In general, I don't buy wine at that price without tasting it, regardless of awards, but we certainly left with a bag of other Hester Creek wines. Nice winery!

Next up, Le Vieux Pin. This is a winery focused on making great wine, with French winemaking techniques and Okanagan character. The French winemaker and viticulturist is Severine Pinte, who has been at the winery since 2010. Le Vieux Pin, although relatively young, is a very well regarded winery producing some great wines. The 2011 Ava, a white Rhone blend of mainly Viognier, with some Marsanne and Rousanne is absolutely splendid. Ava is the winemaker's daughter's name. The 2011 Syrah "Violette" - another daughter's name, I believe - is elegant, soft, perfumed and very lovely. I bought a bottle of each. They're both drinking beautifully now or could be cellared for a couple of years. I also tasted the 2010 Syrah. This is a lovely wine with lots of cellar life left in it. And, apparently, it was served in May at a feast at Aldourie Castle near Loch Ness.

Not everything pleased my palate. I'm not fond of Sauvignon Blanc with oak treatment, the Pinot Noir rosé didn't refresh or delight and the 2011 Equinoxe Chardonnay didn't grab my attention in a  $60 way. But do visit this winery for a tasting if you're in the region. You'll taste some top notch wines and everyone's palate is different.
Hungry by this point, we took some local advice and headed upwards to the casual little restaurant at See Ya Later Winery for a light lunch and more jaw-dropping views.

Our next stop was at Painted Rock, a relatively new winery producing absolutely fantastic world class wines. The first vines were planted in 2005, and the first sales were in 2010. So, notwithstanding anything I said previously about awards and accolades, the fact that their 2009 Red Icon wine was a Gold Medal winner in the 2011 Wine Access Canadian Wine Awards and a Silver Medal winner in the 2012 Decanter World Wine Awards, is a big deal. Tastings are currently conducted from a  temporary location, but the plans on the wall and the construction nearby add to the anticipation of a beautifully designed, ultra modern winery and tasting room to be completed this summer.
Painted Rock produces only a few different wines, but they're all incredible. This may be partly due to the services of French and Californian consultants who advised on the initial planting strategy, or the unique micro climate and conditions in the vineyards, or the ongoing services of renowned consultant Alain Sutre. More likely it's all of the above, coupled with the vision, strategy and work ethic of owner, John Skinner, to produce world class wines in the Okanagan Valley. Whatever the reasons, Painted Rock has become one of Canada's most highly regarded and decorated wineries in just a few short years. The website is excellent and eloquent and tells a compelling story. I encourage a read, and definitely encourage tasting the wines.

After a tasting at Painted Rock, the excellence bar is set so seriously high that it's a good idea to stop for the day, but there was some time left, so we popped into Blasted Church and enjoyed some of their palate cleansing, very tasty, just released, 2011 OMG sparkling wine. Their story and labeling is fun and they have a nice following in the Valley.

We stayed at a comfy B and B in Penticton for a couple of nights, where Jane and Bob at Vancouver House treated us like family and made us feel very welcome.

Day 4 started with a  hearty breakfast, a bit of a hike and then our first stop at La Frenz Winery, where we had an excellent tasting and left with some Sauv Blanc, Semillon, Rosé and Pinot Noir. Nice winery, good wines, great view, worth a visit. This was our day to explore the wineries and gorgeous scenery of the Naramata Bench, on the east side of the Southern end of Okanagan Lake.
Lunch was a fantastic duck prosciutto Caesar salad on the patio at Red Rooster Winery, followed by a tasting. I particularly liked the Riesling, an excellent buy at $16.99, and wonderfully dry and characteristic. The Reserve Viognier ($22) and Reserve Syrah ($30) were also very good.

We stopped in to Lake Breeze, where lunch was still in full swing on the patio at 3pm, probably because of - once again - great views, super looking food, a really good live band and great wines. I've tasted a number of Lake Breeze wines in the last few weeks and this is a good winery. The 2010 Seven Poplars Pinot Noir is particularly tasty. We didn't have time to stop and taste, as our "by appointment only" tasting at Laughing Stock was about to happen, so we had to scoot.

This winery, another relatively young one, produces some of the best wines in the Okanagan Valley. The owners were previously in the financial industry, and there are many fun throwbacks to those days in the bottle design, labeling, twitter tag and, indeed the name. Blind Trust White and Blind Trust Red, are blends with the grape varieties hidden under the cap, so that consumers can have some fun with guessing what's in the bottle. I did a terrible job of guessing the whites but redeemed myself by figuring out all five varieties in the 2011 red - Merlot, Malbec, Cab Sauv, Cab Franc and Syrah ( a bit of skill and a lot of luck!).
But outside of all the fun stuff, there are some seriously good wines here. Of the eight I tasted, I particularly liked the 2012 Pinot Gris, $22, full bodied, rich and fruity; the 2011 Syrah, $36, elegant, juicy, with lovely black fruit and cloves; and the 2010 Portfolio, $42, a left bank Bordeaux style blend - big, beautiful and a definite candidate for some cellaring. If nothing else makes it back home with me, that bottle will. This one was a Gold Medal Winner at the 2012 Canadian Wine Awards.
 
Dinner that evening was at The Vanilla Pod, a splendid restaurant at Poplar Grove Winery,  where we had some great salmon and some of their 2011 Chardonnay. Lovely!
On Day 5, we had another hearty breakfast, said goodbye to Jane and Bob, and set off for Vancouver, abandoning the original plan to taste more wine, and choosing instead to just enjoy the route. Even with healthy use of a spittoon over the previous days, my palate needed a break from winetasting.

Road signs in Lytton

The route home took us west on the 97C through Merritt, up the 8 to Spences Bridge, then south through Lytton, where the Thompson and Fraser Rivers meet, and on to Hope, then west to Vancouver.
 
We followed beautiful rivers all the way from Spences Bridge and, once again, marveled at the spectacular mountain scenery, and this two kilometre long train. This was an amazing long weekend. I officially love BC!

We're still enjoying some of our spoils from the weekend, and will be stopping in to the central part of the Okanagan Valley on our upcoming journey from Vancouver to Calgary. More wine stories on the horizon. But before that, I plan to write about some other fantastic stuff that's been going on in and around Vancouver. Check back in a  few days. I hope to put that out before we head off on Friday. Maybe! The weather's pretty fantastic here.........................
Thanks for checking in.
Cheers!

Burrowing Owl - A World Class Winery in A World Class Valley

Recently, we visited the incredibly beautiful Okanagan Valley, home to about 120 wineries, and thousands of fantastic wines. With so many great wineries, it was difficult to whittle it down to a manageable number to visit in three days. Besides excellent wines, the region boasts beautiful mountainous, lake studded scenery, terrific restaurants, great tasting facilities and a wide range of accommodations. In my opinion, it should be a must see, top destination for any wine lover.

Of the dozen or so wineries I visited, my top picks for across the board, fabulous wines were Burrowing Owl, Laughing Stock, Painted Rock and Le Vieux Pin, but there were many great wines elsewhere. I'll mention them in subsequent stories, but now I want to profile Burrowing Owl Estate Winery. What a gem!

Winery image

In May  of this year, The 74th annual Los Angeles International Wine Competition took place. 74 years - that's a long time to get an event right. With dozens of international and renowned judges and thousands of wines from all over the world, this is not a local wine competition held between apple pie judging  and the biggest pumpkin. The LA event is a big one, by any standards.
So, when I tell you that Burrowing Owl  picked up the Best in Class Gold Medal with 97/100 for its 2009 Merlot, that's a really big deal. On top of that, earlier this month, the winery won the Lieutenant Governor's  award of excellence, one of 12 awarded out of 400 entries, for its 2010 Cabernet Franc. In the last 2 years alone, Burrowing Owl has won over 100 awards.
So what do the wines taste like?

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In a word - excellent. I tasted 16 different wines and, after a while, I stopped taking detailed notes - for two reasons. First, the wines were consistently very good, and great examples of the varietals and blends. Second, I was supplied with tasting notes on each of them, which were spot on in the descriptions. I agreed so wholeheartedly with the notes provided that I felt like an eager student sucking up to the Prof. The Prof in question is Master of Wine, Rhys Pender. In 2010, Rhys became Canada's youngest Master of Wine and is a much sought after wine educator, writer, consultant and judge. I have it on good authority that he is also a brilliant baker and sells his bread at Penticton market on weekends.
I mentioned the Merlot 2009, the Best in Class Gold Medal winner from LA. Since much of my audience is in Ontario, I am thrilled to relay that, according to the online system, there are close to 500 bottles available across Ontario, for $39.95, which is only $4.95 more than the winery price. It sneaked onto the shelves in January before it became a big cheese in the wine world, so to speak. My advice would be to go buy a bottle or two.

The grapes were hand-picked from the estate, lovingly handled all the way through the intricate fermentation process and cellared in various oaks for 16 months, with periodic racking, before being bottled unfiltered. I'm certain that neither Burrowing Owl nor the Prof will mind if I provide the full  tasting notes on this particular wine................
"A deep, youthful purple appearance with powerful, ripe and intense fruit aromas of black cherry, raspberry, plum and mulberry. The fruit overlays subtle oak notes, coffee, marzipan, chocolate, vanilla and a hint of fresh tobacco. The palate is full of mixed brambly berries, licorice, clove, cedar, graphite and sage with a long persistent finish. Approachable now with its ripe and integrated tannins, there is also the flavour intensity and structure to mature well in bottle. Try this with coq au vin or your favourite grilled red meat with a red wine demi-glace. – Rhys Pender, Master of Wine."
See what I mean? Isn't that eloquent? Don't you just want some?

The LCBO has stock of nine different Burrowing Owl wines, including a couple of their Calliope label wines. Along with other ornithological trivia, I learned, at the winery, that a Calliope is a type of hummingbird. The 2011 Sauvignon Blanc, is available at the LCBO for under $20. Look for the bird on the label.  It's a wonderful,  refreshing example, with lovely aromas of citrus and tropical fruits, excellent minerality, crisp citrus and gooseberry flavours and a long satisfying finish. If you have some friends or family at the table, try opening this one and a bottle of your favourite New Zealand Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc. You'll be charmed by both.

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Other wines in the Calliope range include an excellent rosé blend of Syrah and Viognier, two great Northern Rhône varieties that invariably work very well in a rosé. There's a tasty white blend called Figure Eight, reflecting the motion of the Calliope's wings, a lovely dry Riesling, and a red blend of Syrah, Merlot and Cabernet Franc, also called Figure Eight, which is available in quantity at Rideau and King Edward in Ottawa for $22.95, and ready to drink now.
Tasting notes are available on the website for everything, and orders can be placed online.

The wines I tasted under the Burrowing Owl label were all very good to excellent. The last time I  was so charmed by so many wines at one winery was at Clos de Gat, in Israel, one of that country's top wineries. It's rare for me to like all the wines from a single winery. That's a sign of good vineyard management and wine-making. Bertus Albertyn is the Senior Winemaker at Burrowing Owl. Interestingly, he's South African. I'm sure it must be coincidence, but I  keep finding myself in wineries with great wines, made by South African winemakers. In Virginia, where I generally didn't like the wines, I really loved the wines at Keswick Vineyards. In Israel, the wines at Tzuba were excellent. In South Africa, there were too many great wines to mention, many at the hand of South African winemakers.
It is not uncommon in the Okanagan Valley for wineries to engage wine consultants from outside the area. This is a relatively young wine region - Burrowing Owl, for example, had its first vintage in 1997 - and the costs and complexities involved in making great wines are substantial. So why not bring in specialized knowledge if available. For their Meritage, Burrowing Owl engaged the services of accomplished French wine consultant Alain Sutre, who also consulted at Painted Rock, another winery with superb wines, which I'll mention in a later post.

Back at Burrowing Owl, here are some thoughts on the wines under the main label....................
2012 Pinot Gris. $20 at the winery. Perfect; beautifully balanced; food friendly; aromatic, flavorsome and refreshing. The luscious quality of an Alsace Pinot Gris with lashings of crisp, more-ish palate pleasing flavours.
2010 and 2011 Chardonnay. Both $25 at the winery.  Each different, reflecting the growing conditions; both wonderful. Seemingly perfect maturation, resulting in full-bodied wines with the right balance of  fruit and toasty notes. Great food wines. Try them both.
2010 Merlot. The 2010 growing season was quite different from the 2009, with a cooler summer, but a warm Fall. I've already described the terrific 2009 Merlot. The 2010 is more subtle on the nose, but with lots of complexity and wonderful flavours on the palate. Beautiful now, especially with flavorsome food, it will cellar and develop well for the next several years. 2009 $35, 2010 $30 at the winery.

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2010 Cabernet Franc, 2010 Cabernet Sauvignon, 2010 Syrah 
$33, $38, $33 respectively at the winery.
Brilliant examples, all three. I'd like to ship bottles of all of them to my knowledgeable wine family in France. They would have to agree that these hold their own with great examples from the Loire, Bordeaux and Northern Rhône.

2010 Athene $35 at the winery. A co-fermented blend of 60% Syrah and 40% Cabernet Sauvignon, carefully made and aged for 18 months with periodic racking. According to Donna Watson, our gracious host for the tasting, this is the favourite of Jim Wyse, the founder of the winery. This is a full-bodied wine with lots going on. I'm not a fan of  Syrah Cab Sauv blends - clash of the Titans, I think - and this one didn't change my mind, but it's a well made wine, with masses of flavour, and is hugely popular. The name Athene refers to the belief that the owl was sacred to Athena, the Greek Goddess of Wisdom.
2010 Meritage $45 at the winery. A brilliant blend of all five grape varieties grown in Bordeaux. 55% Cabernet Franc, 25% Merlot, 15% Cabernet Sauvignon and equal parts Malbec and Petit Verdot. This one is a keeper but is also drinking deliciously now. I'm thinking of  boned, butterflied leg of lamb, marinated for ages in rosemary, garlic, black pepper and buttermilk, then seared and grilled on the BBQ, with a dark fruit glaze. Served with decadently rich dauphinoise potatoes. The uneven shape of the lamb will guarantee perfect cooking for all tastes from rare to well done.
On a final wine note, our tasting at the winery was led by Sophie Laurent, a relatively recent addition to the winery team. Sophie moved to the Okanagan, with her husband, from Southern France and clearly brings a wealth of additional wine knowledge and expertise to an already talented team.
Bravo Burrowing Owl!

Sonora Room Restaurant

The restaurant at Burrowing Owl is beautiful and serves brilliant food. We ate dinner there and drank some 2008 Merlot. They have a range of wines from different vintages, so if you go there with a crowd, you can have fun with a vertical tasting. Alternatively, you can buy a few and take the rest home.

The Guest House at Burrowing Owl is luxurious. If you're in the area and your budget can handle it, this is the place to stay. Take a look online. Fabulous!

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Cheers! Check back soon for more wine and BC stories.