Matching food and wine is big business at California's Fetzer Vineyards, and the company has puts its money where its mouth is by developing one of the most impressive working gardens and culinary centres in the business. I recently spent a day at
It's taken 80-plus years, but it looks as if the Okanagan Valley has at last recognized one of its most important assets: the wine industry. By that I mean that grape growers, winery owners, barrel and tank manufacturers, label designers and other
B.C. offers only one road to riches for any aspiring wine distributor or producer, and that's through government liquor stores. Getting your foot in the door at the monopoly means getting a listing - whether it's the Holy Grail of all, the "general
Over the last decade, Earls restaurants have enjoyed great success by focusing on high-quality, fresh-only, seasonal ingredients. Now, after years of research, travel and testing to learn as much as possible about food, the savvy, upscale chain has turned
No one should underestimate the capacity of British Columbians to work a tasting room, least of all the people who work in this market, yet successive sold-out, public tastings in January and February featuring the popular wines of Australia and Napa
If you're looking for something sweet for Valentines Day, B.C. icewine producers could use a boost after completing what can only be described as the icewine harvest from hell. Certainly no one will soon forget the harvest of 2001 because those who
When the doors open to the Victoria Festival of Wine, Music and Food on March 7 organisers are betting on a new formula which combats local wines against those of a prominent foreign country to spice up the proceedings. Already over 50 B.C. wineries
Today's destination is Chile, for a look at the ever-evolving wines of Caliterra. B.C. sippers with long memories may recall the birth of Caliterra back in 1989, when it was solely owned by the Eduardo Chadwick family, which also has Viña Errazuriz. There
The allure of wine festivals isn't quite what it used to be, mostly because there seems to be one every other week and many of those have become perfunctory, commercial fundraisers often run by people that have little passion for the subject. That
In 2001, British Columbians drank their way through a record 350,000 cases of Australian wine and spent $50 million in the process. Those numbers represent eight per cent of the volume (and nearly 11 per cent of the value) of all wines purchased in
In a wine world where a little glitz and a lot of chutzpah can propel a mediocre winery to the front page of almost any wine magazine it's reassuring to know that there is still room for a nose-to-the-grind-stone, hardworking, winery whose only calling
In the first days of the new year, when the budget is slim but there still may be guests we want to entertain, who wouldn't appreciate the name of a bargain magnum to pour? Today's report is part of a continuing search for those bargains: it's Big Bottles,
One of today's more controversial topics in California wine is the use of the term "coastal." Ever since the Golden State jumped to respectability in the mid-'70s, almost all the research has suggested that premium grapes require moderated daytime temperatures
California's J. Lohr Winery will soon mark 30 years of production in Monterey County, which makes owner Jerry Lohr a certified pioneer on the state's Central Coast. Lohr's farming background led him to investigate numerous viticultural areas before settling
Three hundred years is little more than a blink of the eye when it comes to Italian winemaking history, so it should be no surprise that the barbera grape, thought to be planted in the Asti area of Piedmont around 1700, is not even the region's oldest
It's been 25 years since the Four Seasons Hotel originated Vancouver's first winemaker dinner series, and while many newcomers have fiddled with the format, the concept remains a hit with diners. The idea of a multi-course (and often multi-wines-per-course)
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