By the time you read this, Vancouver International Wine Festival organizers will have announced France, or to be more precise, its many wine regions to be the theme of the 2014 festival. Talk about a difference in wine philosophy. Local wine
The 35th Vancouver International Wine Festival (née Playhouse) is fast approaching and it suddenly occurred to me that a good portion of those attending may not have been born when the first Playhouse Festival took place back in 1979. Famed
Should British Columbia have a signature wine varietal? Of course not, but some 350 attendees were not going to let a poorly chosen phrase or two get in the way of a lively debate that took place last Friday night in the bowels of the Vancouver Public
Sustainability has been a hot-button issue for consumers in the food and wine business for more than a decade now, and as we prepare to welcome the wine world to the upcoming Vancouver International Wine Festival in late February it seems appropriate
A month out from the Vancouver International Wine Festival, we begin our preview of some of the themes and questions likely to present themselves when the giant grape fest kicks off on Monday, Feb . 25. We begin with California, the theme region
Bits and pieces to start 2013 beginning with that age-old question, where have all the years gone? To be more precise, what happened to all the vintages at www.bcldb.com? Whose idea was it to stop publishing the year or vintage date for most
Whenever I'm lucky enough to be in Italy, I take my watch off. It's not so much that time stands still but rather that it moves at its own pace and that rarely includes 60 beats per minute. Italians can be gregarious talkers and use a whirlwind of gestures
If the number 2013 looks a bit weird to you this week, give it some time. But don't give it forever, in this frenetic Internet world. It's not 1970, when cheques trumped credit cards and banks gave you a month's leeway if you inadvertently penned the
As another year slips into the history books or some databank deep beneath the earth, all that's left is to usher in the new one. How you choose to welcome the New Year is up to you, but should you decide to have a drink or two, we suggest you can't go
The best advice anyone can give you about which wines to serve for Christmas dinner is to get out and purchase them this weekend, before the pressure of Christmas Eve arrives and stocks are depleted and the store clerks are frazzled. This week we
It's a funny thing about sparkling wine; it never gets the respect accorded Champagne although most consumers would have a great deal of trouble distinguishing between the two in a blind tasting. It is hardly a knock on Champagne but rather a nod to the
Today's the day you promised to start your holiday shopping, so we are going to make things easy for you if you have any wine drinkers on your gift list. Since simplicity equals elegance, let's look at some useful, perhaps conservative, gift ideas for
With a little over three weeks to go to Christmas, it is time to get serious about laying some wines in for the holidays. It is already taking far too long to get across the city and the chaotic holiday traffic is only going to get worse. So, if you are