Vancouver International Wine Festival

Here we go the start of the Vancouver International Wine Festival. present by the Vancouver Sun and a host of great sponsors. Most of the activities will take place at the Vancouver Convention centre. One of Vancouver’s most beautiful locations. This year the festival will feature the Wines of France and the Gobal Focus Bubbly.

The festival will have over 1,750 wines from 177 wineries 8 days of events featuring 14 countries including Canada, United States, Chile, Argentina, Australia Italy and more. Japan will be there as will Israel.

If you are heading to the major tasting events be sure to pick up a program. Its nicely done listing all the wineries by country and tells you a little about the winery. There is also a wine index and additional information.

I’ll be at the trade tastings and the main event Thursday evening with my dear wife. So please say hello
The wine world has gather in Vancouver . The event also is a fund drive for Bard on the Beach Shakespeare Festival.

Dinner Bell

Good food is the number one ingredient for an enjoyable dinner add to this, great company and quality wines, you accomplish a perfect evening. Our dinner guests on Saturday, February 08th were the noted wine author John Schreiner and his wife Marlene. Who are two of the nicest people one would want to meet, not only that both are very knowledgeable about wine.

They brought along amazing vintages of Blackwood Lane's *The Referènce* 06,07 and 08 to sample, we supplied the 09.

The evening started with opening an as yet unreleased sparking wine (a gift from Blackwood Lanes owner Carlos Lee) The wine lacked fizzle but had a raisin pie flavour. I would consider it a good attempt for their first sparkling wine.

Prior to sitting down for dinner we enjoyed a bottle of Kalala Harmony 2012 Blend of Pinot Gris, Riesling, Gewurztraminer and Auxerrois. A nice sipping wine from Tibor Erdelyi winemaker and the Organic vineyards of this West Kelowna winery.

As we settled in to enjoy a wonderful Prime Rib dinner the corks were popped from the
The Referènce 06,07,08. Oh my Gosh SO good! There are all wines that have been previously reveiwed by John on his Blog and my page Robert's Selections. The wines all were scored in the high 90s. It is quite an experience to go back and forth between the wines and determine which on is best. All vintages have some distinctive characteristic. The sad thing is this wine range from $150 to $96.00 a bottle

We never did make it to the 09 nor the icewine we had ready to go with the Baked Pears in Red Wine sauce. After the Blackwood Lane wines "Too much of a Good Thing".

Charles Herrold from White Rock BC was the original winemaker. He currently is part owner and winemaker at Silverback Vineyards