T h e  B U Z Z
If you are visiting PlanitBC from PlanitVancouver, please note our new url and change your Bookmarks list. We are seeing lots of people visiting from PlanitVancouver which will be retired soon. Keep sending us your events for all 3 regional calendars. Thanks for visiting. W.T. 

This week in Vancouver and B.C.:
• Spot Prawns now available fresh daily at the Granville Island           Fisherman's Dock. After 3pm every day while the season lasts.
• Desert Hills Winery Dinner
• German Über Wines - Trade Tasting & Seminar
                                                                          
There's many more events on the calendar this week, including:   
Okanagan Wine Festival - May 1-10                                             
This month our local Farmers' Markets open up for the season - several in and around Victoria, Saltspring Island and up Island, too. If your neighbourhood one hasn't opened up yet, watch for them in the next two weeks as the first crops come ready to market.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                   

Okanagan Reports - from Jay Drysdale in Oliver:
Crop Report 2007
 
                                                                                     
                                                                                            
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• If you haven't made reservations at your favourite restaurant this week, don't
bother, just head down to Granville Island, pick up some fabulous spot prawns and dine in!
You won't be sorry. These are the juiciest, freshest, most delicious treats at this time of
year and you'll be able to saute or eat fresh in any salad, appetizer or main course. Enjoy
them while you are able to. The season is short.


T r a d e  B U Z Z
• Wine Educators Conference, New Orleans - May 25-30


• Send us your trade news for posting here - tastings, recent moves, new restaurant wine list features...

From the desk of John Schreiner:

David Mirassou discovers Canada

At 38, David Mirassou, the sixth generation of California’s oldest wine-growing family, visited Canada for the first time last month to raise the profile of Mirassou Winery.

Travels in Argentina wine country: Finca Flichman

How do they do it? Finca Flichman’s wines in British Columbia include a tasty Malbec that sells for only $10.

Travels in Argentina wine country: Bodega Norton
The highway through the Andes from Mendoza, Argentina's wine capital, to Santiago in Chile is a marvel of engineering as well as an exceptionally scenic drive.

The many tastes of Italy
For those who have not been to Italy recently, this year's Vancouver Playhouse International Wine Festival - where Italy was the theme region - was full of surprises.

Wines that are fit for kings
I finally have the answer when asked what wine I would take to that proverbial desert island: the mahogany case that houses the Primum Familaie Vini Collection of fine wines.

Light Wine or is it déjà-vu all over again?

A Spanish winery, Bodegas Casa de la Ermita, is trumpeting that it has spent 2.5 million Euros to develop a light wine that goes easy on the calories.

A Cognac as elegant as Carla Bruni

One of the best ways of dealing with envy is focussing on what you have rather than what someone else has.

Deep Creek Estate breaks the sound barrier
Walter Huber has become the first Okanagan vintner to put out a price list for his Peachland winery, Deep Creek Wine Estates, that is liberally peppered with wines over $100.

Brilliant packaging propels the sales of Voga wines
Last year, British wine writer Jancis Robinson delivered a furious rant on her website against synthetic corks.

When do wine consumers get to benefit from the strong dollar?

Pity the people who run Chapters/Indigo, among other Canadian retailers.

 Ever since the Canadian dollar began to soar, everyone has been beating on them to get their prices down on imported products.

The Torres Family: winemakers in two hemispheres

A jet-lagged Miguel Torres Jr. breezed through Vancouver recently for just a single day, but to host an extraordinary tasting of the wines his family makes in Spain, in Chile and in California.

Le Gavroche’s Manuel Ferreira will run Tinhorn Creek’s new restaurant

Tinhorn Creek winemaker Sandra Oldfield has launched all of the four vintages of her flagship Oldfield’s Collection Merlot with hot-ticket winemaker dinners at Vancouver’s Le Gavroche restaurant.

 Now, the relationship between Tinhorn Creek and La Gavroche owner Manual Ferreira is deepening.

The longevity of Peter Lehmann’s “everyday drinking” Shiraz

Australian winemaker Peter Lehmann has been making Shiraz in the Barossa Valley for the best part of three decades.

Penfolds wine collectors get the white glove treatment

A high quality wine cork should last an average of 20 or 25 years before it needs to be replaced.

Glenterra Vineyards: a gem in the Cowichan Valley
West Vancouver’s storied Park Royal Hotel, which was demolished a couple of years ago, lives on at the Glenterra winery on Cobble Hill Road in the Cowichan Valley.

Are B.C. wine prices getting too high?
During a recent radio phone-in show where I fielded wine questions, three callers within a 20-minute period complained about the rising price of British Columbia wines.

Barbara Philip becomes Canada's first Master of Wine

Vancouver sommelier and wine educator Barbara Philip has become the second Canadian, and the first Canadian woman, to become a Master of Wine.

Australia wineries are returning for another Canadian tour

The huge success of Australian wine in export markets comes with an Achilles’ heel: because so much of the volume depends upon [yellow tail]® and clones, there is a perception that Australian wine is boring.

Prospect Winery emerges from Mission Hill
The most storied Chardonnay from the Okanagan was Mission Hill's 1992, first made here by winemaker John Simes.

Chile's Caliterra's new wines are aimed at the pricing sweet spot
In the next few months, the Chilean producer, Caliterra, will launch a new line of wines designed to move it upmarket.  

Lessons learned by revisiting the 1997 Oculus

While working on the review of the 2004 Oculus, Mission Hill’s flagship Bordeaux red, I discovered a bottle of the 1997 Oculus in my cellar and decided to share it with dinner guests. 

Mission Hill rolls out Occulus 2004

The flagship red from Mission Hill, the 2004 Oculus, is being released on September 1 at $70 a bottle, making it the highest priced icon wine currently from any Okanagan winery.

The Lieutenant Governor's top ten B.C. wines in 2006

Iona Campagnolo will complete her term as British Columbia’s Lieutenant Governor next month, having served with great distinction and having done a great deal to burnish the reputation of British Columbia.

   
      
James Mariani, Castello Banfi

Castello Banfi: how an American family created an Italian star

In the 1970s, when Baby Duck became Canada’s best-selling wine, Americans were guzzling a comparable Italian sweet fizzy red called Lambrusco.

Osoyoos Larose's Grand Vin gets a little sister

The winemaking tradition of Bordeaux’s chateaus was turned on its head when Osoyoos Larose launched its first wine in 2001. 

Quails’ Gate releases a killer rosé and four good summer white wines

Last fall, Quails’ Gate winemaker Grant Stanley found himself confronted with several tons of Gamay Noir grapes from a new vineyard that Quails’ Gate had taken control over.

Seven Stones is the newest Similkameen Winery

The Similkameen Valley has become a more compelling wine tour destination this spring with the opening during the May long weekend of the Seven Stones Winery. That brings the number of wineries to six, with a seventh due to open next year.

The third release from Joie Wines is an exciting quintette

In their first two vintages, Heidi Noble and Michael Dinn of Joie Wines released just two whites and one rosé – and won acclaim for them all. 

Blasted Church adds a second winemaker as it plans for growth

Once the victim of incredibly bad luck with its winemakers, Blasted Church Vineyards made itself bullet proof this spring by adding a second winemaker to the team in the cellar.

Canada’s first Carmenère is released in British Columbia

The Okanagan’s Black Hills Estate Winery created a sensation this spring by releasing, very quietly, the first varietal red wine made from the Carmenère grape.

Vincor goes for the gold rings
Vincor Canada has scored a sponsorship deal with the Vancouver Olympic Organizing committee that will enable it to show off its wines not only at the 2010 winter Olympics but also at the summer games in Beijing in 2008 and in London in 2012.

Here's a Merlot for all seasons
It has been reported that roast beef, not turkey, is the preferred holiday cuisine for many people.

If you are in the beef crowd, I have a red wine from the Napa Valley for you, one that tastes like a special holiday wine but at a reasonable price.

An Icewine Vintage for the record books
The sharp blast of cold weather across British Columbia this week has delivered what will surely be one of this province’s greatest icewine vintages.

So you want to drink Malbec for a change?
In the British Columbia wine market, sales of Argentinean wines are suddenly on a tear.

Jackson-Triggs Winemaker Bruce Nicholson returns to Ontario after 20 years in British Columbia
In a decision that sent shockwaves through British Columbia’s wine industry, Bruce Nicholson this week announced that he is becoming the senior winemaker at Niagara-on-the-Lake’s Inniskillin winery.

Andrés Wines has a VQA empire in British Columbia
and soon, a new name
Founded in British Columbia in 1961, Andrés Wines now is a national wine company and is Canada’s largest domestically-owned wine producer now that Vincor is American-owned.
Next month, the company will ask its shareholders to approve a name change to Andrew Peller Ltd. He was the founder of the company now run by his grandson. He named it Andrés 45 years ago for two reasons: it was close to his given name of Andras in its Hungarian original; and he thought the name’s French sommelier ring was good marketing.

Visit our Featured Articles page for a comprehensive listing of John's articles including archives.

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