Six Barrels & Six Chefs in the County
Posted July 3, 2008
Small can indeed be beautiful.  Six of Ontario’s best chefs each prepared one app-sized dish, each paired with a Prince Edward County 2007 barrel sample.  Two hundred people, two hours.  A balmy, breezy July 2nd evening among the vines at Huff Estate near Bloomfield.  Every morsel and sip easily appreciated – no leftovers, no waste.  No rush, no fuss, lots of engaging banter and conversation.  The $140 ticket going to Camp Trillium, a summer fun spot for kids with cancer.  The chefs, winemakers, musicians all donating their time and effort.  The crowd from the County, Quinte, Kingston, Ottawa and Toronto all glad they came. Maybe wine and food events were never meant to be stadium-sized spectacles. For table by table review of wine and food matches go to News & Reviews.

Sail Away on a Niagara Gastronomic Long Weekend
Join hosts James Chatto and David Lawrason for a one-of-a-kind gastronomic journey to explore the best wineries, kitchens and farms of Niagara, Sept 12 to 14, 2008.  Sail from and to Port Credit on 45-foot Hunter yachts. Visit six of Niagara's best wineries. Dine at Tony de Luca's, Treadwell, Hillebrand Winery Restaurant and the Good Earth Cooking School. Stay at the classic Oban Inn and Spa for two nights. For details contact Sandy Molnar: sandy@slmevents.ca.

IVWA Judging in Calgary
The week of June 21-26 was spent engulfed in tasting 80 wines per day at Wine Access magazine's International Value Wine Awards in Calgary. Over 1,000 wines selling for under $25 were entered, and judged blind by a panel of 16 prominent wine writers and educators from six provinces. Friend and colleague Anthony Gismondi of Vancouver ran a flawless, well paced show that was ultimately fair to the wines being judged, as well as the judges. "Our job is find the best value every day wines for Canadians, whether the wine is a New World fruit bomb or a mature Euro style, whether it's sweet or dry, bold or elegant." he said.  The results will be released in the October/November issue of Wine Access coming in mid-September.

Great Food Pairing at ONE
A recent corporate six-course wine and dine at ONE restaurant in Yorkville yielded three great wine and food pairings. First, crisp skin kampachi (an Hawaiian fish in the tuna family) with the svelte, deep,  complex Hidden Bench 2005 Tete de Cuvee Chardonnay from Niagara. Then came a incredibly rich, almost sweet squab with foie gras, rhubarb and chocolate paired with and sumptuously fruity, poised Pelissero 2006 Augenta Dolcetto from Italy's Piedmont region. The meat course featured melt-in-mouth Alberta bison (bison doesn't usually melt) paired with a generous, complex Vitiollo 2005 Viale Sangiovese/Cabernet from Australia.

Prairie Wining & Dining
Tasting/dinner events for a corporate client led me to upscale steak emporiums in Regina ad Winnipeg recently. Six wines poured for the tasting seminar stayed on the tables through four course dinners giving guests an opportunity to experience why some wines work and don't work with certain dishes. In Regina we dined at The Diplomat "the best wine spot in the city". Cuisine was average but it boasts a large selection of well-priced California, Bordeaux and Aussie reds often privately ordered from the wineries by sommelier Dimtri Makris. Innovative marketing here with price neck tags on the bottles displayed around the restaurant so patrons can better identify with the labels. In Winnipeg we dined at 529 Wellington, a posh who's who meeting ground where sommelier Christopher Sprague manages a huge beef-friendly list. Prime Canadian tenderloin was spectacular, especially paired with Grant Burge 2004 Filsell Shiraz from Australia. At 529 Wellington we met up with Pierluigi Tolaini, an Italian-born, Winnipeg-based transportation magnate who owns Tenuta Tolaini in Tuscany, a 3,000-case property with Michel Rolland as consulting oenologist. Wines as yet not tasted or marketed in Ontario, but available at Banville & Jones, a private wine store in Winnipeg at www.banvilleandjones.com.

Fentons: Private Spirit Merchant in Winnipeg
While in Winnipeg (see above) I visited the unique Fentons spirits shop, carrying a very impresive selection of grape-based distillates (cognac, armangnac, grappa). This is the only privately-owned spirits shop in the country to my knowledge, except for Kittling Ridge's tasting room in Niagara. Manitoba law has sanctioned this grape-based spirts store but forbids private sales of grain-based spirits like whisky, rum or vodka. Can Canadian regulation be any more stupid than this? An off-shoot of the interest in cognacs is the largest selection I have even seen of Pineau des Charentes, the delicious aperitif of the Charentes/Cognac region of France. The shop is located in The Forks tourist/market area. Definitely worth a visit!