food wine - calgary herald · caterers find dining niche ... expert advice on festival-hopping ......
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glass
class
Fine Dining
HOsT WITH THE MOsTWhether the focus is wine or food, discover how to put on a great sampling party
Fall harvest in Calgary
food &wineFall
PlUs: Tastings, pairings, festivals, tours, wine bars, columns, vintages...
Get an education on wine-tasting from the experts
Eateries use locally grown foods to pay homage to harvest
Calgary redefines the up-scale atmosphere
Calgaryherald.com/foodandwine
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Over the past couple of decades, follow-ing liquor privatization, Alberta has become a wine lover’s paradise.
Thousands of wines from every corner of the world are now available in Wild Rose Country, and many restaurants have built large — and tasty — wine lists to go with their food.
Here are just a few of my favourite places to find a fine glass of wine to go along with a good meal.
There are Calgary classics such as La Chaumiere, where chef Bob Matthews’ elegant French Market cuisine — think roast duck breast and confit spring roll — is paired perfectly with selections from an 800- label cellar. Or The Belvedere on Stephen Avenue, where owner Clayton Morgan has built a wine list that features some of Bordeaux’s and Napa’s best vintages to complement excellent contemporary cuisine.
The Belvedere’s downtown neighbour Centini holds a wealth of Old World — especially Italian — wines which work well with Fabio Centini’s Modern Italian
food &wineFallVOLUMe 1 nUMBeR 1
FRIDAY, AUGUST 26, 2011
6 THE FOODIE PARTY discover party host insights
8 HARVEST TIME savour the flavours of fall
9 B.C. WINE OVERVIEW industry makes its mark
10 CATERING caterers find dining niche
10 SAY ‘CHEESE’ the story behind the pairing
11 WINE-TASTING PARTY have fun with selections
12 FINE DINING IN CALGARY fine dining gets casual spin
14 WINE FESTIVAL TOURS trip the light fantastic with a tour
16 WINE-TASTING 101 find out how to sample wines
18 THE CHOCOLATE-TASTING PARTY organize a tasty, smooth gathering
18 SMOOTH OPERATOR chocolate’s history and pairing tips
20 HOW TO DO FESTIVALS expert advice on festival-hopping
21 WINE BARS the rise of wine bars in calgary
22 VINTAGES NOT TO MISS find out the must-haves for 2011
FEATURED COLUMNIST: Local restaurants pair up ~ food writer john gilchrist
cuisine. Across the street, Teatro continues to impress with its depth in French and Italian wines, which are great with its burger (ground ribeye and brisket topped with Comte cheese) and the rest of Teatro’s modern Italian menu.
If you like a little history with your meal, check out The Rimrock in the Fairmont Palliser — classy, classic setting, great food and always a fine wine available. Or slide out to Rouge in Inglewood, where owners Paul Rogalski and Olivier Reynaud have built a fine kitchen with chef Michael Dekker and a hefty wine list in the historic A.E. Cross House.
Wine bars have taken some focus lately. Vin Room always has about 70 wines available by the glass and good wine bar food to go with them. And Wine Bar Kensington serves up the likes of pork belly sandwich-es and bison carpaccio, along with its hearty reds.
With a focus on small producers, especially from the Pacific Northwest, River Cafe offers an eclectic collection of 500 wines to match with their Seasonal Canadian cuisine. Or you can visit River Café’s sister restaurant, Boxwood, where a much shorter wine list is poured in four different sizes and is constantly changing. But it’s always aligned with chef Andy Bujak’s rotisserie cuisine.
Another small place that constantly changes its
wines is Taste. Each month six whites and six reds are selected. Don’t like the choices? Just wait a few days.
Wine by the glass is the way many of us roll these days. We may not want a full bottle or we may want something different from the other folks dining with us. UNA provides a diverse list by the glass to go along with its pizzas while Farm hauls out wines to pair with cheeses and its Canadian Small Plates menu.
Divino opens daily selections from a deep cellar, while Open Range pulls from a long list of hearty reds that stand up to Dwayne Ennest’s meaty menu.
~ continued on 16
the river café’s wine cellar.
Fall is the time of year when vineyards turn their newly harvested grapes into feasts for the palate, and chefs of every calibre look to freshly plucked produce to add in-tense flavour to their culinary creations.
In this inaugural issue of Food & Wine, we look at the fine art of wining and dining — autumn-style. With articles on favourite vintages, pairings, party planning, din-ing out, festivals and tours, our fall issue is sure to tempt you to explore what Calgary has to offer. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
FOOD & wine is a publication of the Calgary Herald’s
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FLAVOUR RSVPSAVOUR all that FALL has to offer with a foodieparty that PAIRS wines and DELICACIES
“(pairing) is one of the most essential elements of how and what we eat”
story by jessica patterson ~ calgary herald archive images
Cheese. “I’m also a big fan of mini-pizzas with spinach and a soft cheese such as feta or gouda on top. I also do one with pears and gruyere.”
Another of Beaton’s favourite appetizers is bits of brie stuffed with mushrooms, onions and bacon. “If you put it in a little ramekin, in the oven for 10 minutes, it’s like a little fondue,” she says.
Fall is the season when root vegetables are sweet and in season. For an interesting addition to the menu, try chilled parsnip soup, says Nicole Boisvert, marketing assistant at Community Natural Foods.
Parsnips, which are cousins to carrots, have a sweet, slightly spicy flavour. Layer the soup with yogurt and a dollop of porcini foam in a shooter glass. The effect is quite impressive, not to mention tasty.
She says fall vegetables can be served without a lot of seasoning be-cause they’re fresh and sweet. Offer your foodie friends a roasted golden and red beet salad with candied walnuts on a skewer. Marinate the roasted beets in dressing and put a walnut on the end of the skewer.
“It’s a deconstructed salad, but it’s fun, and the colours — the oranges, purples and golds — are fantastic,” says Boisvert.
Next, dish out some acorn squash, stuffed with turkey and goat cheese. Or, if your guests are feeling carnivorous, offer some beef or chicken skewers.
Try pairing it with a salad with a bit of personality.“How about a rapine and chickpea salad with a light dressing? Or a
balsamic reduced strawberry salad with fresh ground pepper and mint?” asks Michael Christen, head chef for Sunterra Market.
Whatever you have on the plate, be sure to pair it with the right wine, he adds. “It is one of the essential elements of how and what we eat. Tradition tells us, ‘white with fish and fowl, red with meat and game.’ Any deviation from this was considered unacceptable.
“The most important thing is to look for balance. Don’t expect wines that are subtle or delicate to stand up to food.”
One essential element of planning a foodie party is in the preparation. Appetizer parties, for example, require a lot of dainty work, involving cutting, dicing and marinating. So, it’s best to plan it out a few days in advance.
If you are hosting a party for more than 12 guests, aim to have at least two portions of each item for each of your guests. You’re not feeding them dinner, but after a variety of hearty appetizers over an hour or two, your guests won’t be hungry.
“When I decide on the food that I eat, I like to surround myself with people who share that same vision,” Christen says. “The beauty of it all is, when it comes to choosing food, there are places that you can fre-quent that make truly everything from scratch. It is then all left up to you to decide on how that you would like to go about it.”B
Bring the harvest in to your dinner parties this fall by throwing a party where taste is the focal point and explosions of ripe fall flavours delight even the most discerning palates.
Don’t be shy. Explore exciting food combinations with a tasting party where autumn flavours are celebrated and appetizer-sized delicacies fill the menu.
And above all, don’t forget the cheese.No soiree for foodies would be complete without a sampling of some
great savoury slivers of this dairy concoction to melt in your mouth. To amuse those bouches, start with one of local cheesemonger Janice Beaton’s favourites: a slice of cherry tomato with basil and pesto topped with goat cheese.
“Cheese is a great idea, because there is so much you can do with it, and because it’s so versatile,” says the owner of Janice Beaton Fine
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HARVEST INCALGARYSurrounded by FARM country, Calgary is a produce PARADISE
“any foods that are in a supermarket travel an average 14,000 kilometres”
story by jessica patterson ~ calgary herald archive images
This year, they’ve allocated a portion of the garden sites to let the land-owners grow whatever they wanted, and Kile and Olson help tend it.
The benefits of growing, buying and eating local are not just for farm-ers and producers, but for consumers, as well. The average food item in North America has a large carbon footprint, travelling hundreds of kilometres before reaching the table.
It’s something Andrew Winfield, head chef at Calgary’s River Café on Prince’s Island Park, takes to heart.
“Any foods that are in a supermarket travel an average of 14,000 kilometres,” he says.
For every day that the product is out of the field, it loses nutritients, says Winfield — vitamins break down and sugars turn to starch — so that by the time you buy them from the grocery store, the nutritional value is often cut in half.
When you buy local produce, however, you can get to know the farm-ers — what they’re doing and how they grow their products, the chef says.
“We used to have an amazing amount of vendors, butchers and farmers. People always used to buy their produce at farmers markets. We got away from that in the last 50 years,” explains Winfield. “I’ve found in the last 10 years, there are a lot more community bakers, more butcher shops and artisan shops.
Now, people can ask questions and develop rapport with their farmers.
“By knowing your farmers, you’re privy to more information about how your food was grown.”
This fall, keep your eyes peeled for produce that’s a little out of the norm for this growing season, such as apricots, suggests Winfield. Certain varieties are hardy and can even flourish in
Alberta’s shorter, cooler growing season. And backyard gardeners need not fear the frost, adds Winfield,
because “it does a wonderful transition with things in the field. Strawberries are twice as sweet as they’ve been all year. And the
root crops, the parsnips after that first frost, will be sweeter, as well.”
Fgert lund of lund’s organic farm
Fall is a delicious time of year, when locally harvested vegetables and fruits make their way into restaurants and Calgarians’ kitchens, ripe and bursting with flavour.
At the height of fall harvest, car-rots, corn, squash and peppers, leafy greens and sweet potatoes are just some of the heady selection of produce spilling over on market shelves.
“September is the biggest time of year for us,” says Gert Lund, of Lund’s Organic Farm, just north of Innisfail.
The organic farm produces car-rots, spinach, lettuce, potatoes and other cool-weather vegetable crops that grow well in Alberta’s climate. The farm then sells its produce at the Calgary Farmers Market. “We specialize in carrots and, by far, they’re the most popular,” says Lund.
Urban farmers Chad Kile and Rod Olson of Leaf and Lyre Urban Farming have had their fingers in the soil since the start of the growing season. The urban farmers use space in Calgarians’ backyards to grow produce, and then sell it to markets and restaurants.
“For us, the fall is a time when we plant spinach, kale, greens that like cooler weather,” Kile says. “It really flourishes. In the chinook zone, we like to plant things like greens because they tend to be quite hardy.”
Root vegetables — such as potatoes, carrots and beets — take the whole growing season, and come to full maturity in the fall. Kile and Olson reap their harvest from 24 garden plots — in yards volunteered by homeowners across the city.
When Kile and Olson first started out, a lot of people didn’t think urban farming would catch on. But they soon discovered anything will grow in Calgary soil.
“The warmth at night helps the growth cycle,” Kile explains. Last year, the urban farmers shared their harvest with the landowners. go to calgaryherald.com/foodandwine for harvest recipes
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B.C. VINOFrom PLONK to PREMIUM story by joel schlesinger ~ calgary herald archive images
OOnce upon a time, B.C.’s wine industry was known
for one thing: Plonk.Plonk is a cheap wine made from non-premium
grapes, generally hybrids, and the quality is not great.And for decades, B.C. was famous for it, at least
to the British Columbians, and a few Albertans who drank it. But outside Western Canada, many didn’t even know the province had a wine industry.
Then an unexpected turn for the better transpired about 20 years ago after the North American Free Trade Agreement was signed, which many producers at the time had bemoaned as the death knell for the province’s wine industry.
“NAFTA was really the TSN Turning Point because the wine got better and the consumers started to respond to it,” says Gordon Fitzpatrick, president of CedarCreek Estate Winery in the Okanagan.
Many of the plonk wine producers — who grew the labrusca hybrid grape, which was well-suited to the colder climate but produced an inferior product — went out of business. Others, like CedarCreek, began planting premium vinifera that produced the grapes used in wines we’re accustomed to drinking from B.C. today: Merlot, Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon, etc.
Today, the industry is thriving, having grown from fewer than 20 wineries in 1990 to more than 190 in 2011. Wine sales for VQA wines — those sold under the Vintners Quality Alliance — are $200 million annually.
B.C. wines are also gaining recognition for quality, having won more than 900 awards at national and international competitions this year, according to the B.C. Wine Institute.
In fact, B.C. wines won 90 medals, including nine Best in Class awards at the Los Angeles International Wine & Spirits Competition.
It is the second year in a row that the Best in Class award for a Bordeaux Blend went to an Okanagan winery, upsetting top California wineries.
In 2010, Nk’Mip Cellars won and this year. Sandhill took the award with its 2008 Phantom Creek Vine-yard Small Lots One.
This sustained success has proven the many naysay-ers very wrong, says wine expert Rhys Pender.
“A lot of people will say: ‘It’s so far north, it must be a cool climate,’ but if you come here in the sum-mer and it’s 40°C, that’s not cool at all,” says the wine educator and owner of Wine Plus, a wine con-sulting business.
“It’s hotter than what most wineries in other parts
of the world reach.”Specifically, Pender is referring to the Okanagan
Valley, which is home to 122 wineries. But the indus-try is growing elsewhere in the province.
“Certainly, one of the up-and-coming regions is the Similkameen — with 12 wineries,” says Lindsay Kelm, spokesperson with the B.C. Wine Institute. “It’s been named one of the ‘world’s five best wine regions you’ve never heard of’ by EnRoute Magazine.”
~ continued on 15
b.c.’s okanagan valley is home to more than 122 wineries.
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into the store and buy everything — from freshly made scones in the morning, to Valrhona mint choco-late bombes in the evening,” says Creurer.
Many party-planning arrangements can also be done from the comfort of your own home, selecting appetizers, hors d’oeuvres, entrées and deserts — all through a website. So, with the click of a mouse, your home could be filled with the mouth-watering aromas of fresh, local, gourmet food — all without the mess and stress.
CATERINGChanging PALATES mean FRESH and LOCAL matters
story by jacqueline louie ~ images by michelle hofer
Taaron creurer, co-owner of red tree catering.
keep food warm, drinks, dessert, cut-lery, napkins and delivery, as well as a bartender and a chef to cook the meal on site. And Calgarians are liking these personal touches, says Ferguson.
Since culinary and dietary tastes are broader now –— more people are veg-etarian, vegan, lactose-intolerant, celiac or adhering to other dietary restric-tions — hosts will often choose buffet options, so guests can pick and choose what they like, she says.
Hosts have also jumped on the “fresh is best” bandwagon, preferring sauces and meals to be made from scratch to their prepackaged alternatives.
Blame it on the advent of cooking TV shows and a more educated and refined palate, but Calgarians have embraced the gourmet side of cooking — and catering.
And “heavier meals are starting to disappear,” says Aaron Creurer, Red Tree Catering co-owner with partner Susan Hopkins.
“People aren’t eating quite as much, and they are eating a lot healthier,” he says. “Desserts have shrunk, as well. It’s all very small desserts, with a duo or trio of pre-plated items — a sampling of different items that all work together.”
Besides being a full-service catering business han-dling functions of up to 1,000 people, Red Tree also operates a storefront offering gourmet takeout.
“We have our own pastry shop, so you can come
There’s nothing quite like catering a meal to im-press your guests.
Calgary has many fine restaurants that can package all the fixin’s’ for a memorable meal, whether it is an anniversary, Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner, allow-ing you to relax and interact with your guests, instead of spending most of your time in the kitchen.
“People want to visit and be involved with their guests instead of having to worry about the food,” says Kristen Ferguson, Sunterra Market catering man-ager for Edmonton.
Many catering companies will not only take care of all the food, but will also provide chafing dishes to
PAIRING FEATURE: Cheese ~ food writer & cookbook author julie van rosendaal
There are many who would choose cheese over chocolate any day of the week.
Popular in cuisines all over the world (with the exception of most Asian countries, where lactose intolerance is high), cheeses come in a huge range of textures, structures and flavours.
In broad terms, a cheese can be categorized ac-cording to the type of milk used to make it — most commonly cow, goat, sheep or buffalo.
Delving further, a cheese is often described by its moisture content — firm, hard, soft or semi-soft —flavour and texture, all determined by the milk itself (and even the diet of the animal that produced it), the curdling and pressing method, the type of bacteria or moulds used during the ripening process and the conditions the cheese is ripened under, its age and any salts and seasonings that are added.
A wide range of factors at play make each cheese unique — even those made under similar conditions or at the same farm. In the European Union, some cheeses (such as Roquefort and Gorgonzola) have a protected destination of origin, and can be labeled as such only if they have been produced in a specific country and region.
When putting together a cheese platter, go for a variety that is diverse in flavour and texture — soft to firm; mild to pungent, preferably with at least one blue (any cheese that has had a culture added, re-sulting in spots of veins of blue mould) and a goat’s milk cheese are among the more popular cows’ milk
cheeses. Despite the fact cheese is made from milk, there
are some lactose-free varieties available. Many Sylvan Star Goudas, produced in Red Deer,
are free of lactose. Typically, the longer a cheese ages, the less lactose it contains; cheeses aged over two years are virtually lactose free.
Springbank Cheese also carries numerous lactose-free cheeses, and suggest a goat’s milk chèvre as an easier-to-digest alternative for those with lactose intolerance.
Once you have your cheeses arranged, fill in the gaps with fresh and dried fruits (sliced apples and pears, small bunches of grapes, prunes, dried apricots, cranberries and cherries), crunchy nuts, breadsticks, crack-ers and dense breads — try nutty quickbreads, soda bread or yeasted olive loaves.
Sliced fresh bread is a good choice when it’s going to be eaten relatively quickly; dry crackers and breadsticks last a little longer if you plan to set them out for awhile. All varieties of cheese should be served at room temperature; cold inhibits flavour and solidifies fats, making cheese firmer than it should be.
Although wine and cheese is a classic combo, beer makes an easier pairing; bubbles cut through the creaminess, and beer doesn’t contain the tannins that
can sometimes overwhelm a cheese. Try hefty stouts and porters with more intensely flavoured cheeses, and pilsners and pale ales with softer, mellower varieties.
When choosing wines to pair with cheese, the basic rule of thumb is to drink
what you like — if it works for you, anything goes.
Generally it’s a good idea to choose wines and cheeses that complement and balance each other — mellow cheeses do better with white wines, and more robust
cheeses can stand up to hearty reds. Sweet dessert wines tend to pair well
with a wide variety of cheeses, too. (If you’re looking for more specific
pairing advice, there’s a great wine and cheese matching tool at the Dairy Farmers of Canada website dairygoodness.ca.)
~ gougéres recipe on 13
Julie van Rosendaal is a food writer, cookbook author, blogger (dinnerwithjulie.com), the food and nutrition columnist on CBC Radio’s Calgary Eyeopener, a contributor to the new online cook-ing series Good Bite and co-host It’s Just Food on Viva Network.
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CHEERS TO WINETASTINg parties FUN and EDUCATINgstory by maria canton ~ thinkstock images
A
PARTY TIPSTop five tips for hosting your own wine
tasting party:~ 1. Choose a theme: For example,
Tour de France (major regions of France); Old World vs. New World (France, Italy and Spain vs. Canada, U.S. and Argen-tina); Weird, Wicked and Wonderful (obscure grape varieties).
~ 2. Ask guests to bring a bottle, and set a price range of $20-$25 per bottle
~ 3. If using the same glasses, start with the lightest, least complex wines and work toward the darker, fruitier ones.
A wine-tasting party by its very nature can be a little chichi, but that’s not to say that hosting one can’t be a lot fun.
“A tasting (party) doesn’t have to be overly complex or serious. The key is to be imaginative and come up with a format that is interactive and fun,” says Jesse Willis, a Calgary sommelier and president of Vine Arts Enterprises.
“At the end of the day, wine is about creating an experience, and the goal should be that each guest leaves having tried something new.”
Willis runs Vine Arts with his business partner Jeff Jamieson. Together, they offer both business and private clients a “fresh and fun” approach to wine infor-mation and education.
Between training restaurant staff and planning corporate events, Willis has also perfected the art of hosting a wine-tasting party.
“I always start planning my wine tasting by choosing a theme. The world of wine is so big that choosing a theme is a great way to keep the tasting focused and engaging,” he said.
Willis suggests asking guests to bring a theme-related wine along with an inter-esting fact about it. He also recommends setting a price range of $20-$25 — something that takes the pressure off guests and “evens the playing field.”
For a tasting party, you won’t need wine in abundance — one bottle can eas-ily serve up to 12 people — although you may want more for mingling after-ward. Glasses, however, can be another matter.
At wineries and wine events, guests are given a clean glass for every wine they try, but according to Miranda Landry from Crowfoot Wine & Spirits, you can get by with the glasses you have if you taste from light to dark.
“From a practical standpoint, if you move from your lightest, least complex wines to the heavier, fruitier wines, you can use the same glass,” says Landry, events co-ordinator for the city-wide chain. Or you can follow that same rule, but switch to clean glasses when you finish your whites and move to reds.”
Landry also suggests having note cards and pens for guests, as well as “dump buckets,” or spittoons, for those who are truly “just tasting.”
Lastly, you will need to serve your guests something to eat. Willis and Landry say when it comes to food, keeping it casual and classic is the best option.
A selection of breads, fine cheeses, cured meats and olives generally pair well with most wines. However, if you want something more substantial, you can do specific food and wine pairings, but it will require more planning, research and preparation.
~ 4. Set out note cards, pens, spittoons or “dump buckets” for guests who are truly “just tasting.”
~ 5. Keep food simple with a selection of breads, fine cheeses, cured meats and olives.
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FINE DINING IN CALGARYFine dining MORPHS into DELECTABLE, gourmet fare — casual style
“calgary has … always had a level of sophistication in the food scene here.”
story by jacqueline louie ~ images by michelle hoferHowever, in recent years, it has become much more rare for the
simple fact that high-end dining is changing.In the past, it was just for special occasions, such as anniversaries and
birthdays, as well as for the corporate world, and “people with a whole lot of money,” says Gilchrist.
Now, however, “the generations that have come up through the drive-thru lane still want to eat out — but they want to eat out more casually,” he adds.
above: q haute cuisine chef michele aurigemma prepares for dinner service in his trendy restaurant in west eau claire.
SAt the same time, he adds: “There is absolutely more choice.” Many chefs, as well as food and beverage managers, have come to
Calgary from elsewhere, and have brought with them many different influences to the table, such as unique cooking techniques and creative wine lists.
For their part, Calgarians are looking for something different, Mac-Donald says.
“They are looking for the practice of sustainability; they want to know where their food is coming from.”
Whether it is reducing their carbon footprints by buying local or curtail-ing menu items to those produced through fair-trade or environmental or social-conscious practices, many Calgary restaurants have embraced the mantra of responsible living, leaving one to think “fine” dining is awfully fine, indeed.
What began as a formal dining-room atmosphere, complete with white tablecloth and waiter in bow tie and vest, has morphed into a much more casual experience, he explains, noting this change is being seen through-out North America.
“The chefs and restaurants take themselves and their business very seriously, but it’s not like it used to be,” says Gilchrist. “So when you’re going to new places, for example like NOtaBLE and Charcut, you are in a much livelier, louder place — where the food is outstanding, but the setting is less haute cuisine than it used to be.”
The evolution is something Andy MacDonald is very aware of. The general manager of Rouge, which offers “fine dining without the white gloves,” notes: “Fine dining in Calgary has morphed. It’s the toning down of fine dining.”
Symmetry on a plate — tempting tastebuds, sulivating glands and dial-ating pupils, trying to focus on the beauty that is laid before them.
It sure is “fine” to dine in Calgary these days. “The major trend in fine dining today is simplicity,” says Michele Auri-
gemma, owner and chef at Q Haute Cuisine, an upscale Mediterranean-influenced restaurant that uses locally inspired ingredients. “The more simple the whole dining experience, the more wonderful it is.”
Today’s restaurant patrons don’t want to be fine dining in a stuffy atmosphere, he says. Instead, they would much prefer partaking in scrumptious fare in the casual elegance of a dining room.
Calgary itself creates a one-of-a-kind atmosphere for dining, adds Auri-gemma, because of the unique people who are behind each restaurant.
At Q Haute Cuisine, which is situated on the banks of the Bow River in West Eau Claire, “a lot of our influence is from Europe. It’s always nice to have a European flair in every city.”
“Calgary has always been a cosmopolitan town, as much as any city our size in North America. We’ve always had a level of sophistication in the food scene here,” adds Calgary food writer John Gilchrist.
For that reason, there is always room in our city for restaurants offer-ing high-end fine dining, he says.
continued from 10 ~
GOUDA OR GRUYÉRE GOUGÉRES
Beyond gouda and gruyère, these delicate, crisp puffs are delicious, made with aged white cheddar, asiago, or any firm, flavourful cheese. They make a perfect bite-sized nibble to serve with beer or wine.
For the pâte à choux:1 cup water1/2 cup butter, cut into
pieces1/4 tsp. salt1 cup all-purpose flour4 large eggs1 1/2 cups coarsely grated
gruyère or aged gouda cheese.
In a medium saucepan, bring the water and butter to a boil over medium-high heat. Turn the heat down to low and add the flour all at once. Stir with a heat-proof spatula or wooden spoon until the mixture pulls away from side of pan. Transfer the mixture to a bowl and beat in the eggs one at a time with an electric mixer on high speed, beating well after each addition. The batter should have the consis-tency and colour of thick cake batter. Preheat the oven to 375°F and spray two baking sheets with nonstick spray, or line them with parchment paper. Stir the cheese into the pâte à choux and drop spoonfuls an inch apart on the prepared baking sheets. Alter-natively, spoon into a piping bag fitted with a large tip and pipe directly onto the sheet.
Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until puffed, golden and crisp. Makes about two dozen.
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HAVE WINE GLASS, WILL TRAVELTour operators POP the CORK on FESTIVALS
“traditional tours have always included vancouver and the canadian rockies ... the okanagan is changing this”
story by maria canton ~ images by calgary herald archive
“Our fall festival takes place during the heart of the harvest. It’s one of the most exciting times of the year to watch everything from picking to crushing and more,” says Christine Ferriera, co-ordinator for the society, which hosts annual spring, summer and fall festivals.
Ranked among its top 100 events by the American Bus Association, the harvest-time festival is a huge draw, bringing back returnees and at-tracting new comers every year. T
But if a package tour doesn’t fit your schedule, you can always charter your own plane.
Calgary-based Storm Aviation this year is offering wine tours to the Okanagan. Guests get the five-star treatment when they charter their own executive plane from Calgary to Kelowna, Penticton or Oliver, B.C., with the air company providing a sampling of wines and food onboard.
The day starts with guests boarding an eight-seat executive King Air 200, a flight over the Rockies, with in-flight service as requested.
The company also arranges transportation from the airport to wineries or other points of interest.
While the Okanagan Wine Festival Society has yet to offer wine travel packages, it is in the process of exploring the option for next year.
Currently, WestJet is the official airline for the society and the Calgary-based carrier, which offers up to five daily scheduled daily from Calgary to Kelowna, is the sponsor of one of the society’s most popular events.
WestJet Wine Tastings is a two-day event held in late September that showcases more than 50 Okanagan wineries and upwards of 150 differ-ent wines under one roof.
right: the rocky mountaineer’s wine route begins in Vancouver and ends in banff, with stops in b.c.’s okanagan valley, which is home to more than 122 wineries. inset: many operators offer a variety of tours of b.c.’s wine country, including guided bicycle tours.
The trek from Calgary to the coast used to be all about the mountains, but tour operators today are wising up to the ever-growing popularity of wine tourism in B.C.’s Okanagan Valley.
“The Okanagan is a hidden jewel and has just recently started to draw international attention with award winning wines, fine culinary experi-ences and beautiful lake views,” says Jason Bryant, director of operations for Brewster Travel Canada.
“The traditional tours have always included Vancouver and the Ca-nadian Rockies — with not a lot to see in the middle. The Okanagan is changing this experience,” says Bryant.
This year, Brewster introduced a new motorcoach package called Gar-dens, Grapes and Glaciers which includes a stop in the Okanagan that showcases small, family-run wineries, as well as the larger ones that are the foundation of the industry.
Bryant, says the company chooses its winery stops based on unique-ness, history and quality of wine.
“Little Straw Vineyards is a great example of a family-operated winery that can offer great-tasting wine, while Quails Gate and Mission Hill (wineries) are the cornerstones in Kelowna — the views, the architecture and the great tasting wine,” says Bryant of the wineries that are often showcased on the Gardens, Grapes and Glaciers tour.
Having offered service between Calgary and Vancouver for more than 25 years, Bryant is been pleasantly surprised at how quickly the new tour, offered until late October, is growing in popularity. The bus com-pany plans to increase the overnight stay in Kelowna from one night to two, and possibly three.
Co-ordinating your trip to wine country with one of the area’s main festivals is another way to experience the entire region with not a lot of travel. This year, the Fall Okanagan Wine Festival runs for 10 days, start-ing Sept. 30, and gives visitors more than 165 events to choose from, including vineyard and tasting tours, dinners under the vines and semi-nars on food and wine pairings.
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Come taste the winners of the 2011Wine Access International ValueWine AwardsMinors are not permitted
October 14 - 15Stampede Park’s BMO Centre, Halls D & EFriday 4 - 1Opm | Saturday 3 - 1Opm
2011 GRAND TASTING HALL
ROCKY MOUNTAIN WINE & FOOD FESTIVAL
For tickets & festival details visit rockymountainwine.com
continued from 9 ~
Other wine-producing regions include the Fraser Valley, Van-couver Island and Gulf Islands, but their scale of production is dwarfed by the Okanagan and the adjacent Similkameen Valley near the Okanagan.
A 2009 survey by the institute found more than 96 per cent of wine in B.C. comes from the Okanagan. And it’s the valley’s unique characteristics that are turning heads of oenophiles, Pender says.
“Nowhere else in the world has that same, extreme climate that we do,” he says.
With the cold winters and short summers, it was originally as-sumed the white varietals would fare better and by and large, they have. “You’ve got other things like Riesling, Gewurztraminer, Char-donnay and those grapes that do really well, and will continue to do really well,” he says.
But as the producers’ skill and knowledge of the land and climate increased, wineries also started producing quality reds, including those once thought impossible to grow in the region — such as the heat-loving Syrahs.
“It surprised everybody in the industry, including us,” Fitzpatrick says. “We do blind taste tests all the time and often, when we taste our premium wines and compare them to other more established wine regions, they’re found to be of equal quality.”
Quality, in fact, has been the focus of most B.C. wineries for the simple fact it’s the only way they can survive in the shadow of the wine-producing giants: France, Italy, Spain, South Africa, Califor-nia, Australia and Chile.
But that quality comes at a price. “You’re not going to get cheap
wine here like you are in other countries,” Pender says. “In Chile, the labour is getting paid $400 a month.”
Not to mention, he says, the Ca-nadian wine is likely to taste better to the educated palate.
“If you look at the price — about $35 — that might sound expen-sive compared to a $17 Chilean wine, but if that $35 wine is aging beautifully and delicious after 10 years, that’s a pretty inexpensive wine.”
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tourS not to mISS~ StORM AViAtiOn — the Cal-
gary-based private aviation charter company offers executive wine-tour charters on a King Air 200 aircraft that can seat up to eight people. Cost: $5,000 return flight from Calgary to either Kelowna, Penticton or oliver, B.C. what you get: “Five-star service” from start to finish, including wine and food onboard, as requested, ground transportation arrangements and the chance to sit back and relax. Contact: Storm Aviation 403-736-0522 or stormaviation.ca
~ BRewSteR VACAtiOnS CAnA-DA — the Banff-based motorcoach tour company offers several op-tions for travel through the okana-gan region, including the new Gar-dens, Grapes and Glaciers tour. Cost: from $579, seasonal, avail-able until oct. 26. what you get: A two-day tour from Calgary through Canada’s mountain, garden and wine country to Vancouver. An overnight stay in Kelowna provides the perfect place to unwind and explore the lakeside destination hot-spot. Contact: vacationscanada.travel; 403-762-6717
~ weStJet AiRLineS — The Cal-gary-based airline offers up to five scheduled daily flights from Calgary to Kelowna. Cost: from $104 one-way. what you get: A 57-minute flight over the Canadian Rockies on the official airline of the Okanagan Wine Festivals Society and the sponsor of one of the Okanagan’s most popular events, the two-day WestJet Wine Tastings Sept. 30 and Oct. 1. Contact: westjet.com
~ ROCky MOUntAineeR & wineRy tOUR — Slow down and enjoy wines from award-winning vineyards in the Okanagan Valley. Cost: from $4,699. what you get: A tour that visits seven of the region’s leading wineries with onboard wine-tastings, deluxe accommoda-tions, sight-seeing, wine-paired meals and visits to some of the world’s best wineries, with over-night stays in Vancouver, Kamloops, Osoyoos and Banff. Contact: 1-877-460-3200; rocky-mountaineer.com
cut, the cocktail has made a big comeback. The dirty martini lives and according to its fans, goes well with almost any food.
Now, just suppose you still can’t find the right beverage to imbibe while dining. In Alberta, many restaurants allow us to bring our own bottle for a fee. (It’s called “corkage.”) There are more than 140 such establishments in Calgary, with more than 40 more in the mountains. So, when in doubt, bring your own.
John Gilchrist is a Calgary-based food writer and weekly columnist for the Calgary Herald who likes to sip a beverage once in a while.
continued from 2 ~
In the mountains, you can wander at length through the Fairmont Banff Springs’ fine-tuned wine menu and always find some food to pair with your choice. But when it comes to wine, no one can touch George and Andre Schwarz’s list of 2,200 wines and 25,000 bottles. It’s one of the top wine lists in Canada. Put it together with The Post’s wonderful continental cuisine and the view and it just doesn’t get any better.
And if you want one of the most unusual — and best — food and wine experiences, you have to head back to the city’s core to Thai Sa-On. Here, owner Sam Chanhao has collected one of the best wine se-
lections in the city and serves it with Thai food, chilis and all. It’s odd, eclectic and most of the time it works brilliantly. And now that we’re saturated with wine, many of us have broadened out into the new world of artisanal beer. Restaurants such as Charcut are hiring cicerones — beer sommeliers — to help customers find a beer to match their food. Meanwhile, eateries such as Craft Beer Market are offering upscale pub food along with 200 beers on tap while Wurst has recreated a German beer hall setting of huge oak tables, braised pork hocks and a bar full of European and North American beers. And let’s not forget the passion for mixed drinks that many people hold. At places such as Raw Bar in the Hotel Arts and at Char-
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WINE-TASTING 101get WISE in your wine EDUCATIONstory by joanne sasvari ~ images by calgary herald archive
S“if it is off, you’re going to smell something like vinegar or dirty socks”Swirl. Sniff. Sip. Spit (sometimes).
Wine tasting is an easy process, but it’s one that many people still find intimi-dating. And they shouldn’t.
As Peggy Perry, the vice-president of purchasing and marketing for Willow Park Wine & Spirits, points out, “We do tend to put wine up there on a pedes-tal, but it’s just something to have with dinner.”
“There’s a lot of apprehension about tasting wine,” adds Tony Stewart, own-er of Quail’s Gate Family Estate Winery in Kelowna, B.C. “We try to disprove all the complicated things people have been told about wine.”
The whole point of tasting wine is just to find something you like to drink. And what’s so hard about that? Here’s how to do it right.
IN A RESTAURANT:“My role is basically to enhance your dining experience with the wine pair-
ings,” says Matt Laroche, the self-proclaimed “wine geek” at Calgary’s Charcut Roasthouse.
So go ahead, ask the wine director’s advice — you might discover something new and exciting. Once you’ve ordered, the server or sommelier will bring you the bottle, open it at the table, then hand you the cork. Don’t bother sniffing it; as Laroche points out, “If you smell the cork, it will smell like cork.”
In fact, with all the new wine enclosures, you’re more likely not to have a cork to play with at all — and those screw tops and plastic corks and other wine enclosures carry almost no risk of spoilage, Laroche says. “It eliminates a lot of the fear of tasting wine.”
The server will then pour a small amount of wine into the glass of the person who ordered it. “All you have to do is give it a couple of good swirls,” Laroche says. “A lot of people are afraid to dive their nose right into the glass. But you’ve just got to give it a good smell. If it’s off, you’re going to smell some-thing like vinegar or dirty socks, something really off-putting.”
Most of our sense of taste is actually our sense of smell. Our taste buds can only detect the basic flavours: sweet, sour, salty, bitter and umami, along with the tongue-tingling sensation of spicy foods. Our noses, however, can experi-
ence countless aromas. But you still need to take a sip to confirm what your nose suggests.
If the wine tastes off, never hesitate to send it back. Many things can ruin wine — heat, light, too much humidity, too little humidity and chemicals in the cork itself. Even if the wine is fine but you just don’t like it, most restaurants will still encourage you to send it back.
“Ultimately, you go with what you want,” Laroche says. “You don’t want to waste $80 on something you don’t like.”
AT THE WINERY:Visiting a winery is a great way to learn about a wine from the people
who actually made it.“Most people want to taste before they buy. Others are just curious
about the wines,” says Stewart. “What we try to do in the process is as-sess what people want.”
Wineries will usually charge a fee that can go toward the purchase of wine. Increasingly, wineries also offer different levels of tastings. Quail’s Gate, for instance, offers a basic tasting at the bar; a more intimate seated sensory tasting; and, for those who are really serious about wine, an intense food-and-wine pairing session.
Follow the swirl-sniff-sip model of tasting, but don’t get all hung up on fancy terminology and etiquette. The only etiquette to remember is that it’s meant to be an educational experience, not a party. In other words, don’t get drunk — and be sure to spit.
“Absolutely,” Stewart says. “Especially if you’re touring more than one winery. If you don’t spit, you lose your palate right away.”
AT A TASTING:Whether you’re at a festival, a wine shop, a winemaker’s dinner or
a private tasting, be sure to go in with a plan. It’s usually best to start with light, aromatic whites, graduate to fuller bodied reds and end with fortified wines, but you can also concentrate on a single varietal or wines from a particular region.
And take the time to really experience the aromas. “You should have a glass that allows you ample room for tasting the
wine,” says Perry. “If you don’t have a glass with enough room for swirl-ing, you can’t smell the wine. The last thing you’re going to do is taste it. When you get to the taste part, it’s like putting a puzzle together. It really just confirms the ideas you’ve developed by looking and smelling the wine.”
To taste the wine, take a sip, swish it around in your mouth and be sure to spit into the bucket provided. “Don’t wear perfume. Don’t wear white,” Perry says. And most importantly, she adds, “Don’t get intimi-dated. It’s supposed to be fun.”
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Glassware CreationsBy Laurie
Visit Glassware Creations By Laurie studio at Kingsland Farmers Market
Custom designs &Personalized for any occasion
Perfect for wedding orcorporate gift giving
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wine glasses
Glasswarecreationsbylaurie.com
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CreationsBy Laurie
Home Tasting Room is a
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Main Floor, 110 – 8 Avenue SW403.262.8100 www.hometastingroom.ca
TASTING
ROOM
tASte tHISHere are just a few events worth
checking out this fall; for even more ideas, visit your favourite wine shop’s website.
~ ROCky MOUntAin wine & FOOD FeStiVAL, (rockymountainwine.com) — Held at Stampede grounds Oct. 14 and 15, the festival is two decadent days of swirling and sipping.
~ wiLLOw PARk wine & SPiRitS (willowpark.net) — With tastings every week, the store will arrange private tastings, as well. Don’t miss the Sept. 16 release of the 2008 Bordeaux and the 18th annual Charity Wine Auction Nov. 5, featuring 25 to 35 wineries and cuisine from the city’s best restaurants.
~ Bin 905 (bin905.com) — Through-out the fall, this Mission wine shop will feature a variety of tastings including an Introduction to Red Burgundy Sept. 23, The Delicious World of Chardon-nay Oct. 14 and Piemontese Madness Nov. 4, which will focus on some of the top producer in Northern Italy.
~ J. weBB wine MeRChAnt (jwebb.net) — If bubble is your thing, you’ll love Farmer Fizz, Sept. 24, for an opportunity to taste more than 30 regional grower Champagnes in a festival-style setting at the Calgary Petroleum Club.
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PAIRING FEATURE: Chocolate ~ food writer & cookbook author julie van rosendaal
Over the past couple millenia (there is evidence of cultivation in Honduras around 1100 BC), the cacao bean has been used as medicine, currency, ceremo-nial tool and perhaps most predominantly, drinkable elixir; today, chocolate is eaten almost exclusively for pleasure.
It’s so popular, the World Cocoa Foundation esti-mates 50 million people worldwide rely on chocolate production (and consumption) to make their living.
Native to Mexico, Central and South America, the vast majority of chocolate consumed today is pro-duced from cacao beans grown in West Africa and Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast).
The main varieties of cacao bean are forastero, criollo and trinitario, although the cacao tree’s ability to spontaneously cross-pollinate combined with centu-ries of intentional hybridization has meant each strain has been drastically altered over the many years since cocoa has become a cash crop.
To produce the chocolate we know and love, beans harvested from the cacao tree are fermented, dried and roasted, their nibs then ground to produce a cocoa mass known as chocolate liquor, which can fur-ther be processed into cocoa solids and cocoa butter.
Chocolate makers use cacao beans or the cocoa mass to make pure chocolate, known as couverture,
which chocolatiers then use to make their confections — individual chocolates, bars, nibs, truffles and such.
To make the chocolate itself, chocolate liquor is combined with cocoa butter and sugar, resulting in chocolates categorized according to the quantity of cocoa mass it contains.
Dark chocolates (also labelled bittersweet and semisweet) contain the highest quantities of chocolate liquor; milk chocolates contain less, along with milk ingredients; and white chocolate — technically not really chocolate as it contains no cocoa solids — is typically made from cocoa butter, sugar and milk.
In recent years, Scharffen Berger spurred the trend of listing the percentage of cocoa mass on chocolate labels, allowing consumers to determine exactly how dark is dark. Within each category, you’ll find choco-lates with a wide range of characteristics; much like wines of the same varietal vary between wineries, dinstinctions can be made between regions, type of cacao bean, chocolate maker and chocolatier.
Chocolate and wine is a killer combo; pair dark and bittersweet chocolates (as well as any filled with ingredients like nuts or caramel) with more intense, robust, fruity red wines. Milk and white chocolates pair well with white and rosé wines, and sweet dessert wines generally pair well with all chocolates — the
rule of thumb being that the chocolate be not as sweet as the wine.
Ports are always a good fit with chocolate, tawny ports being safer than vintage varieties, which can often overwhelm, rather than complement, chocolate.
Beer and chocolate can go wonderfully together, too — robust porters and stouts have qualities similar to chocolate, or try a nutty, malty German Doppelbock. And, of course, chocolate and fruit are great together; try a fruity Belgian beer, Wild Rose Wraspberry Ale or Alley Kat Aprikat with virtually any chocolate — the darker the better.
SWEET PARTIESSMOOTH operators HOST rich gATHERINgS stories by julie van rosendaal ~ calgary herald archive images
C — a 70 per cent chocolate is a good baseline to go with, so that you have a control group to compare.
“Otherwise, it’s not a tasting anymore, it’s just a chocolate eating,” says Tumanut.
Alternatively, you could go by producer, sampling chocolates from a variety of producers, each of whom use their own fermenting and conching process, which affects the flavour and mouth-feel of the finished product. Swiss choco-lates, for example, tend to be smoother and creamier, having gone through a longer conching process — a method of blending invented by Rodolphe Lindt that distributes cocoa butter throughout chocolate, and can very in length from a few hours to almost 80. Choose some milk, some white and a few dark chocolates, which vary in cocoa content from 33 to 99 per cent.
It’s more sophisticated — and difficult — to taste according to the actual ca-cao bean. Bars of chocolate made from a specific bean can be difficult to find, only available in specialty stores, and can be pricey.
As you set up your tasting, ensure the room isn’t too warm, and is free of perfumes, air fresheners, incense — any odour will affect taste. Set out chocolate samples for each guest, ensuring you don’t refrigerate the chocolate
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Chocolate tasting parties are becoming a new way to get friends together — with so many new varieties on the market, chocolate is similar to wine with its wide range of origins, producers and ingredients. And who doesn’t love chocolate?
Barbara Tumanut, owner of Chocolaterie Bernard Callebaut in Red Deer, is excited to see the transition from wine tastings to chocolate tastings. With a history in the wine industry, she loves to attend and conduct tastings of her new passion — chocolate.
“It’s nice to see it becoming mainstream,” she says, “but it would be a shame to turn a simple pleasure into something overly complex and intimidating, like wine tends to be. Chocolate is easily enjoyed, it’s fun, a simple pleasure most people have enjoyed over a lifetime. Don’t take it too seriously — it would be a pity to turn it into something intimidating.”
If you’re hosting your own chocolate tasting, Tumanut advises holding it ear-lier in the day or over the weekend, remembering a time she was given highly caffeinated chocolates late at night and couldn’t sleep.
When it comes to selecting your chocolates, there are a few ways to go about it; just like wine, you could go by origin, comparing chocolate from Madagascar, which is easily identified by its citrus notes, to chocolate from Ecuador, which is more floral.
If you are tasting chocolate by region, ensure the cocoa contents are similar
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WE HAVE A NEW BRANDA NEW LOCATIONAND NEW PRODUCTSBUT IT’S STILLALL ABOUT THE
CHOCOLATE
Now Open inAspen Landing
Visit bernardcallebaut.com to discover our 31 locations,or cococochocolatiers.com to learn about our new brand.
THE PERFECT PAIRING
SUNKEN FLOUR-LESS CHOCOLATE CAKEThis flour-less, gluten-free chocolate cake is more like a truffle, set with eggs
that add lift, then sink in the middle as the cake cools. Try folding raspberry pu-ree into whipped cream to make an easy raspberry fool to mound in the middle — there’s no need for frosting.
1 lb. (454 g) good-quality semisweet chocolate, roughly chopped1/2 cup butter5 large eggs, separatedPreheat your oven to 375˚F. In a small pot set over low heat (or in the micro-
wave or a double boiler), melt the chocolate with the butter, stirring often, until melted and smooth. Remove from heat and set aside to cool slightly.
Butter an 8-x-9-inch springform pan, line the bottom with a circle of parchment or waxed paper, and butter that too.
Separate the eggs, and beat the whites in a clean glass or stainless steel bowl with an electric mixer until stiff but not dry. In another bowl, stir together the cooled chocolate mixture and the egg yolks. Fold about a third of the egg whites into the chocolate mixture, and then the remaining whites, being careful not to deflate them. Leaving a few streaks of white through the batter is just fine. Pour into the prepared pan and bake for 25 minutes, until a thermometer inserted in the middle reads 140˚F (60˚C). If you do not have a thermometer, the top of the cake will look similar to a brownie and a cake tester will appear wet. Cool slightly before removing the sides of the pan. Serves 12.
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— serve it at room temperature. Tumanut suggests offering room-temperature water as a palate cleanser in between samples. Then, it’s time to taste.
“A chocolate tasting is all about taking time to pay attention to detail. There is an element of adventure and discovery — it’s very exciting,” she says.
Some people start with chocolate that has a high cocoa content and work their way down; others start at the bottom and work their way up. It’s up to you.
“Involve all of your senses,” Tumanut advises. “Look at it — is it shiny? Smooth? Does it have a sheen? What about colour?”
Next, use your sense of touch. Is it smooth? Firm? Rough or bumpy? “Chocolate should melt in your hands at room temperature after a few
seconds,” says Tumanut. “Chocolate with a higher percentage of cocoa butter isn’t waxy — if it’s waxy, they’ve used vegetable fat instead of cocoa butter.”
You can even use your sense of sound. Properly tempered chocolate will have a distinct snap as you break it. As soon as it breaks, enlist your sense of smell: cup the freshly broken chocolate in your hands and inhale.
“There are about 500 different natural aromas in chocolate,” Tumanut says. “It’s said to be more complex than wine.”
When you taste, let a small piece of chocolate melt on your tongue, press-ing it up against the roof of your mouth. Don’t chew. Close your eyes, open your mouth and inhale — much like tasting wine. Let it take six to 10 seconds. Close your eyes if you want to focus all your attention on your sense of taste.
Different parts of your tongue pick up different flavours, so allow it to fill your mouth. And good chocolate should have a strong finish. Tumanut sug-gests taking notes, so that you can refer to them later on as you try to choose a chocolate to go with a fruity dessert, for example.
Some local chocolatiers make house calls, lending their expertise to groups who want to learn more about chocolate. Debra Fleck, founder of Epiphanie Chocolate on 11th Street S.W. will come lead a chocolate-tasting event, bring-ing an assortment of chocolate disks to sample, as she talks about the choc-olate-making process and differences between regions and varieties of cacao bean. If you’re willing to take your show on the road (or want to skip the step of cleaning your house), Choklat, the first artisan chocolate maker in Western Canada, offers chocolate-tasting events at its Inglewood location.
However you hold your chocolate tasting, Tumanut’s advice applies: “Make it easy, make it fun. Most people are interested in coming together, sharing friendship (and chocolate), and I want to nurture that.”
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Julie van Rosendaal is a food writer, cookbook author, blogger (dinnerwithjulie.com), the food and nutrition columnist on CBC Radio’s Calgary Eyeopener, a con-tributor to the new online cooking series Good Bite and co-host of It’s Just Food on Viva Network.
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Wine festivals can be a brilliant way to try a ton of new wines, all in one night.
But, for the best and most memorable ex-periences, plan a little before going to one.
First, eat a decent meal before you go.
If you don’t eat any-thing before drinking alcohol, well, we all know that’s a recipe for disaster.
And whether you’re male or female, skip the fra-grances. Deodorant is fine, of course, but “don’t wear perfume,” says Jason Sanwell, sales and marketing agent for Fluid Imports in Calgary, and one of the experts who pour wine at festivals across Alberta. “It overpowers what you’re tasting.”
And you’ll want to taste — after all, that’s the point in attending a festival.
Politely ask for a sample. Swirl, then sniff; taste, then spit in one of the provided buckets. If you drink everything you’re offered, you’ll regret it — and you’ll forget what you’re trying.
With that in mind, take a notebook, or use the ones that are often handed out free at the festival entrance. Even if you don’t make extensive notes, record the names of the wines you try and like, so you’ll remem-ber them the next day.
Popular festivals may mean lineups for tasting. “Come forward, get your sample, ask a question
and step back,” says Shauna Hansen, co-owner of Vintage West Wine Marketing, an importer who, like Sanwell, pours wine for consumers at festivals across Alberta. “Consider the folks behind you.”
And be open-minded. You may think you dislike a certain style of wine, but if someone offers you a sample, consider it; there are myriad ways of making wine, and you may love what’s offered.
“The great thing about a festival is it gives you a chance to try a bunch of different versions of a grape that you think you don’t like,” says Sanwell, who works at about 20 festivals each year, and whose portfolio includes offerings from Tahbilk, Spy Valley and Black Hills Estate.
“Chardonnay is a great example. People say they don’t like Chardonnay, but it’s actually over-oaked Chardonnay they don’t like. They’ll find lots of others that they do like.”
Even if you don’t find any you enjoy, remember your manners. Be respectful to the people behind the tables.
Every importer has stories of being at wine festivals, pouring for consumers who make sour faces (“It’s as if they just drank some strychnine,” says one with a laugh) or do or say much worse, just because they didn’t like the wine they tried.
“It’s OK to dump wine out. It’s OK not to like everything. You don’t have to drink every glass that’s poured for you,” says Hansen, whose portfolio includes wines from Cameron Hughes and Robert Oatley Vineyards.
FEATURED COLUMNIST: What to do at wine festivals ~ wine writer & sommelier shelley boettcher
“But you can also be respectful of different styles of wine.”
And, for that matter, the folks who are working hard to bring it to you.
“All of us, we’re there to help and provide informa-tion,” Hansen says. “We want to tell you about the wine and for you to enjoy it. Use the people behind
the table for questions and information. Sponge it up. It’s a great opportunity.”
Shelley Boettcher is a weekly wine columnist, blogger, sommelier, journalist and has been a judge at Vinitaly, one of the world’s largest wine fairs.
WHAT IS A VINTAGE?The term “vintage” refers to the year a wine was made, and is usually
noted on the label of a wine. (No year? That means the wine is non-vin-tage, and may be a blend of wines from various years.)
Every year, new vintages of wine arrive in wine shops and at festivals, and generally, each vintage of your favourite wine will taste different from the previous vintages. You may love a certain Napa Cabernet Sauvignon, but before you purchase a case, make sure you’ve tried the most recent vintage.
There are no firm rules as to what vintage is in stores and when a new vintage will be released. (It all depends on the winery and the market.) European producers, for instance, often hold onto their wines for a longer period than South American producers, before releasing them to consum-ers.
In general, 2008 and 2009 are current vintages for New World reds; 2009 and 2010 are current vintages for New World Whites. Current vintag-es for French, Spanish and Italian wines may be 2007, 2008 or even 2009.
Festival calendar~ cornucopia — whistler’s Celebration of Food and wine nov. 10 to 13. For more information, go to whistlercornucopia.com or email [email protected].~ calgary co-op grape escape — nov. 18 to 19, at Stampede Park. tickets go on sale in early September. For tickets or informa- tion, go to coopwinesandspirits.com or your local Co-op wines & Spirits store. ~ okanagan Fall Wine Festival — Sept. 30 to Oct. 9 at various locations throughout the Okanagan Valley. For more informa- tion or tickets, go to thewinefestivals.com, call 250-861-6654 or e-mail info@thewine festivals.com. Or you can download a free app at itunes; search Okanagan wine Festi- vals.~ rocky Mountain Wine and Food Festival — Oct. 14 to 15 at Stampede Park’s BMO Centre and in edmonton Oct. 21 and 22 at the Shaw Conference Centre. tickets are on sale now. Go to rockymoun- tainwine.com, e-mail liz@rockymountain wine.com or call 1-866-228-3555.~ FairMont BanFF springs 20th interna- tional Festival oF Wine and Food — Oct. 21 to 23 at the Fairmont Banff Springs hotel. For tickets and information, go to Fairmont.com/Banffsprings, call 403-762- 1710 or e-mail [email protected].
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Join us for Live a Better Life…at Lunch and enjoy a burstof food culture on your lunch break!
Enjoy a fabulous meal hosted by Karen Anderson,owner of Calgary Food Tours, and learn the culturaltraditions and the inspiration ‘behind the plate’ atdifferent restaurants in Calgary’s downtown.
Find out more about this and all BVC Live a BetterLife programs, including the NEW Tea SommelierCertificate at liveabetterlife.ca
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(To keep them “bright and fresh,” Vin Room uses the high-tech Enomamatic system, what Fung calls “the Ferrari of wine preservation systems.”)
Food is also an important component of wine bars and, like wine, often comes in smaller portions, which are better for tast-ing, sampling and creating customized pairings.
“It’s dining global by staying local,” says Fung, not-ing the biggest global culinary influences right now are South American and Asian. “You can actually take a trip around the world through your wine and food experience.”
Calgary has a wine culture that is unique in Canada. The privatization of provincial liquor stores in 1993 has allowed specialty wine importers to bring in small lots of interesting wines. At the same time, the city’s population has exploded with an influx of well-educat-ed, well-travelled, high-income earners with a passion and taste for fine wine.
Wine bars will have to keep raising the bar if they want to retain and attract patrons, whether it’s with wine cocktails, gourmet food or obscure varietals.
RAISING THE BARThe RISE of the wine bARstory by joanne sasvari ~ calgary herald archive images
Aphoebe fung is co-owner of the vin room in mission
“There was always a customer that was ready to hang out and enjoy wine. It’s a fun culture,” he says.
Divino, which opened eight years ago, was the first of the city’s wine bars, followed by several others, including Winebar Kensington and the Vin Room. Per capita, Calgary now has far more wine bars than either wine-loving Toronto or Vancouver.
What makes these establishments so different from other bars and restaurants is their relaxed atmo-sphere, wide-ranging wine selection and, most impor-tantly, a staff and clientele passionate about wine.
“Everything we do is geared to that interactive social experience,” says Chris Hurlburt, the longtime owner of Muse Restaurant, who opened Winebar Kensington in 2008. “I opened a wine bar because it was someplace I wanted to hang out in. To be able to offer that quality of food and experiences, but in a causal environment — and to do it in a setting where people aren’t afraid of big dollar signs.”
It’s the culture that makes a wine bar different, says Royale.“You can find a wine list in any restaurant,” he says. “But, I think, why people go to wine bars is because there are like-minded people who enjoy wine. You can talk to the server and the sommelier about wine, and you’re surrounded by people who drink wine all the time. You don’t get that at a basic food-and-wine establishment.”
Wine bars also offer more interesting selections, many by the glass or in two-ounce tasters, which al-low customers to sample new things. Winebar Kens-ington, for instance, has nearly 30 wines by the glass while Vin Room offers a jaw-dropping 80, including a dozen sparkling wines.
Although Canada has plenty of wine lovers, no other city has taken a seat at the wine bar quite the way Calgary has.
“The city has embraced wine bars,” says Phoebe Fung, co-owner of the Vin Room in Mission. “I would go even further and say that the city has embraced dining.”
In fact, Calgary has always had a really nice wine culture, adds Brad Royale, wine director for Canadian Rocky Mountain Resorts, which includes Divino Wine & Cheese Bistro on Stephen Avenue.
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VINO VENTURESDon’t let WINE culture INTIMIDATE you
“whenever you are matching food and wine, you are less interested in colour than you are in weight”
story by joel schlesinger ~ images by calgary herald archive
Oh those wine snobs!It’s easy to deride them as elitist know-it-alls who will pooh-pooh your choice
of wine. But by the same token, it’s hard not to admire the scope of their knowledge, their ability to tell the good vintages from bad, and their judgment in finding just the right pairing for a meal.
Of course, they weren’t born with a sense of oenophile morality, able to tell vino right from wrong. Their knowledge is acquired.
And while wine culture may be a daunting and seemingly infinite universe for the would-be connoisseur, to explore a few pointers on vintages and pairings can’t hurt the next time you’re looking for a good red or white, especially with the Thanksgiving and holiday season nearly upon us.
People often get hung up on the colour of the wine for food pairing. That is, they often think whites go with poultry and fish and reds go with red meat and red sauces, but this is an over-simplification.
It’s all about flavours and weight, says Nancy Carten, managing partner at the busy Kensington Wine Market, who has 20 years of experience in the industry. “Whenever you’re matching food and wine, you are less interested in colour than you are in weight.
“If you want to have a red wine with fish, you want a wine that’s not too heavy and won’t kill the flavour of the fish.”
The ideal candidate is Pinot Noir for fish — especially salmon. But Pinots are also a good pairing for poultry.
“Pinot Noir is a classic pairing for turkey, and the 2008 vintage for Califor-nia Pinot Noir is pretty good,” she says. “That’s a vintage that people should find readily on the shelves of their wine store.”
Price points vary for Pinots, but the budget conscious sipper can find a good Pinot Noir for about $20. The 2009 vintage from New Zealand winery Tor-lesse is a good selection in that regard.
Patriots of our own industry can also find a good selection of Pinot Noir from the Okanagan, including Quails’ Gate, which runs in the $20-something range for a bottle.
Canada is slowly building a reputation for Pinot Noir from the Okanagan, says Rhys Pender, a wine educator with Okanagan-based Wine Plus. The climate is well-suited for the grape, which doesn’t like heat as much as the other reds, such as Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Syrah, he explains, adding most vintages of Pinot Noir from the Okanagan over the last few years are safe bets. But 2009, overall, is a good vintage for Okanagan reds.
“You usually need a longer growing season to ripen those compared to the white wines,” he says. “The warmer, longer seasons are usually better for the red varieties, such as the Merlots, Cabernets and Syrahs.”
The 2009 growing season was both long and hot, he says.Carten says reds tend to be a better match for fall food fare such as roasts
and stews. And for those dishes that simmer and become more flavourful with time, she suggests going traditional with a French wine.
The Rhone Valley in Southern France is famous for its blended wines. The wineries even mix reds with a touch of white to create the perfect ac-companiment to, for example, a braised lamb or stew.
The 2005, 2006 and 2007 vintages from the region are all very good for Chateauneuf de Pape, a blended wine that comes from the town of the same name.
“Those are still available in stores,” she says. “The price points will be anywhere in the low $40s to more than $100.”
The Rhone wines are pricey, but they’re not as expensive as the gold standard of reds: Bordeaux. “Bordeaux prices can get silly,” she says, add-ing a bottle can be worth thousands of dollars.
Many people mistakenly assume Bordeaux wines are another term for Cabernet Sauvignon reds, but that’s at best only half of the story. The Bordeaux region in France is split by the Gironde River. Wines produced on the left bank of the Gironde are, indeed, Cabernet Sauvignon-based. Wines produced on the right bank are Merlot-based. Bordeaux wines are gener-ally a blend, as are most French reds, excluding Burgundy reds, which are generally pure Pinot Noir.
The 2009 vintage is expected to be a banner year for Bordeaux wine, and they should be arriving in stores right about now, but the really fine Bordeaux of 2009 — the classified wines — won’t be on store shelves until next summer at the earliest, she says.
For those looking for a bold red to drink today, something that is a perfect pairing for a home-grown steak, a Cabernet Sauvignon is the ideal pairing, says Pender.
“That’s because it has a lot of tannins that react with the protein-rich steak,” he says. “It makes the tannins softer and helps balance out the taste of both.”
Carten says 2009 California Cabernet Sauvignon from the Napa Valley should be a standout on stores shelves.
Those with a taste for white wine are going to want to go with a more full-bodied white varietal that pairs well with a Thanksgiving feast, says Erin Rosar, a sommelier with Calgary Co-op Wines and Spirits.
“You need a really full-bodied, creamy white wine that will compliment the buttery flavours in the many traditional Thanksgiving dishes such as tur-key and mashed potatoes,” she says, adding a Chardonnay from California is a good choice.
For the more adventurous, Rosar says sparkling wines are also a nice pairing for turkey. Finding stellar white wine vintages should be less of a concern, she says, adding those on the lookout for the good years could end up paying a pretty penny. But whether it’s a good vintage or a medio-cre one, a nice wine is ultimately an individual decision. After all, you want to enjoy what you drink, regardless of what the experts might say.
“There’s no flat answer and, of course, everybody has opinions,” Carten says. “If you get caught up in it, you’re not going to enjoy anything.”
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