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BC Wines Featured


jamiemaw

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Global is running a BC Wine feature on their 6pm newscast tonight. It's always interesting to see how the general media view and transmit wine information. Let the discussion begin, say about 7? :biggrin:

Edited by jamiemaw (log)

from the thinly veneered desk of:

Jamie Maw

Food Editor

Vancouver magazine

www.vancouvermagazine.com

Foodblog: In the Belly of the Feast - Eating BC

"Profumo profondo della mia carne"

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Just watched the first installment on Global five minutes ago. Good brief reporting on the first hundred plus years of the B.C. industry with an emphasis on "Baby Duck" yes...we have all tasted it :huh:

Fast tracked to the planting of vinifera varietals and the usual sales pitch of "We beat the French" in a competition. What competition, what wines, and who were the judges? Hey I really enjoy B.C. wines; but fifteeen years ago I would have turned up my nose at them. They are good most of the time and very good every so often. We are still a youthful industry but wow we have come along way in two decades. New Zealand is used as an example; they were like us twenty years now they are world leaders in Sauvignon Blanc and to a lesser extent Pinot Noir. Our future, in my opinion, will lie with whites in particular Gewurztraminer, Pinot Gris, and Bordeaux blends with high proportions of Semillon. Ice wines will remain a strong niche force and red's as the vines mature will become more and more interesting.

Back to the TV commentary I'd say they should not try to compare our wines with France or the old world but concentrate the news article on our own flavour profile and style and not be an imitation of other famous wine regions thousands of kilometres away.

First installment covered Baby Duck and let's see how the programme covers the industry over the next few nights.

Interesting comment on the International Wine Festival with over 130 wineries but only 10% are from B.C. :shock: not so cool with attendess from around the global arriving to taste wines. I'm also not convinced the research is true...I do not believe that B.C. wines are outselling import wines especially Australia. Although Baby Duck could be up there with Yellow Tail :laugh:

Cheers,

Stephen

Edited by SBonner (log)

"who needs a wine list when you can get pissed on dessert" Gordon Ramsey Kitchen Nightmares 2005

MY BLOG

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Just watched the first installment on Global five minutes ago. Good brief reporting on the first hundred plus years of the B.C. industry with an emphasis on "Baby Duck" yes...we have all tasted it :huh:

Fast tracked to the planting of vinifera varietals and the usual sales pitch of "We beat the French" in a competition. What competition, what wines,  and who were the judges? Hey I really enjoy B.C. wines; but fifteeen  years ago I would have turned up my nose at them. They are good most of the time and  very good every so often. We are still a youthful industry but wow we have come along way in two decades. New Zealand is used as an example; they were like us twenty years now they are world leaders in Sauvignon Blanc and to a lesser extent Pinot Noir. Our future, in my opinion, will lie  with whites in particular Gewurztraminer, Pinot Gris, and Bordeaux blends with high proportions of Semillon.  Ice wines will remain a strong niche force and red's as the vines mature will become more and more interesting.

Back to the TV commentary I'd say they should not try  to compare our wines with France or the old world but concentrate the news article on our  own flavour profile and style and not be an imitation of other famous wine regions thousands of kilometres away.

First installment covered Baby Duck and let's see how the programme covers the industry over the next few nights.

Interesting comment on the International Wine Festival with over 130 wineries but only 10% are from B.C. :shock: not so cool with attendess from around the global arriving to taste wines. I'm also not convinced the research is true...I do not believe that B.C. wines are outselling import wines especially Australia. Although Baby Duck could be up there with Yellow Tail :laugh:

Cheers,

Stephen

Some of the images of old bottlings were truly amazing. Baby Duck, MH Mulled Wine, Calona 'Dry' Red, but wait . . . where was my weapon of choice? . . . Andrés 'Still Rosé'? As I recall it retailed for $1.95 a bottle; mind you at the time, Kraft Dinner was on special at the 4th and Alma Safeway for five for a dollar. It was a wine pairing made in heaven and when we were flush we'd put bacon in the KD and invite girls over.

I used to leave big screw-tops of Still Rosé under the bonnet of my Beetle (Vintage 1971 - a wonderful year both in Germany and the OK Valley) up at Whistler, until it got slushy. Our little condo there at the aptly-named Alpine 68 (condos were a new concept; it was certainly no chalet) welcomed a lot of wet wool, Rossignol skis and puff-Daddy jackets. Dinner was typically spaghetti Bolognese - once I used Mum's Slazenger Queen's tennis racquet - strung with cat gut - as a colander. I don't recommend this. Bob Dylan, David Bowie (Ch . . Ch . . Changes) Carole King (You've Got A Friend) and the Stones measured big on the Lear 8-track. Parsley was of the old school variety, or part of a Simon and Garfunkel song. Yes, we were sensitive, new age guys with very bad sideburns.

At the old Whistler Keg, down in the hollow, we innocently ordered teryaki 'baseball sirloins', sautéed mushrooms and onion rings and Spanish coffee closers. One night a tourist from Denver wedged his Winnebago under the port-cochére. The eave had peeled back the roof like a can of Brunswick sardines and big wet snowflakes filled the cockpit. We backed him out and tarped the damage. He wisely gave us $20 - a drinking fortune - and we not so wisely went back inside to investigate further coffee drinks. I believe that maraschino cherries were involved.

I suppose that in a certain kind of a way I miss Uncle Ben Ginter and his tartan-labelled stubbies and vile wines. Hell, in that era, Kressman's screw-tops, in the handy one litre format, were a big step up.

BC VQA wines sales, at least in the '04 vintage, surpassed $124 million last year, a huge climb from just three vintages before. The big losers are the French, whose market share has dropped from about half in the 80s to only 5% now. The Fench winemakers that I ate dinner with last night are keenly aware of their loss of place and have embraced the theme of this year's wine festival.

Edited by jamiemaw (log)

from the thinly veneered desk of:

Jamie Maw

Food Editor

Vancouver magazine

www.vancouvermagazine.com

Foodblog: In the Belly of the Feast - Eating BC

"Profumo profondo della mia carne"

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I'm also not convinced the research is true...I do not believe that B.C. wines are outselling import wines especially Australia. Although Baby Duck could be up there with Yellow Tail :laugh:

Cheers,

Stephen

I think it probably depends on what you count as BC wines and how you count them. I believe there's lots of low-end "BC" wine sold to those looking for quantity over quality. Are the Chilean wines bottled in BC counted as BC wines?

Cheers,

Anne

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I'm also not convinced the research is true...I do not believe that B.C. wines are outselling import wines especially Australia. Although Baby Duck could be up there with Yellow Tail :laugh:

Cheers,

Stephen

I think it probably depends on what you count as BC wines and how you count them. I believe there's lots of low-end "BC" wine sold to those looking for quantity over quality. Are the Chilean wines bottled in BC counted as BC wines?

BC Wine is wine with a BC label that is bottled in the provinve. VQA wines comprise only a portion of the total.

from the thinly veneered desk of:

Jamie Maw

Food Editor

Vancouver magazine

www.vancouvermagazine.com

Foodblog: In the Belly of the Feast - Eating BC

"Profumo profondo della mia carne"

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Tonight's segment dealt with the real estate conundrum facing fruit growers, where ther's little money left in stone fruit, apples and berries. So they're pulling and burning and re-planting in grape; with another 24 wineries awaiting licensing (bringing the BC total to 158) it's not much of a conundrum at all. Good grape acreage is now selling for $150,000+ in the south valley, a monumental (triple) increase since 2001.

But there's a certain wistfulness in pulling down those orchards . . .

from the thinly veneered desk of:

Jamie Maw

Food Editor

Vancouver magazine

www.vancouvermagazine.com

Foodblog: In the Belly of the Feast - Eating BC

"Profumo profondo della mia carne"

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I'm also not convinced the research is true...I do not believe that B.C. wines are outselling import wines especially Australia. Although Baby Duck could be up there with Yellow Tail :laugh:

Cheers,

Stephen

I think it probably depends on what you count as BC wines and how you count them. I believe there's lots of low-end "BC" wine sold to those looking for quantity over quality. Are the Chilean wines bottled in BC counted as BC wines?

BC Wine is wine with a BC label that is bottled in the provinve. VQA wines comprise only a portion of the total.

This inspired me to check out the most recent BC Liquor Distribution Branch annual report. According to the stats in appendix C, the most purchased white wine was Domaine D'or (Canada - is this from BC?) at $4.7 million, the most purchased red was Yellowtail Shiraz at $9.6 million (a 74% increase over the previous year!). VQA sales are reported too; it is pretty interesting reading actually.

Cheers,

Anne

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Anne,

Thanks for that. I saw it quoted last weekend, but the recyclers beat me back to it. I found the the pertinent sales information on page 53.

Edited by jamiemaw (log)

from the thinly veneered desk of:

Jamie Maw

Food Editor

Vancouver magazine

www.vancouvermagazine.com

Foodblog: In the Belly of the Feast - Eating BC

"Profumo profondo della mia carne"

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Nice to see on tonight's episode "Wednesday" the focus on "Stelvin" or screwcap issues. Also great to see our dear friends, Heidi and Michael's Joie wine, being bottled on the portable bottling line. The actual portable bottling line was very complex not only bottling traditional but also stelvin enclosures...very cool and expensive. On a foot note so far the media reporting on the B.C. industry has been pretty good.

Cheers,

Stephen

"who needs a wine list when you can get pissed on dessert" Gordon Ramsey Kitchen Nightmares 2005

MY BLOG

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Interesting comment on the International Wine Festival with over 130 wineries but only 10% are from B.C. :shock: not so cool with attendess from around the global arriving to taste wines. I'm also not convinced the research is true...I do not believe that B.C. wines are outselling import wines especially Australia. Although Baby Duck could be up there with Yellow Tail :laugh:

Cheers,

Stephen

It is true. Say what you want about the VQA program, the one thing it has accomplished over the past decade or so is a remarkable sales and education model. BC wine is selling in BC at levels only the biggest dreamers would have described in 1995. One of the reasons we don't export much: we can barely keep up with our domestic demand!

Bradley Cooper

You should be reading my blog!

WINE & VINE BC

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This night's installment featured one of the province's smallest wineries, Oliver's Fairview Cellars and its proprietor, Bill Eggert, who built the winery by hand and takes care of the six acres of vines himself. His production is just 1600 cases.

His history is typical of the struggle necessary to see any return:

89 bought land

93 planted

03 paid taxes for the first time

04 above water

Tomorrow: A Vist to a Cooperage

Edited by jamiemaw (log)

from the thinly veneered desk of:

Jamie Maw

Food Editor

Vancouver magazine

www.vancouvermagazine.com

Foodblog: In the Belly of the Feast - Eating BC

"Profumo profondo della mia carne"

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This night's installment featured one of the province's smallest wineries, Oliver's Fairview Cellars and its proprietor, Bill Eggert, who built the winery by hand and takes care of the six acres of vines himself. His production is just 1600 cases.

His history is typical of the struggle necessary to see any return:

89 bought land

93 planted

03 paid taxes for the first time

04 above water

I saw the end of the episode and was quite impressed with him. It seems to me he said or the interviewer said he only sold it to one supplier and private individuals. Do you remember the name of the supplier??

Samasutra :rolleyes:

Never met a vegetable I never liked except well okra!
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If you contact Bill he will email you when he is coming to Vancouver and he delivers the wine directly to you. Bill is the epitome of salt of the earth. There isn't a more honest, direct or more hard working guy. It is so great to see him enjoying some success. And is wines are definitely worth a try.

Cheers,

Karole

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