Confessions of a Huge Wine-R

I sincerely hope all of my readers had a wonderful Holiday season; whichever Holiday you may celebrate: Hannukah, Christmas, Festivus…whatever it is, I hope you had some special time with friends and family. I certainly did.

Every year, we plan a “West Van shopping day”, which for the past few years has involved us staying at the Lonsdale Quay Hotel in North Van (where I was born and raised, and which will always be ‘home’ to me) and having a nice dinner on Friday night, then hitting Park Royal and surrounding stores on Saturday before heading home. This year, we decided to kick the luxury factor up about a dozen notches, and stay in downtown Vancouver, at the Shangri-La Hotel. To say that was a good decision would be an understatement, and this is definitely now going to be our yearly tradition.

The Hotel was fantastic in all regards, but they really outdid themselves at dinner. We dined at Market by Jean-Georges, their signature restaurant, and had one of the great meals of our lives. I am generally not a “take pictures of my food” guy, even when we are dining in a fancy restaurant, but these meals were plated so beautifully I had to.

Filet Mignon, beet puree, winter vegetables, Demi-glaze

Soy-Glazed Short Ribs, Whipped Potatoes, Rosemary Crumbs, Apple-Jalapeno Puree

My steak was one of the best I have ever tasted. Delicately seasoned, the meat really spoke for itself. My wife had short ribs, which is a favorite of hers, and she raved about the quality. We also both had a fantastic mushroom soup to start our meal, and shared a Chocolate Peanut Butter bar for dessert. All in all, this meal was perfect from start to finish.

The restaurant is classy without being overly pretentious, the service is terrific, and the food is of the highest quality (without being ridiculously overpriced). We will definitely be back.

But…this is a wine blog mostly, right? So where’s the wine? Well, we opened up the wallet a little (OK…a LOT…..$450) to try out this little beauty.

What an absolute treat. The restaurant had a decanter, of course, but keep in mind that if you are drinking this wine now, it needs to decant for 4-5 hours, not the time it takes to eat dinner. Although it was phenomenal, especially as the meal wore on, but it has SO much more to give. We were lucky to find a couple of these at Everything Wine in Langley, and they are heading to our cellar to enjoy them in a few years. This was #1 on Wine Spectator’s Top 100 Wines of 2018, so finding it was not easy. In fact, we were unable to find it in any of the terrific wine stores we visited on our aforementioned West Van shopping day.

That was not the only terrific bottle of wine we enjoyed around the Holidays though. Here are a few more little gems we cracked open.

Hmm, that seems to be as big as I am able to make the image on my new Mac. The images above were done on my old PC. Pardon me while I figure out this new computer. There may be a bit of a learning curve. For the most part, though, I love the Mac.

Hmm OK that one is probably TOO big. I will see what they look like when I publish it. This new site is supposed to look much better on different devices (phones, tablets etc) so I hope that my readers are enjoying the new look.

OK that’s enough for today! Now it’s time to go and play with some of my new Xmas toys, like trying to make rice in my new Instant Pot. Enjoy the day, and hopefully you all have a wonderful New Year’s.

OH, speaking of New Years, we are planning an exciting vertical…..so keep your eyes peeled for that one shortly after NYE!

I’ll just leave this picture here without comment.

So, yeah, that’s the home. The tasting room isn’t actually IN the home, of course, you go around the right side of the home to the back where they have set things up in the garage. The entire process, from winemaking to tasting to sales, takes place in this garage.

Our lovely host, Tanya, told us on numerous occasions that they “don’t know what the Hell we are doing”. LOL.

Well, if the wines are any good at all, chances are they are going to figure it out.

Tanya regaled of stories of membership parties where they unknowingly broke several bi-laws and several actual laws. She was a FANTASTIC host, and I hope she is there the next time we visit. Passionate people showing off your brand should be the first thing any new winery, or business for that matter, checks off their list.

But….was the wine any good?

We had a terrific experience here and will definitely be back on our next journey up to this area. This is a winery to keep an eye on!

Next up: We finish off the Okanagan trip, finally, at Mt. Boucherie!

Also, have lots of other great stuff to tell you about, including a couple more really special wines. Stay tuned!

I guess too many people were calling this winery “Spy-er-head” so they decided to change the spelling to match the correct pronunciation of “Spearhead”.

In early 2018, it was announced that Spearhead had hired Grant Stanley, late of 50th Parallel Estate and Quails’ Gate, to be their GM/winemaker. Time will tell how much impact this will have on the quality of their wine. Spearhead specializes in Pinot Noir, and those who have followed Stanley’s career know that is a special grape to him.

To the wine!

So there you have it; we will check back with these guys in a year or two and see if Grant can make these wines even better once he really has time to put his stamp on the project. For the most part, they don’t need a ton of improvement.

Next up: The penultimate entry in this trip report, at a brand new player in our little game: Kitsch Wines!

Tantalus is a winery that “stays in it’s lane”…and by that I mean that they know what they do well, and they stick to it. And they do those things very, very well.

Riesling. Pinot Noir. Chardonnay. That’s just about it. And the results are almost consistently excellent. Let’s get right to it!

So that’s it for today; we left here with a whole bunch of Riesling and some of the other stuff too. All of the Rieslings are in the cellar, to come out in the middle of the next decade. Lots to look forward to!

Up next: Three more entries to finish off the Okanagan trip report, starting at Spearhead!

So back to real life, after two simply spectacular weeks in the Aloha state. First, we had a 7 day cruise around the islands, and then 7 days at a top-notch resort in Waioloa, on the ‘Big Island’, about a 30 minute drive from Kona.

Just wow.

It’s not like I didn’t know how beautiful Hawaii was; I had been there once before, when I was a kid, but I remember very little. But I was shocked at the magnitude of the beauty, the friendliness of the people, the scenery….just everything. It was truly two weeks of stress-free heaven. Can’t wait to go back.

In order to ensure that we had some great wine to drink on the cruise and at the resort, we took 6 bottles in our luggage on the cruise, and I had a case of wine sent to the resort from wine.com. Here is a report on the stuff we enjoyed that I have not previously reviewed. Some top-notch stuff here!

First, some of the stuff we enjoyed on the cruise:

And our resort wine!

Yeah, we drank pretty darn well on our vacation! What a trip it was. It was so good it’s actually rather shocking that we came back!

Next up: I’ll continue on the Okanagan trip report at Tantalus, and I’m going to try to get a post up this weekend with recommendations for some great Xmas gift wine at reasonable prices. Stay tuned!

One of the first wine clubs we ever joined (second, I think), CedarCreek always delivers good value for the price point. We are always treated like family here.

We almost always make it a point to eat in their terrific restaurant; but they are undergoing a huge renovation to the restaurant and tasting room, so today’s meal was actually served to us outside in a large tent set up for such occasions. The quality of the food did not suffer one bit with the move. It was a wonderful meal.

To the wine!

We tasted more than that, but a few of them were the same vintages as we tasted on our last visit here so no need to report on those again.

Very much looking forward to our next visit here, when the chaos of the construction is over and their brand spanking new tasting room, and restaurant, are fully functional.

Next up: Up the hill to the home of some damn fine Rieslings, among other things: Tantalus!

Quick note: We are off on vacation in a couple days, so it’s likely my next blog post won’t be until early-mid December.

Oh boy, some good stuff today, and some WORLD CLASS stuff as well. Let’s get right to it, and we’ll start close to home in the Okanagan!

How about a quick trip to Portugal, and a trip way, way, way back in time?

Did someone say Bordeaux??

We’ll stay in France but head up to the North East, Alsace!

A quick little jaunt to South America, where you can really find some bargains if you look hard enough.

One well-known producer from New Zealand, where the Dingo probably ate your baby (what, that’s Australia? Never mind).

A couple nice bottles from a very well-regarded producer of premium wine in Oregon:

And just a touch farther South, to California. I promised two bottles that make my “best of the best” list, and here they are!

Man, those last two bottles have my mouth absolutely watering. Two very, very special bottles of wine. Maybe they aren’t “everyday” wine at those prices (although we have been known to open up those kinds of bottles on “Two Bottle Tuesday”), but wine like that is such a treat, no matter the occasion.

Next up: Back to the Okanagan trip, and a lovely tasting at Cedarcreek!

Our third visit to 50th Parallel and we have thoroughly enjoyed the first two visits. The staff is always top-notch, and this time was no exception.

Since our last visit, they have opened up a beautiful new tasting room and restaurant!

Called Block One (menu and reservations available at the link), we were yet again treated to some absolutely fabulous service. Without being asked, they brought my wife a blanket as we were waiting for our table.

Yes, it was THAT FREAKING COLD in the Okanagan, in August! Good grief.

Our server was fantastic, the wine was fantastic, the food was fantastic – highly recommend you check it out when you are in the area. Lake Country has a large number of great winery restaurants, considering there are not that many wineries there!

To the wine!

Another terrific experience at 50th Parallel, I can’t imagine any reason we would go to Lake Country and not make it a point to stop in here…..and eat here!

Next up: I’m going to catch you up on a ton of random stuff we’ve been drinking. Some of it Okanagan, some of it not, but all of it worth talking about. And, we are going to be adding a couple more to the “best of the best” list, so don’t miss it!

After that, this Okanagan trip will continue on Day 3, in and around Kelowna and West Kelowna.