About Our Reviews

The following reviews are taken from our 2007 Eating and Drinking Guide and feature wines and beers that we consider excellent value. For more recommendations (and great buys), see the results of our 3rd annual wine awards competition.

FIND A WINE:

Five Wines Under $10
Fifteen Wines Under $20
Five Wines Over $20
Twenty-five B.C. Benchmarks

FIND A BEER:

Ten Great Beers, Ciders and Fruit Wines



Five Wines Under $10

The LDB lists 365 wines in the under $10 category. If you eliminate the Canadian cream sherries, the half bottles, the bottled in B.C. and most of the dirt cheap brands, the choice is much narrower. Still, there's plenty of affordable wine in the world, more of it drinkable than ever before, and our petrodollar buys rather more of it. Money solves lots of problems—investing in the vineyard and the cellar, in the winemaker, the tehcnical staff and in the marketing pays dividends in the bottle. So it's still possible to turn out an interesting $10 wine that, even in B.C.'s heavily taxed system, connects the place where it comes from with the people who drink it. We've found exceptional bargains in Spain, Portugal and Argentina—five Latin lovelies.—Christina Burridge

1. Bodegas Borsao 2005 Campo Castillo
Bodegas Borsao, near the hillside town of Zaragoza, has a terrific reputation for delivering value for money. Its budget Campo Castillo is made from garnacha—grenache—so there’s plenty of juicy fruit but also some earthy minerality and smoky herb flavours that give it a bit more complexity than most in this price range. Just right for grilled, boned leg of lamb marinated in rosemary, thyme and lemon juice. +314922, $9.99.

2. Castillo de Monséran 2005 Garnacha
This red comes from the Cariñena region, not far from Bodegas Borsao. Another garnacha, this one is purple-red with a blast of black cherry and raspberry fruit backed by savoury spice and leather. It’s straightforward and very forgiving. Chill it in the fridge for half an hour or throw in some ice cubes in the summer and it’s happy to go with Thai beef salad or any spicy Asian food. In the winter, it’s just made for hearty stews and braises. +197806, $9.85.

3. Eximius White 2004 Quinta da Boavista
God knows what the blend of grapes is in this wine. It’s from Estremadura on Portugal’s West Coast. The label says the estate grows Fernão Pires, Viral and Moscatel, local grapes with a long history. There’s been a little skin contact so the colour is good and the flavour bold with melon and summer flowers. It’s a real find, unusual but versatile—the kind of wine you open up when you get home from work and then figure it’s just fine for dinner, too. +348094, $9.89.

4. José Maria da Fonseca Periquita 2003
This is cheating slightly but Periquita is a perfect $10 red, an old favourite too easily overshadowed by sexier fruitbombs. From just outside Lisbon, Periquita is both the brand and the grape. It makes for fine everyday drinking, easygoing enough to work with fish, exceptionally good with anything tomato. Light to medium bodied, cherry red with morello cherry flavours along with attractive leather and licorice. Unfiltered. +025262, $10.90.

5. Valentin Bianchi 2005 Finca Los Primos Chardonnay
Here are three recommendations for the price of one. The Finca Los Primos range from Argentina’s Valentin Bianchi also includes a meaty, smoky malbec and a soft, fruity cabernet sauvignon, both also just under $10 and both equally worth buying. The chardonnay is the colour of pale straw, crisp with lots of lemony citrus but with just a touch of ripe peach sweetness. +056382, $9.95.

Fifteen Wines Under $20

Spend a couple of bucks more than $10 and quality goes up dramatically. More of your money goes to the wine rather than the government. In the last year Spain has transformed this category in the LDB, sending us bottle after bottle of full-bodied, powerful reds, often from the gorgeous grenache/garnacha. France is making a comeback and the U.S. choices have improved. The big brands have plenty of marketing money to help sell their wine, so this list is mainly a tribute to family-run enterprises, people making wine that tastes of place and passion, obsessed with making each vintage better than the last. The whites are of the style Vancouver has come to love—crisp, aromatic and racy. The reds are big fruit, juicy, drink-me-now bottles. They’re wines that make you hungry anytime and any place. They go with bold flavours, whether Mediterranean or Asian as well as local shellfish and seafood. Restaurants love them.—C. Burridge

1. Alain Brumont La Gascogne 2005 Gros Manseng-Sauvignon Vin de Pays des Côtes de Gascogne
Fiery and passionate, Alain Brumont is both iconoclastic and devoted to his terroir—the hills of Gascony, Armagnac country. “Fier d’être Gascon,” proud to be Gascon, his labels say. This tangy, delicious white marries the traditional, local gros manseng grape with sauvignon blanc, a stylish match that delivers lovely, honeyed fruit along with the zip of herbs and lime. Many New Zealand sauvignons are simply too intense for a second glass—with Brumont’s blend the bottle’s gone in no time. +378323, $14.86.

2. Bonny Doon Ca’ del Solo 2004 Big House Red
The “big house” is the state pen at Soledad, not far from the vineyard. Also a literal description—it’s a big, Mediterranean melting pot of a wine made for everyday drinking. And that’s not the end of the puns in its name. In any year there’s a mix of Rhone, Italian and Bordeaux grapes. Smoky and velvety, with a typically Italian taste of baked earth and roast plum, it’s en screwcap so that you’ll never again get corked wine with your pizza, but also to provide plenty of opportunities for prison humour on the label. +308999, $18.82.

3. Dr Pauly-Bergweiler 2003 Riesling QBA
Dr Pauly’s a popular wine in Vancouver restaurants, just because it takes so well to the kind of small plate food that we devour so eagerly. Yellow gold with green glints, it’s lush and luscious, a reminder of the scorching European summer of 2003. Full of apricot and pineapple fruit with a touch of honey, but also crackling acidity that goes well with spice and cilantro. Especially good with albacore tuna with Asian flavourings. +141218, $19.99.

4. Henry’s Drive Vignerons 2004 Pillar Box Red
Not many wine labels are so compelling that you simply must buy the wine. The Pillar Box Red with its imperial simplicity of solid red label and black slashed mail slot combines history with contemporary life. The 2004 is a lush, purple fruit bomb blend of cab, shiraz and merlot under screwcap from Padthaway in South Australia, made by Chris Ringland, one of Australia’s top winemakers. Lamb chops on the grill, please. +510248, $19.99.

5. Jurtschitsch 2005 GrüVe Grüner Veltliner
Grüner veltliner—the national grape of Austria—is the darling of the ABC (Anything But Chardonnay) crowd. Forsake your after-work glass of cheap Aussie chard, try this instead and you too will be a convert. It’s young and light, fresh and dry—and the first sip will make you mouthwateringly hungry. That’s why restaurateurs love it. Lemon and lime, lovely acid, GrüVe is the kind of wine that makes even November feel like summer and always goes with Thai and Malaysian flavours. Screwcap. +491043, $16.95.

6. La Bastarda 2005 Bianco di Toscana
A branded Italian blend of trebbiano, malvasia and an unconfirmed dash of chardonnay from Renzo Masi with an appealingly whimsical label, one of a pair with the Il Bastardo Sangiovese. It’s a typically Northern Italian white, crisp, spritzy and lively enough to drink by itself and happy go lucky with any kind of food except red meat. Pale straw colour, lots of fresh green apple, lemon and lime. +847111, $12.99.

7. La Vielle Ferme 2005 Côtes du Ventoux Rosé
Finally, Vancouver has figured out that rosé is for drinking by the bucketful over the summer. The best ones have youthful, vivid fruit, full of fresh watermelon, cherry and berries along with knife-sharp acidity so that they work both as a wine to sip outside and one to go with anything Mediterranean and most things Asian. Rosés should be affordable too. La Vieille Ferme works on all counts—look for the release of the 2006 vintage in time for summer 2007. +559393, $13.87.

8. L’Ostal Cazes 2004 Circus Viognier
Jean-Michel Cazes owns top Bordeaux chateau Lynch-Bages, making wine that needs a fat bank balance to buy. But he also owns a vineyard in the Minervois region of the Languedoc that makes a syrah and viognier for excellent drinking right now. The viognier is all orange blossom and peaches, rich and slightly oily, but with the lusciousness set off by a stony earthiness. Drink before dinner or with grilled halibut or chicken. +082735, $16.84.

9. Montes 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon Carmenère
Cabernet Sauvignon is what Chile does best. Add a little carmenère—the lost grape of Bordeaux rediscovered a decade ago on the far side of the Andes—and you get an elegant, approachable blend. The carmenère gives bright, deep red colour and a round suppleness. The Cab brings structure, length, and typical blackcurrant and vanilla flavours overlaid with chocolate and spice. Good with braised lamb shanks. +603530, $19.77.

10. Parés Baltà Mas Petit 2003 Cabernet Sauvignon and Garnacha
This Catalan estate has been family owned since 1790. It’s organic but makes way better wines than most wineries that boast about their refusal to use pesticides and herbicides. Ruby-red, it’s medium-bodied and elegant, with juicy plum and cherry fruit held in check by good acidity along with herbal and mineral notes. The kind of wine that suits the B.C. predilection for small-plate, tapas-style food—try it with chorizo, chickpeas and red peppers. +183004, $16.95.

11. Paul Cheneau Cava Blanc de Blancs
Good bubble under $20 is getting harder to find. This is Catalan cava with French flair, made from the traditional local grapes of macabeo, xarello and parellada. Lots of small bubbles sparkle in its light gold colour. Crisp and elegant with bright green apple and lime flavours and a satisfying earthiness. Terrific with raw oysters, but at this price a good excuse for a celebration any day. +488114, $16.90.

12. Peter Lehmann 2004 Barossa Semillon
Lively with a sharp, lemony snap, the prizewinning 2004 semillon perks up the taste buds and makes you hungry, not just for food but luckily for more wine, too. It will also age nicely, trading the lemon zest for a rich, honeyed creaminess without losing its screwcapped freshness. Right now, though, it calls out for seafood—a scallop salad with lots of lime, sidestripe shrimp with avocado, crispy calamari, even fish and chips. +572412, $15.85.

13. Telmo Rodriguez 2004 Toro “G” Dehesa Gago
Telmo Rodriguez makes some of the best, most affordable wines in Spain, a man who detests red wines “that make your teeth hurt.” He’s dedicated to working with family estates, helping them rehabilitate old vineyards with modern techniques. The “G” is dark raspberry with lots of plum fruit, made unusual by the smoky, hot herbs and stone of the Toro region over towards the Northern border with Portugal. Delicious with pork braised in olive oil with red peppers, onions, potatoes and smoked paprika. +586008, $19.81.

14. Gonzáles Byass Tio Pepe Fino
One of the revelations of the 2006 Vancouver Playhouse International Wine Festival was the sherry. Vancouver restaurants took note and sherry is turning up much more often—Gastown’s Salt has 10 by the glass. Fino is the pale, super dry, astringent kind that immediately sets the needle of the appetite to hunger. The classic Tio Pepe is wonderful just because it works so well with anything salty from olives to roasted almond, ham and sausage, cheese, vegetable salads and grilled fish. +242669, $19.81.

15. Van Loveren 2005 Pinot Grigio
A three-generation family estate in the Robertson Valley inland from Capetown, Van Loveren specializes in contemporary white wines, the kind “you don’t have to learn to love.” The pinot grigio isn’t as Italianate as its name suggests. Robertson heat gives this yellow straw-gold wine plenty of tropical fruit and polishes it with honey, though there’s plenty of crispness to set it off the lushness. Good with grilled chicken and any other casual food. +357434, $13.87.

Five Wines Over $20

I once spent a week with a woman in Italy who spent the entire trip looking for hard to find Super-Tuscans, a woman who claimed never to drink a wine that cost less than $100. The loss was all hers. These five wines are special event wines for most of us with beer budgets but they are still great value. Classics that don’t rely on clever marketing to justify the price, just the best grapes from the best sites, babied at every stage of production, from planting through pruning and harvesting to intensive care in the cellar. Hundred dollar wines are seldom 10 times better than $10 ones but $30-40 ones justify their price tag more frequently. These aren’t wines to put away (though you could) but wines to drink with great pleasure right now.—C. Burridge

1. Sonoma-Cutrer 2004 Russian River Ranches Chardonnay
Sonoma-Cutrer doesn’t hedge its bets by making pinot gris, sauvignon blanc or riesling–it’s chardonnay and chardonnay alone. It is the expert. And this one charms even those people who don’t normally drink chardonnay with its complex layers of floral lemon and peach. The 2004 is more mineral than the 2003, but its natural richness makes it the perfect match for sablefish—though a bowl of home-roasted nuts wouldn’t be amiss either. +359505, $34.95.

2. Lodovico and Piero Antinori 2004 Tenuta Campo di Sasso Insoglia IGT
From the two brothers who more or less invented the Super-Tuscan. Made by a Swede with the advice of Frenchman Michel Rolland (the consulting winemaker pilloried in Mondovino) in Bolgheri, the region in Tuscany where all the big names have new ventures. It’s got Rolland’s signature bright and brilliant fruit, this time mainly from cabernet sauvignon and franc and merlot. Ripe blackcurrant fruit, toasty with lots of structure. A wine that could sell for twice the price and still leave the punters happy. +450767, $34.59.

3. Hugel 2001 Jubilee Riesling
The Hugels have been making wine for generations—right back to 1639. The Jubilee series commemorates that long history with reserve wines made only in the best years. The riesling still has the steely mineralness of any good Alsace riesling but it’s beginning to pick up intensely honeyed peach and tropical fruit, all the while remaining absolutely dry. It’s a wine that adores seafood in rich butter and cream sauces but is also definitive with a good roast chicken. +354514, $45.54.

4. Quinta do Vale Dona Maria 2002
Cristiano van Zeller is one of the Douro “boys,” scions of the port trade who saw the potential for great red wine on the terraces of this scorched valley. He’s been restoring this estate, keeping old traditions like treading the grapes by foot but modernizing just about everything else. Rich and elegant with lots of savoury spiciness over black cherry and cooked plum fruit with tar and leather. Drinking perfectly right now. +528646, $34.70.

5. Masi 2001 Amarone della Valpolicella Costasera
One of the best fall dinners is nothing but a big hunk of Parmesan cheese (Grana Leoni is an amazingly successful Alberta knock off), some new season B.C. hazelnuts and walnuts, green if you gather them yourself from back lanes and hedgerows, dry if not, and a bottle of Amarone. Made in the Veneto, from wizened grapes half dried on bamboo racks till January, Amarone is a vino di meditazione, a wine for contemplation and conversation, that seduces you with its illusion of sweetness. The Costasera is a relative bargain, earthy with smoke and mushrooms but also sweet dried cherry fruit. +317057, $43.62.

Twenty-five B.C. Benchmarks

There’s Starling Lane and Twisted Tree, Willow Hill and Seven Stones, Black Widow and Church & State, a crop of names as idiosyncratic as English pubs. Every year there are more wineries, a few on the Islands, one or two in the Fraser Valley and even more in the Okanagan. Despite the old joke about the best way to make a fortune in the wine business (start with a large one), journalists, accountants, engineers, financial planners, dreamers, visionaries and hardheaded business folks are investing big bucks in patches of dirt on sunny slopes and valleys across Southern B.C.

When Harry McWatters launched a tiny Sumac Ridge 25 years ago, there were only a handful of wineries. Now there are 132, with more to come on, and Sumac Ridge is part of the largest wine company in the world. Even the biggest B.C. producers are small by world standards, often only making a few hundred cases of their best wines. Europe’s got 1.5 billion litres in its wine lake, Australia left more grapes unsold on the vine last year than B.C.’s entire harvest, California harvests continue to expand. But here in B.C. we can’t get enough of what we make. Last year sales of B.C. VQA wines jumped almost 20 percent, bouncing Australia as No. 1 in the premium category in the LDB. Demand is growing so fast that supply is the problem. Most wineries, certainly all the small ones, can’t afford to sell through the LDB while private wine stores are on allocation, coaxing and cajoling enough wines for their customers.

Everybody—even the wine snob—drinks B.C. wine now. Restaurant wine lists often have far more local wines than Bordeaux or Burgundy. Some like Aurora sell nothing but B.C., specializing in hard to find wines from tiny producers. If you want to try Golden Mile Riesling, Glenugie “Christina” Brut or Orofino Red Bridge Red—wines with a supply of only a couple of hundred cases—this is your best bet. Even the 3,000 cases of Mission Hill’s signature Oculus sold out in just one weekend.

All the more reason for a road trip to the Okanagan or the Island or just a quickie across the Port Mann to the Fraser Valley. Find out what you like and get on the mailing list. A case of $20 wine isn’t much more than a couple of tickets to the hockey game and delivers its pleasure a dozen times over. While some B.C. wines are over-priced for the quality, most match up well against the import competition. Warm summers, new vineyard sites, new vines, new clones, improved techniques and an influx of winemaking talent from all over the world are giving us wines that are way better than even five years ago.

And the wines we make are what people want to drink. Fresh, lively whites, jumping with fruit, revealing the ghosts of peach and apple orchards where the vines now grow. Tasty, juicy reds that carry the warmth of sun and stone, sticks and rocks. Picking 25 from this wealth of wines means hard choices—there should be room for Herder, Venturi-Schulze, Kettle Valley, Blasted Church and several more. But the 25 here are definitive examples of what B.C. does best. Some on the list you’ll find in any decent liquor store; some might take a visit to the winery. They all showcase the diversity of the land, the vines and the people who make them. (All wines are from the Okanagan unless otherwise noted.)—C. Burridge

1. Alderlea Vineyards 2003 Reserve Pinot Noir
Even the clerks at the retail wine stores in the Cowichan Valley know from experience just how fussy Roger Dosman is about his wines. This little Vancouver Island vineyard makes an unfined and unfiltered pinot noir that trumps many an Okanagan competitor. It rarely makes it over to the Mainland and so it’s the mailing list or private wine stores on the Island if you want a bottle. The wine’s violet, brambly, woodsy flavours make it a natural with Cowichan Valley free-range duck. $35.

2. Blue Grouse Vineyards 2004 Ortega
Like Alderlea, Blue Grouse grows what it makes. Visit this little Cowichan Valley winery in late summer and you can picnic under a peach tree and grape arbour, looking out at the rows of vines striding down the Valley to the cornfields on the bottom. Ortega is the grape that’s a staple on the Island and it can make some horrible wines. This one is delicious, scented with orange blossom, all peaches and apricot, with a bit of spice. Perfect patio wine or with a big bowl of local shrimp. $14.49.

3. Blue Mountain Vineyard and Cellars n/v Rosé Brut
Blue Mountain’s been a cult label for more than a decade with a waitlist for every bottle of the 9,000 or so cases from this biodynamically farmed estate. Picking just one of their wines is hard but the Rosé Brut bubble has charmed drinkers for years. It’s mainly pinot noir—pretty as pretty in pink, seductive but with sufficient guts to make it work not just before dinner throughout a seafood meal for two. A fine example of the way B.C. can deliver value that matches any Old World producer but sadly not easy to find. $27.

4. Burrowing Owl Vineyards 2004 Merlot
People asking for Burrowing Owl are the despair of every private wine store. They hardly ever have the wines. BOV’s penchant for big, consumer-friendly reds and full-fruited whites has made it a cult winery since its first vintage in 1997 and its 30,000 cases sell out fast. The merlot is its signature wine—the 2004 is rich and plummy with lots of dark cherry fruit followed by coffee and chocolate. Perfect now with a big, meaty grilled Portobello mushroom. $27.

5. Calona Vineyards Artist Series Reserve 2005 Pinot Blanc
Anyone who complains that B.C. wines are too expensive should try the Artist Series Reserve wines, which deliver far more value than many an import in the same price range. The unique to B.C. Sovereign Opal is $12.99; the other whites are $13.49 and the reds 50 cents more. The pinot blanc is pale gold, with typically Okanagan orchard aromas of apple and pear, spiked with tart green apple acidity. Attractive, affordable and available. +261024, $13.49.

6. CedarCreek Estate Winery 2004 Platinum Reserve Merlot
CedarCreek is consistently first rate with winemaker Tom di Bello turning out a gloriously summery ehrenfelser, a well-priced estate range and big, powerful reserve reds. The fruit comes from several Valley sites and is blended with just a bit of cabernet franc and cabernet sauvignon. A very sexy wine with flavours of raspberry and blackberry combined with coffee, chocolate and cloves that demand big meat. Unfiltered. 426 cases only from the winery, restaurants and VQA stores. +573683, $39.99.

7. Fork in the Road 2004 Oliver Block 212 White
Spend lots of money developing a brand and you don’t want to tinker with it. But winemakers like to experiment and there are always grapes that don’t quite fit the existing plan. So Mission Hill winemaker John Simes developed Fork in the Road Red and White, a new label; the white is an earthy, elegant blend of chardonnay, pinot gris, semillon and viognier, and the red, merlot, syrah and cabernet sauvignon. Exotic blends for restaurants and those looking for something more esoteric than mainstream varietals. $25 at Mark Anthony wine stores.

8. Gray Monk Estate Winery 2005 Unwooded Chardonnay
A wine to give people who’ve never tasted anything from B.C.: fresh and vibrant, with a big burst of lemony mouthwatering acidity pumping up the peach and papaya flavours. The Okanagan’s warm summers, cool nights let the winemaker get out of the way and show off the unadorned flavours of vine and soil without any oak to mask them. A style of wine that we do better than most other places. Drink it before dinner or with plain, steamed Dungeness Crab. +501114, $15.99.

9. Hawthorne Mountain Vineyards See Ya Later Ranch 2005 Chardonnay
Hawthorne Mountain’s one of the prettiest spots in the Okanagan but its charms were lost on Major Fraser’s young wife who ran away in 1919 for the bright lights of London, leaving a note saying “See Ya Later.” SYL became the name of the ranch and now the top range of HMV wines. The chardonnay is elegant and creamy, with toasty butterscotch underneath peach and pineapple. It’s big enough to make a meal of grilled salmon. +75366, $19.49.

10. Hillside Estate 2003 Mosaic
The Hillside riesling is one of those wines we can’t get enough of—bright, lively, and ever so friendly to food—but this winery’s big reds are also worth buying whenever you can find them. The Mosaic puts together “pieces” of cabernets franc and sauvignon, petit verdot, malbec and merlot in a Bordeaux-style blend. The fruit is all cherries and plums but it’s the stony dried herbs—sage and aniseed—that make it work and deliver a long, chocolatey finish. +80036. Private wine stores, $34.95.

11. Inniskillin Okanagan Estate 2005 Reserve Pinot Blanc
Inniskillin winemaker Sandor Mayer has been experimenting with chenin blanc, viognier, marsanne, rousanne, malbec, tempranillo and zinfandel. If you can find any of these Discovery Series wines, buy them. His skills, though, show just as strongly with wines for everyday drinking. The 2005 pinot blanc, from one of the Okanagan’s workhorse grapes does the trick nicely. Lots of lemon, lime and grapefruit and a bit of apple make it crisp and refreshing but enough weight to match grilled salmon. +76125, $13.99.

12. Jackson-Triggs Okanagan Estate 2005 Proprietor’s Reserve Sauvignon Blanc
J-T wines easily confuse people because they range from bottled in B.C. with grapes from anywhere to top of the line gold medalists. Anything that’s VQA won’t disappoint. Winemaker Bruce Nicholson is one of the best in the Okanagan. The Prop. Reserve series is fabulous value—one of Nicholson’s favourites—and widely available. Lots of lemony zip and dried herbs that go nicely with prawns, grilled chicken or goat cheese. +593111, $13.99.

13. Joie 2005 Pinot Noir Rosé
Heidi Noble and Michael Dinn started making rosé two years ago on the Okanagan’s Naramata Bench because they love to drink it. Last summer, they were tickled pink to find that everyone else liked it, too. Luckily there was just enough to supply restaurants and private wine stores over the summer and the 2006 will be ready just in time for the 2007 outdoor drinking season. Slightly off-dry so that the barest hint of sweetness shows up the cherry and strawberry fruit, and rounds out the taste in the mouth. +255000, $22.

14. La Frenz Winery 2004 Shiraz
Not surprisingly, Australian Jeff Martin’s big hit wine at his tiny Naramata bench winery is shiraz. Equally unsurprisingly, its 200 cases sell out almost immediately. Even Martin’s agent only gets 20 of them to sell to restaurants. Heady and perfumed, it’s deep reddish purple and chockfull of pepper, plums and blackberries—Martin thinks it’s perfect with grilled lamb. $28 from the winery.

15. Laughing Stock Vineyards 2005 Pinot Gris
A serious contender for best gris in the Valley. Very different from the tart, racy Italian style that most follow. The LFNG is big. There’s gorgeous fruit—lime and pineapple and peaches and cream—and serious texture from the barrel fermentation. And it’s all in screwcap so that the flavours stay put. Laughing Stock wines, thanks to clever marketing and excellent quality, sell out quickly so private wine stores and restaurants are your best bet. $19.99.

16. Mission Hill Family Estate 2003 Oculus
Mission Hill released 3,000 cases of its signature Oculus on the Labour Day weekend and it’s already sold out. One of the most expensive B.C. wines but also one that deserves its price tag. Bordeaux-inspired, half merlot with the rest mainly cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc and a little bit of merlot. Eventually Oculus is going to have its own winery on the Mission Hill estate, rather like going from Mondavi to Opus One without having to cross the road. In the meantime, the wine is spectacular—plush as red velvet, all dark fruit, spice and truffles. Restaurants and private wine stores, $60.

17. Osoyoos Larose 2004 Le Grand Vin
The winemaker is French, the vineyard techniques are French, the cellar equipment is French, but this is a B.C. wine. The fourth vintage from a joint venture with Groupe Taillan, owner of Gruaud Larose and other topnotch Bordeaux properties, delivers the goods. The 2004, released in November 2006, puts together merlot, cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc, petit verdot and malbec; inky black, impressively powerful and savoury with young raspberry and plum fruit and tons of leather and tobacco. Drink later rather than sooner. +129999. Private wine stores, $40.

18. Nk’Mip Cellars 2005 Pinot Blanc
There isn’t a dud in the line-up from Nk’Mip Cellars, the first aboriginal owned winery, down at the Osoyoos end of the Okanagan. The pinot blanc is an unsung pioneer, made from vines that are now by Valley standards quite old, by the very talented Randy Picton. It could almost masquerade as a chardonnay with its big tropical pineapple fruit and invigorating finish. A natural with any seafood on the grill or panfried with big flavours. +626432, $16.49.

19. Orofino Winery 2005 Pinot Gris
Orofino is one of the best reasons for a quick detour from Osoyoos at the bottom of the Okanagan to the Keremeos end of the Similkameen Valley. The second vintage of pinot gris from this new strawbale construction winery is a shock. The scent of grapefruit is so overwhelming that it transports you briefly to the Mediterranean. No oak but a good spiciness to go with the rich fruit that makes it a good match for hot weather food. Alas, with only 150 cases made you’ll have to find it in restaurants. $15.88.

20. Poplar Grove Winery 2005 Pinot Gris
Ian Sutherland insists you don’t have to wait for someone to die to get on Poplar Grove’s list for his sought after cabernet franc and merlot; you just have to fire back your email order within days of release. It used to be that the pinot gris was a bit easier to find, a rich, tropical peach of a wine, crisp with citrus. But even though Sutherland has recently doubled production, this too sells out shortly after release. A Vancouver restaurant favourite, great with the winery’s Double Cream Camembert and Naramata Bench Blue. +728212, $21.90.

21. Quails’ Gate Estate Winery 2003 Limited Release Old Vines Foch
Another cult wine whose fans eagerly snap up the limited release each fall as well as the scarcer Family Reserve OVF. Instead of ripping up foch planted 25 years before on the Stewart family estate, winemaker Jeff Martin (now at La Frenz) treated this tough old grape like an Australian Shiraz. The result is black, bold and beautiful, a meaty wine with strong blackcurrant and coffee flavour that gets better each vintage. No other wine encapsulates B.C.’s winemaking history so well. +104219, $24.99.

22. Sandhill Wines 2004 Cabernet-Merlot
Howard Soon believes in over-delivering. He sets out to make a nice B.C. wine but then “we give you a super-charged engine when you only need a four-cylinder.” The Sandhill label is all single-vineyard wines, with the grapes sourced from a handful of the best growers in the Valley. There’s also a hard to find Sandhill Small Lots line that’s always worth buying; the supple 2004 cab-merlot is one of Soon’s favourites. +541144, $18.99.

23. Sumac Ridge Estate Winery 2005 Private Reserve Gewürztraminer
Sumac Ridge popped a lot of corks over the summer of 2006, celebrating its first 25 years. But for all the dramatic flair of its sparkling wines, let’s also celebrate the pleasure of its consistently first rate gewürztraminer. This is a wine that was popular the day the winery opened and even more so now. That’s because it’s such a good match with any kind of spicy food and even most kinds of cheese. Cinnamon and nutmeg on the nose with grapefruit and peaches as you taste it; a B.C. wine that’s great value and always available. +142893, $14.99.

24. Tinhorn Creek Vineyards 2003 Oldfield’s Collection Merlot
Sandra Oldfield made a reputation with merlot. It’s the kind of B.C. wine to buy by the case—juicy, meaty and ready to drink. Then she went one better with the top of the line Oldfield’s Collection. First half of it was in screwcap, now all of it is. The better, she says, to make sure it always tastes the way she intends. Just as well, since the 2003 vintage of OCME with its spicy blackcurrant and blackberry flavours is the best she’s ever made. +153213, $28.

25. Wild Goose Vineyards God’s Mountain 2005 Riesling
The name is irresistible and so is the wine—God should be so lucky. The vineyard is a spectacular, steep slope up above Skaha Lake with the taste of the stone showing up in the wine along with all the tartness of a juicy apple straight off the tree. This family run estate turns out the best rieslings and gewürztraminers as well as mean pinot gris. Very popular with Asian restaurants in Vancouver with a decent wine list. Winery direct and private wine stores. +305391, $16.95.

Ten Great Beers, Ciders and Fruit Wines

Thank heavens for the crazy people, the pioneers who had a dream of doing something different: making a microbrew that’s the equal of Sierra Nevada’s Pale Ale, an apple brandy that’s better than most Calvados or a cider that can thump the Brits an international competitions. People who see the bounty of B.C., wild and cultivated, and yearn to put it into our glass. Most of them haven’t found it easy—with the battle scars from dealing with B.C.’s Byzantine booze regulations to prove it—but they’ve provided a whole new set of choices for those who want to think globally but drink locally. Here are 10 of the best.—C. Burridge

1. Cherry Point Vineyards Blackberry Port
Blackberry wine, blackberry “champagne,” blackberry eau de vie, blackberry ale, blackberry porter and several blackberry ports—B.C.’s favourite wild fruit makes more than pie and jam. The best of the ports is from Cherry Point, the Vancouver Island winery owned by the Cowichan Tribes. One sniff and you’re in the middle of a blackberry patch on a hot August day. Good with a fruit dessert—or one of Hilary’s cheeses from nearby the winery—but also works well kir-style with white wine. $19.90/375 mL.

2. Crannóg Ales Beyond the Pale Ale
Brian MacIsaac and Rebecca Kneen run the only certified organic farmhouse brewery in Canada. The Sorrento farm grows the hops for the brewery and its well provides the water. The spent grains feed the livestock or go to compost for the garden that feeds the family. They make four rich, robust, Irish-style ales, only available on draft. Beyond the Pale is like a nice, malty bitter, exceptionally clean and refreshing. Try the Raven pub in Deep Cove or O’Doul’s on Robson.

3. Elephant Island Orchard Wines 2005 Pear Wine
There’s no elephant and no island but there is an orchard. And this Naramata winery makes fruit wines that are both delicious and stylish. Fruit wines that go with food rather than fit only for cooking. The Pear Wine, made from Naramata pears, is sublime with a plate of blue cheese—local, Gorgonzola or Roquefort—some watercress or arugula and a nice, ripe pear. From the winery or some private wine stores. $14.95.

4. Merridale Estate Cidery Cidre Normandie
Look out Normandy. Vancouver Island’s Merridale Cider makes a French-style cider as good as most you’ll find over there. Lovely ripe apple aroma but fermented absolutely dry to an alcohol content that’s more like wine, then aged in oak to round out the flavour. Still, not sparkling. Cook a chicken with it, throw in some apples toward the end, maybe a splash of cream, then drink the rest of the bottle with dinner. From the cidery or some private wine stores. $13.94.

5. Okanagan Spirits Canados
Frank Deiter took nine of his fruit-based spirits off to the World Spirits Competition in 2006 and came back with nine medals. Five of them gold. He’s made another breakthrough too—six of them are now listed by the LDB. The Canados—Deiter has the Germanic penchant for puns—is a Canadian Calvados, light gold, fragrant with apples, and a lovely baked apple and spice finish. Knocks the socks off most Calvados from Normandy. $39.95/375 mL.

6. Old Yale Brewing Co. Sergeant’s IPA
Former fighter pilot Larry Caza set out to make beer as good as California’s legendary Sierra Nevada Brewing Co.—sharp, hoppy and full of flavour. Consistently one of the top B.C. India Pale Ales, inspired by the beers shipped to slake the thirst of the British troops in India, boosted with hops and alcohol to survive the journey. Reddish-brown, hoppy, aromatic, almost winey. Sausages, burgers, steaks, salmon—cook with it, marinate with it, as well as just drink it. +730754, $4.61/650 mL.

7. Phillips Brewing Co. Oatmeal Stout
Victoria’s Matt Phillips is one of the best brewmasters in B.C. and the new Oatmeal Stout is a first rate addition to his range in the LDB. It’s a good, robust stout, almost black with a restrained head, lots of roasted coffee and spice without any bitterness and a chocolatey finish. “Stick to your ribs breakfast nutrition,” Phillips says. Pretty good with oysters, too. +483453, $4.25/650 mL.

8. Russell Brewing Cream Ale
This Surrey brewery makes one of the most popular beers in the city. On tap (no bottles yet) at many good restaurants and bars, it’s a bit darker than many cream ales, full-bodied, solidly made with only a little hoppiness but a pleasant, creamy nuttiness. There’s also a new, cold-filtered, wheat-based Lemon Ale, available on draft only from April to September, to cool down a hot city summer.

9. Storm Brewing Ltd. Hurricane IPA
Micro doesn’t get much smaller than Storm Brewing on Commercial Drive. But they’ve developed a big following for their handful of unconventional beers. The Pilsener, the Scottish Ale and the IPA are the only three beers that Vikram Vij serves night after night at his popular restaurant. The IPA is polished amber with a creamy head while the aromatic, resiny hoppiness sets off the roasted, toasted maltiness to a treat. Guaranteed to make you hungry.

10. Vancouver Island Brewery Hermann’s Dark Bavarian Lager
Lager isn’t just a golden summer brew but any beer where the yeasts ferment at the bottom of the container rather than the top. Europeans love dunkel or dark lager, but it’s rare in B.C. Hermann’s (named after the brewery’s first brewmaster) looks like a dark espresso, sweet as treacle, but with a sharp fruitiness that makes it great with a steak or anything on the grill. Gold medal in the 2006 Canadian Brewing Awards. +902320, $10.95/six-pack.