VIP tasting
Why stand and sip the at a regular old tasting bar when you can have an enhanced, seated tasting in the VIP lounge?
Liquidity Winery in Okanagan Falls asked that very question and came up with Equity Tasting Lounge.
It’s a separate, serene, art-filled gallery where you can sit at the bar, cozy up at a table for two or chill with a group at the long table to taste Liquidity’s top-tier wines.
“There’s no splash and dash here,” said tasting room supervisor Stephen Judge of the Equity Tasting Lounge with a laugh.
Access to the lounge is free for Liquidity Wine Club and Equity Tasting Club members or $15 for a tasting for non-members.
When my wife, Kerry, and I dropped by on the opening weekend of the lounge, we were led through a seated tasting of seven expressive wines – the non-vintage Bubbly ($23), 2017 rose ($25), 2016 Estate Chardonnay ($29), 2016 Reserve Chardonnay ($52), 2016 Estate Pinot Noir ($29), Equity Pinot Noir 2016 ($56) and 2016 Dividend Bordeaux-style red blend ($35).
It’s a real treat to taste the 2016 Reserve Chardonnay because it won the best Chardonnay in the world title at this year’s Chardonnay du Monde contest in France.
In fact, the lounge is the only place right now where you can get a taste of the exemplary Chard.
And it’s only being sold currently in gift boxes of three or six bottles.
In the tasting notes, we noticed the Estate Pinot Noir is said to pair well with ostrich tartare.
We thought it a humourous and eccentric match until told ostrich tartare is an appetizer on the menu at the winery’s Liquidity Bistro.
We make a beeline there, order the tartare and glasses of Pinot Noir to prove to ourselves that it is, indeed, an inspired pairing.
The ostrich had a texture similar to raw tuna, which went nicely with the cherry and soft acidity of the Pinot.
Then it was on to pizza with the rose, which contrasts creamy strawberry with tart cranberry due to its eclectic blend of two little-known grapes – Dornfelder from Germany and Zweigelt from Austria.