All aboard for Dine Out Vancouver
Dine Out Vancouver 2018 is coming fast, but before you get to reserve a prix fixe menu at any of the hundreds of participating restaurants in January, there is a chance to grab tickets for one or more of the 35 culinary events.
New this year is a Rail Car Pop-up: All Aboard Rocky Mountaineer. For two nights only, the Rocky Mountaineer’s culinary team will host guests in their elegant rail car dining room for a multi-course meal inspired by the western Canadian regions the train passes through.
It is the an opportunity to dine aboard the Rocky Mountaineer without booking a trip. Event tickets are on sale now, with more events being added every week at dineoutvancouver.com.
Many of you know I’m not
■ much of a wine gadget guy, but I recently began using an innovative system to aerate young wines that was designed in New Westminster.
The vSpin/Spiegelau Active Wine Decanter, awarded the 2018 German Design Award, swiftly and easily simplifies the work of aerating young wine. The methodology revolves around magnetics in the decanter base that creates a vortex inside the easy-to-grasp, elegant Spiegelau decanter.
It’s as easy as pouring the wine into the decanter, setting the timer and within two to four minutes you have a wine that tastes as if it has been opened for hours, or aged for years. The quiet, gentle persistent spinning creates a vortex exposing the wines’ youthful tannin and structure to a barrage of oxygen that mellows the wine’s texture, improving the nose and flavours.
For more info, or to order the product, go to VSpin.us.
B.C. WINE OF THE WEEK
Clos du Soleil Semillon 2016, Keremeos, Similkameen Valley $24.90: 92/100
UPC: 857088000855
They say the 2016 Semillon is the first and only white wine fermented in the new French concrete tanks at Clos du Soleil. Too bad, because it is a winner. Post fermentation, the wine was racked once as it aged on its fine lees for eight months. In a classic case of less is more, the wine offers a stony/mineral portrait of the Similkameen Valley with a subtle, citrus, undertone of limes and lemons with a squeeze of nectarine skin. Winery direct.
WINE FOR THE CELLAR
Stags’ Leap Petite Sirah 2014, Napa Valley, California $46.99: 92/100
UPC: 00089819045853
We love it when French winemakers make wine in the New World. Faced with overwhelming fruit, they manage to get the balance to a point where everyone wins. The Petite Syrah comes from a handful of very old vines on the estate, as well as selected plots in the north and south of Napa Valley. It’s big and rich, but with a complexity of flavours, namely black pepper, raspberries and bitter, dark chocolate. You can cellar this first-class wine for more than a decade.