Ethnic Eats – Sampling the World’s Cuisine Without Leaving Vancouver

Well VinoCamp has wrapped up for 2008 and it went off with a bang.

We started off with a talk by Dr. Hennie J.J. van Vuuren, founding director of the UBC Wine Research Center, followed by Kathy Malone of Artisan Wine Co onBC’s various wine growing regions. To get the palate warmed up, we also dipped in to a Wild Horse Canyon Sauvignon Blanc and a Rigamarole Red. I’m sure it’s not the first time I’ve started drinking at 10:45 AM, but it’s definitely not a regular occurrance, so that took some getting used to.

Bradley Cooper of Township 7 winery followed with a talk on Crushpad, a US wine making facility where you can make your own luxury bottle of wine with the help of professional wine-makers, customized to your tastes. I’m not sure that I would ever use this facility for my own production (I don’t really need to have 25 cases of wine in my house), but they also have a commercial component where you can market and sell your wines.

There was a Food & Wine Pairing 101, by Michelle Bouffard and Michaela Morris from House Wine, an Indian cooking class from Bal Arneson, a glass comparison by Riedel rep, David Sanders, a discussion about Organic and sustainable winemaking by Anthony Nicalo of Farmstead Wines, and a closing address on wine blogging by Kelly Robson, Chatelaine’s Wine writer.

(See some much better blog coverage from Kelly and Colleen.)

I’ve never been to a wine event quite like this one and I was so pleased to see such a great range of interesting and knowledgeable speakers as well as  have the opportunity to sample some really excellent wines.

We drank a lot of wine. I’m going to have to add them all into Cork’d before I forget.

 Thanks to everyone who came, looking forward to seeing you next year!

More photos in the VinoCamp flickr pool.