Tonight we are off to first night of the Vancouver playhouse wine festival. The focus country is Australia, so I'll be in my own personal heaven. I've regularly reviewed Aussie wines on this blog and visited wineries as Aussie Shiraz is my favourite wine.
Now it's is complete mayhem at the show, and by the end people get pretty looped. Some serious planning is in order. I spent most of last night preparing for our excursion.
Our priorities are:
1) Meet the actual vintners/owners for a bit of a chat. I'm not too interested in "Export Directors".
2) Try wines that we normally wouldn't try. This typically means the more expensive ones :-)
3) Buy some wines if there are good values.
My sources of information are:
1) the detailed program, which I've downloaded and printed most of. This has all the wineries, their offerings including trade wines at the show and the map.
2) Robert Parker reviews
3) Anthony Gismondi's review of the festival in the Vancouver Sun a few days ago.
4) A couple of other wine sites
5) Local Suppliers: BC Liquor stores, Kits wine show, Marc Anthony
I've gone through most of the Aussie wines in the playhouse lists and checked their ratings in Robert Parker as well as looked at who is attending the festival. I've marked the wines with the ratings and some occasional prices. I've also gone through AG's review of best booths, wines, and shirazes to try.
This has led to a prioritized list of 12 top booths to try. Then there is a 2nd tier list of 18 booths. These are identified on the map.
Sadly, some of our favourite producers like Rockford, Mitolo, Torbreck, and Rusden aren't at the show. And a bunch of favourite wines from great producers are missing, such as Kaesler's Avignon.
The plan of attack is to try a couple of white wine booths, then move to some serious red wines. At 10 minutes per booth, that's 2 out of the 3 hours. If that holds true, then there's an hour for the 2nd tier 18 booths. I can't see doing more than 30 booths with quality sampling.
There are a few wines that are interesting on the trade lists, and there may be more at the booths. If there are any that strike us, we immediately go to the onsite liquor store and buy them. Right then, and then come back.
The good wines can sell out at the on-site store before the end of the first night, so you have to know your stuff and be quick.
I've got a few candidates in mind but I can't post them right now :-)
I'll let you know tomorrow how it goes.
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