Category: Vancouver Island

You may not have heard of Blue Grouse Estate Winery from Duncan before, but the winery has quite a history.  In 2012 the Brunner family took over the winery but it was owned for many years by Dr. Hans Kiltz and his wife Evangeline in the late 1980s, where they discovered several grape vines planted on their land.  The grapes…

Starting a restaurant is hard.  Running a restaurant is hard. Whether you are the owner, chef, wait staff, or any combination of these, you are dedicated, you love food, and what you do.  This week was the Vancouver Magazine 24th Annual Restaurant Awards in Vancouver, celebrating our restaurants, chefs, and staff who have been tantalizing our tastebuds over the past…

Have you ever attended ChefmeetsBCGrape before?  It is a great event where you get to try BC VQA wines, and wonderful food produced by top BC chefs.  The dishes prepared are from Ocean Wise partner restaurants, which is good IMHO as I want to support ocean-friendly seafood choices. This event is held in Vancouver. When you check the list of…

This past week was very busy with wine events, but one event that I made sure to attend was the Bloom Vancouver, BC VQA Spring Release Tasting.  This was a Trade only event, so people like media, restaurant owners, sommeliers, and other wine buyers for consumers were only in attendance.  With spring you get the current release of the white…

Last year, 2011, was a banner year for newly licensed wineries in BC.  21 wineries were licensed.  Who are they and where are they?  Most of the ones listed below I have not heard of, except for Okanagan Crush Pad Winery, Serendipity Estate Winery and 40 Knots Estate Winery.  Here is a review I did of Okanagan Crush Pad in…

Even with the busy holiday season taking up our time, I was able to make a quick trip to Vancouver Island, and one of the things I did was visit the Chase & Warren Winery located in Port Alberni, BC.  I bet you didn’t know there were any wineries in Port Alberni, a place better known as a forestry town. …