QOTD: Hey Gary and the Vayniaks…why wait for the Olympics? Come to Vancouver at the end of this March for the 31st annual Vancouver Playhouse International Wine Festival. BC is the theme region so there will be over 200 BC wines from 58 producers in the Festival Tasting Room. In total, 1700+ wines by 183 wineries from 15 countries in 61 events for 25,000 attendees.

Gary, you mentioned you wanted to meet everyone in the world. Well, here’s your chance to rack up some serious numbers in a short period of time. So, which event do you and the Mottster want to tape from? “Icons of BC” or “Pinot-Rama!” or “Bourgogne: Tour de Terroir” or “Icewine, Well Thawed Out” or “Blind-Blind” or “Gaga for Gewurz!” or “A Great Big Kitchen Party” (we Canucks love to party in the kitchen) or “The Century Mark” (wines from vines over 100 years old) or “Eco-friendly Wine: Over-hyped, Over-priced? Green Wine Symposium” or how about having Georg Riedel on the show as part of his “Riedel in the Home: The Glory of the Glass” seminar at the Festival.

From March 23-29…the wine world is here in Vancouver, and so should the Thunder Show.

Check out the brochure…
http://www.playhousewinefest.com/page220.htm

Do some Marsanne! I just tasted the Wellington Marsanne 2007, and thought to look up the varietal in your episode listing. It wasn’t there! Fix that!

Great show – never had (or possibly even seen) a Canadian wine that wasn’t ice wine.

Gary
You have to get these Canadian wines in. I would love to give that Riesling a whirl.

QOTD
I would love to take a train ride across the Canadian Rockies (do the Canadian Railways have a good wine list, or can I BYOB it?) ending in BC

Just brilliant… who would have thought of Canadian wine… I never stop learning from your programme!

Been to OK. Had decent wines there in 2005. Bought some OK wines in the US from the distributor, was the worst (cheese city) Riesling I’ve had and a red blend that you couldn’t give away. In fact in early 2007 I sent GV that OK red blend, BEFORE I tasted it, to taste on his show but life intervenes. 2 years later… Bottom line is that OK wines are OK, but QPR isn’t really there yet.

Hi Gary, Thanks for the interesting show….I enjoyed your guest….I hope I can get to that part of Canada someday….

Hi Gary!
I am not web 2.0 combatible but been tasting and been interested in wine since manymany years. Therefore sorry for my form of approaching.
Why didn`t you ever have some SERIOUS austrian whites (like Knoll, FX, Hirtzberger,…)?
Like WLTV very much but missing SMARAGDs!

FINALLY!!! I’m so happy to see my home town represented on the Thunder Show! While the wines that were selected were all good (with the Riesling and Pinot being excellent!!), there is so much variety in the BC wine market that could not possibly have been shown.

If and when there is a trip organized to BC, I will be there for sure! I would love to taste some of the greats like Poplar Grove, Laughing Stock, Le Vieux Pin, Osoyoos-Larose, etc. with Gary.

Please do not forget that BC is making a lot of really great Pinot Gris! Blasted Churcg and See Ya Later are 2 great examples of it!

Thanks Gary for a really great guest and a great show!

Great show….I’m in the bizz and used to live in the Oakanagan and was a major flag waver for the wine. I’m still in the industry but no longer in the Oakanagan. Local wine is so grossly over priced in this market, that I rarely buy or even think about buying Oakanagan wine anymore. There are mind you some whites that really over deliver and pack some serious thunder but there is so much more “value” elsewhere in the world for waaaaay stonger offerings.
I just took a trip to Napa/Sanoma and the level of wine in the $30…$35 range would shred a $70 bottle of Oculus or anyones small lots and would age well over the next 10-15 years. I’ll come up for the water sport and golf and the outstanding pinot gris’ and rieslings.

rambler

Great episode! Great wines in Okanagan, I had the pleasure of visiting last October. I’m kind of surprised he brought the Jackson-Triggs Shiraz. I had it and also wasn’t impressed, however Jackson-Triggs has a red Meritage and a white Meritage that were great for $20 CA. If you do hit Jackson-Triggs, ask about Osoyoos Larose. They rent a little space in the back of the production building and have some fantastic wine. I also had some interesting Malbecs while I was there, worth checking out. I’m heading back up in the spring, maybe I’ll try to hit that wine festival in March.

QOTD: BC sounds great, and I NEED to try more BC wines asap- the next (and hopefully soon) step will be making the trip up there.

Nice episode – interesting to see the variance in palates between you 2 guys. Have never been to BC.

BC is a gorgeous place, so I would love to come out…not sure when though.

2 wine guys pausing for like 20 seconds, taking their time, getting into the wine. Really a cool moment. Sometimes that is even better than when you guys are talking.
I think TX wines have some of the same problems. Some of our good wines are $5 -$15 more than a CA wine at the same quality level. We are trying to do what other regions can do for less $$.
Maybe someone pays the extra freight once for the experience but they won’t for the long haul. Good to see that Riesling holds its own.
Great guest.

I feel a victim of currency conversion, too. I’m paid in the UK in pounds, but have my family in Euros. 2 years ago 1 pound was 1.47 Euros, now it’s 1.06. That’s like a 40% paid drop! ARGH!

Anyway, loved the long daydreamy moment on the third wine whirl 🙂

qotd: sorry, no plans for now to come over the big pool. But I will def consider BC if I ever visit America.

QOTD: Was in Victoria on Vancouver Island last summer. Brought back 8 bottles, including a few from Okanagan and the rest from Victoria area.

Love the Osoyoos Larose, hope to find some Black Hills Nota Bene. Luckily my wife’s sister and family live in Victoria so they’re tasked with wine searching this spring.

Fun and informative episode. Great guest. Glad I took the time to catch up on the weeks’ shows this morning.
QOTD: As soon as we can save some pennies and come up with a travel budget (hey, I can dream, can’t I?) 😉

Excellent guest. Thanks for introducing us to new wine regions. QOTD – I would love to visit, but it is a long way from Atlanta. It is now on the radar for a visit though.

Great show and guest! Thanks for the continued education. Clueless unitll now about canadian wines.

QOTD: not sure about the visit. would be fun though.

I’m surprised that Rhys wasn’t a little more educated on the pricing situation considering he wanted to bring wines that were value plays.

Great show in general though guys. I grew up in the Okanagan and my wife and I go back every year. We always enjoyed the German whites, especially the Gewurtztraminer and Ehrenfelser. Wine in that region has an interesting history and lots of potential considering they’ve only been seriously producing for 20 years at most.

QOTD: Been to BC a few times over the past 10 years; love the landscape + the people. So friendly, so welcoming, and we had some great food & wine too! Thanks for stopping by, Rhys.

P.S. I love your hair!

Woe GV – you went from one extreme to another – 10 minutes, one wine in Puglia to 33 minutes, four wines in Kanagan.
Liked the show – good guest. You dissed his wines a bit, but you need to keep it real.

QOTD – Never been to BC, really would like to go for the scenic beauty and now the wines.

Great to see the show. It’s getting a fair bit of buzz here in BC because we don’t see our wine discussed much on an international spectrum. Very glad that Gary liked the wine – such as he did – we can get a little protective and self-conscious about what the rest of the world has to say about us Canucks. That being said, I think Gary did hit on one of the big issues for BC wines and that’s the price point. As I understand it and as Rhys pointed out, most producers have been able to sell every bottle they make (without a lot of hard sell) and the prices seem to just keep going up – particularly with some of the big name wineries. Not being in the wine business at all, we’ve stopped buying a lot of BC wines that we used to buy simply because we’ve found that the wine doesn’t merit the price when you compare it against “foreign” wines in the market. We’re hoping that, as more BC wine gets produced, prices will come back a bit and we’ll buy some of those wines that we’re passing on now. I’d also echo harry H’s “call out” to the Vancouver Playhouse Wine Festival. This year’s featured area is BC and I’m hoping that it’ll be a great exposure to what BC has to offer – and you’ll be able to immediately compare it to wines from around the world under the same roof.

But if I heard this all right, none of these wines are particularly available in the US outside of Washington State. So, the Pinot Noir sounds like a good play but no can do. I am planning to be in Vancouver for the Olympics so I guess I will get my shot then.