4th Annual BC Wine Fest free tasting at Bowen Beer & Wine

Please join us this #BowFEAST weekend to celebrate eating and drinking locally. This is our 4th annual BC wine fest featuring FREE samples of great BC wines. Wines will be poured over 3 days starting Friday at 2pm.

Tasting session times:

Friday 2pm-6pm

Saturday 1pm – 5pm

Sunday 1pm to 5pm

On Saturday shop the #BowFEAST Farmers market from 9am to Noon. Have a nice lunch in the Cove, then mosey up to our new store on Dorman Road under the Ruddy Potato and taste some great BC wines to go with your fresh, local food for dinner.

While we end formal tasting at 6pm, if we have wine left you are welcome to come in later and try what’s still open

Big line up this year with totally different wines each day:

Participating Wineries and wines. Tasting order is yet to be determined but over the 3 days we’ll be opening wines from among the following:

The View - Frizzante, Gewurztraminer, Pinotage

Quails Gate - Rosé, Chenin Blanc

Tinhorn Creek - Cabernet Franc, Chardonnay

Stoneboat – Pinotage, Pinot Gris

Ganton & Larsen Prospect winery – Sauvignon Blanc, Unoaked Chardonnay

Lake Breeze - Pinot Blanc, Meritage

Dirty Laundry – Gewurztraminer, Merlot

Hester Creek – Cabernet/Merlot blend

Black Cloud – Pinot Noir

Tantalus – Riesling

8th Generation – Sauvignon Blanc

Blasted Church – Hatfields Fuse (white blend)

Fairview Cellars - 2 Hoots

Plus on Saturday ONLY – Red Roof Okanagan cider

New product arrivals

In preparation for the new store opening I’ve been adding a bunch of new products in all categories. Here’s a brief summary and there are lots more to come after we get into our new digs.

Wine

Opera Prima – ultra cheap and surprisingly good Spanish sparkling wine. Great for Mimosas, Buck’s Fizz etc.

Lavit Rosado – agents unearthed a cache of this no-longer-available-in-BC Spanish sparkling rosé. One of my very long-time favourites (see the Desert Island video). Back for a very short time.

Cantavida Riesling –  super value Chilean dry riesling

Doma Chardonnay & Merlot – 2 big bargains from Chile

Backyard Vineyards Zweigelt & Riesling - good red from the local Fraser Valley. Riesling is very fruity.

Dirty Laundry Hush (rosé), Pinot Gris and Gewurztraminer – New 2010 vintage. Hush is fabulous this year, 50% cab. Franc, deep pink and solid dark red fruit taste.

Cedar Creek Rosé – first time for a rosé from this significant BC winery. Think strawberries…

8th Generation – Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Gris and Merlot. The sparkling chardonnay has sold out completely.

Lake Breeze Pinot Blanc – simply the best PB in BC

Stoneboat Pinotage & Chorus – back for the summer season again

Cassini Maximus – BC produces some great Bordeaux style blends. This one has extra heft too.

Fairview Bear – Big Cabernet Sauvignon from BC, will reward cellaring. Coming soon: Two Hoots, Cab Franc and Sauvignon Blanc too

Blandy`s Madeira – the brown wine of the Azores

& a new selection of draft Sake

Spirits:

Pyrat rum 750ml

Courvoisier VS cognac 375ml

Remy Martin VSOP cognac 750ml

Van Gogh Duble Espresso vodka 750ml

Red Breast pot-still Irish whisky 750ml

Bell’s Scotch whisky 750ml

Dewar’s White Label Scotch whisky 750ml

Jack Daniel’s bourbon 375ml

For the Cocktail Cabinet

Akvavit

Kirsch

Alizé Blue and Red

Créme de Cassis

Galliano

Coolers

El Jimador pre-mixed Margaritas

Beer

Ayinger Dunkel – German dark lager

Cooper’s Australian pale ale

Cider

Sea Cider – Victoria, BC’s great cider maker. Kings & Spies and Pippins are back in stock

August Tasting Recap

As an aide-memoire for everyone who came to our BC Wine Fest or the Unusual Grapes tasting here’s a list of the wines you may have sampled.

BC Wine Fest Aug 13-15

Friday Aug 13

Tinhorn Creek Cabernet Franc ’08 – successor to the very popular ’07 vintage. Lots of depth and some strawberry. Will cellar well.

Tinhorn Creek Merlot ’08 – big, robust merlot, typically BC. Great comments on this from tasters.

Tinhorn Creek Gewurztraminer ’09 – round and quaffable. very easy drinking Gewurz

Stag’s Hollow Sauvignon Blanc ’09 – softer than the ’08 version. Very nice easy to drink wine

Saturday August 14

CedarCreek Proprietor’s White ’09 – neat little blend, excellent & economic patio sipper.

Dirty Laundry Unoaked Chardonnay ’08 – easy drinking chardonnay for those who don’t like big oak.

Dirty Laundry Woo Woo Gewurztraminer ’09 – another really nice Gewurz. More classical than the Tinhorn. The Woo Woo is the middle of DL’s range of gewurztraminers.

Dirty Laundry Hush ’09 – Rosé blend that is 50% Cab Franc, 30% Pinot Noir, 9% Pinot Blanc, 5% Cab/Merlot & 6% hush hush – the BIG hit of the weekend.

Sunday Aug 15

Joie Farm Unoaked Chardonnay ’08 – very Burgundian, lots of mineralality. My favourite of the weekend’s chardonnays.

Blasted Church Revered Chardonnay ’09 – The People’s chardonnay choice with lots of oak. Tasters really enjoyed the chance to compare unoaked and oaked at this session.

Joie Farm Riesling ’09 – As one taster said, “very Alsatian” which is exactly the region that inspires Joie’s wine. Raised a few eyebrows about how good Riesling can be  for those that think of it as sweet wine & certainly won some converts to the noblest of white grapes.

Blasted Church Gewurztraminer ’09 – Our #1 selling Gewurz this year and for good reason. Great price/value. Any of the three gewurz we opened over the weekend are ideal introductions to the grape. Think spicy asian food with these Gewurz.

Joie Farm Rosé `09 - Latest edition of this very popular pink.

Unusual Grapes #2 – Greece, Saturday Aug 21

Boutari Moschofilero ’09 -a white wine for P.Gris/Grigio & Sauvignon Blanc fans. Richer than the Lafazanis below.Thessaly is the area this is grown.

Lafazanis White ’09 – made from the Rhoditis grape, grown in the Peleponnese. Super value 1 litre bottle,  this wine is an excellent patio sipper – made for Greek salad too!

Lafazanis Red ’09 – from the Agiorgitiko grape (also Peleponnese area), a light red similar to Gamay or Pinot Noir. The grape is known as the ‘noble’ grape of Greece. Also in 1L bottles. Think lanb Souvlaki.

The Lafazanis wines were a huge hit with tasters, great value and tasty summer wines.

All the wines tasted over the two events are in regular stock now or will be back within 2 weeks.

BC wine tasting Weekend August 13-15

This weekend is a our annual free BC wine tasting held in conjunction with BowFEAST. Tasting schedule for the weekend is as follows:

• Friday 13 August, 4pm to 9pm: Featured winery: Tinhorn Creek
• Saturday 14 August,  1pm to 5pm+: Featured winery:Dirty Laundry
• Sunday 15 August, 1pm to 5pm: Featured winery:Blasted Church

There’s a very good chance that there’ll be some others too but you’ll need to come in to find out

*UPDATE* Add Stag’s Hollow to Friday, Cedar Creek to Saturday & Joie Farm to Sunday

We’ll have some draw prizes for tasters over the weekend (every taster gets an entry, no purchase required). Grand prize will be a gift certificate for a 2 night stay at Tinhorn Creek’s winery guest house in Oliver. Second prize will be a copy of Joie Farm’s “Menus from an Orchard Table” signed by author Heidi Noble.

And to encourage you to ‘Drink BC’ this weekend you’ll get the full 10% case discount any purchase of 6 or more bottles of BC wine (this applies from 10:00am on Friday through 10pm on Sunday)

August Wine Tasting Schedule

We will be offering two complementary tasting events in August.

Weekend Aug 14/15 (and possibly 13) – BC Wine. In conjunction with BowFEAST we will feature a selection of BC wines (predominately whites) over the Saturday and Sunday. May do a bonus session Friday evening, but have to confirm on that. Some of the wines in the line up for the weekend include Dirty Laundry, Blasted Church  & CedarCreek

The second tasting is Saturday August 21. This will be the second in our Unusual Grapes series and will feature wines from Greece. This country has an ancient wine growing tradition – and it’s not just Retsina any more.