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

Grand Opening Celebration – Canada Day 1-5pm

It’s time to celebrate. We’ve been open in the new premises since June 8 and worked out the kinks (we hope!) so time to raise a glass to welcome you to our new store. On Canada Day (July , 2011), we cordially invite you to drop in and be our guest at a wine and cheese tasting between 1-5pm. 

The new store is light, airy and spacious and we”ve had fantastic feedback on it from customers so far. If you have not been in please take the opportunity to take a peek at Bowen’s new retail experience.

Our featured winery for the tasting  is the Neck of the Woods. This is an local winery based in Langley, BC. Their wines are made from grapes grown in the Fraser Valley and the Okanagan. On deck will be their Blanc de Noir sparkling which has just won a Silver medal at the 2011 NW Wine Summit – Pacific Rim Wine Competition and a selection of their red wines.

There will be a selection of cheeses to taste alongside the wines and, of course, Canada Day cookies.

At 5pm we will draw the winners for the Grand Prize Granville Island Experience competition (see here for details)  plus some other surprise prizes.

We will be opening at at 10am on Friday, and everyday for July & August, with regular close at 11pm.

On behalf of Scott, Paul, David, Cordell and Maureen we look forward to seeing you on Friday.

Ever wondered what wine grapes taste like? Thursday 21st October

Is wine the result of winemaking magic or can you taste what it will be like from the grapes that go into it. Well wonder no more.

Tonight (Wednesday 20 October) and tomorrow (Thursday 21 October) we have grapes from Tinhorn Creek just harvested. These are the grapes that are going into next year`s wine.

Come down and try Syrah, Cabernet Franc, Merlot and Chardonnay grapes. It`s a fun thing to do.

 

P.S. if we have enough we`ll carry this over to Friday 22nd too

And the Winners are…

Draw prize winners from our BC Wine Fest are:

Memphis Blues cookbook: Ticket # 567350 Jen
Menus from the Orchard cookbook: Ticket #5674388 Ryan

and…

Gift Certificate for a 2 night stay at Tinhorn Creek’s guest lodge: Ticket#5674369 Wendy

Congrats to all the winners. You have been contacted and have one week from today to claim your prizes, Any unclaimed prizes after that will be redrawn.

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)