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It was such a great afternoon..Frank Giustra poured this year’s  version of Dominica Fiore the best Olive Oil in the World, John Skinner founder of Painted Rock pours this year’s  releases  AND  it all took place at Umberto Menghi’s  smashing new restaurant Giardino.

Plus Jim Cuddy and Colin Cripps from Blue Rodeo join Moray Tawse to explain how the new wines The Cuddy by Tawse came to be. All three stories are different.

The best part is all three are storytellers…

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THE SHOW

 Frank Giustra – Domenica Fiore Olio Reserva Olive Oil

John Skinner – Founder of Painted Rock Wines

Umberto Menghi –  Owner of Giardino

 Movie financer and master mind behind some of the most outstanding mining transactions in Latin America, Frank Giustra, Canadian born banker joined Mexican Billionaire Carlos Slim and President Bill Clinton to fight poverty in the region.

Frank Giustra

Rather than attempt to list all of Franks business credits..May I suggest you just Google his name?

Now. About Frank and his Olive Oil..

Frank Giustra always carries several bottles in his luggage whenever he travels.

tdm and Frank Giustra

It has only been five years since Frank bought his first olive tree in Umbria, Italy. At the time, he knew nothing about olive oil and was buying it at Safeway like everyone else.

But Domenica Fiore Olio Reserva, named after his mother, has received the highest score of more than 700 entries from 22 countries at the inaugural New York International Olive Oil Competition. Actually he’s won it multiple times.

He has always loved food, but now he is obsessed!

Domenica Fiore Olio Reserva

Domenica Fiore Olio Reserva extra virgin olive oil ($34.95 for 500 ml) is encased in stainless steel bottles, and vacuum sealed with nitrogen to preserve antioxidants and polyphenols. Each bottle is labeled with a hand-written lot number

Domenica Fiore Olio Reserva

Frank asked his friends John Skinner from Painted Rock and Umberto Menghi from Giardino to partner with him to launch this year’s Olio. I wish you could have been there because it was such fun but we did interviews with all three so you could join us.

John Skinner  was a stockbroker in Vancouver for more than 25 years, during which time he became an avid wine enthusiast. John and his wife Trish dreamed of having their own vineyard after spending time exploring wineries in the South of France with their family.

John Skinner

In 2004, recognizing that the quality of wines in this region was improving dramatically and driven by both his passion for wine and his desire to create a legacy business for his family, he purchased the land in south Penticton known locally as “The Blackhawk.” Perched high on a bench on the east side of Skaha Lake south of Penticton, backing up against the famed climbing bluffs.

He planted in 2005 and 2006 and now has roughly 25 acres under vine, all of it Bordeaux reds or Syrah except for a block of Chardonnay.

On the advice of consultants, he has planted multiple clones of every variety, giving his winemaker good blending options. John was confident that this terroir and its site influences presented “a unique opportunity to create exceptional wines” and that he had “both the opportunity and the obligation to do this property justice.” John and Trish’s vision was and remains to grow exceptional grapes in their estate vineyard to produce ultra-premium wines that reflect the perfect marriage of new world fruit and old world processes, employing the best modern technologies and expertise, while respecting old world traditions. Most satisfying of all is that the whole family has been involved.

Umberto Menghi is already a legendary figure in Vancouver and he’s not done yet!!

umberto menghi

Born in Pontedera, Tuscany, Umberto was sixteen years old when he enrolled in a hotel school in Rome, beginning a life-long commitment to food and the world of great restaurants. After more training in London and Paris, he moved to Canada in 1967, and headed west in 1969. In Vancouver he noted the absence of authentic Italian cooking and determined to do something about it.

In 1973, from a yellow house on the fringe of downtown Vancouver, Umberto started a restaurant revolution with his fresh, authoritative food.

His latest may be his greatest.   Giardino..just steps from his starting point back in 1973.

http://www.umberto.com/

www.paintedrock.ca

www.domenicafiore.com

Moray Tawse

Jim Cuddy

Colin Cripps   The Cuddy by Tawse Winery

Jim Cuddy

Three friends combine their talents to make a new wine label in Niagara – The Cuddy!!  

I’ve long known  that Jim Cuddy (Blue Rodeo & The Jim Cuddy band) will talk wine at the drop of a hat. He’s been a welcome guest on Tasting Room Radio many times.

He has a great cellar at home in Toronto and when he’s on the road,  between shows he goes shopping for wines – especially in Alberta – and loads up the luggage space with selected releases and rare wines.

During the year you can find him playing one-off gigs at wineries all over the country.

Jim is the guy responsible for the amazing talent that graces the stages of The Canadian Culinary Championships. The Gold Medal Plates.

He’s then invited to join the organizers for journeys to South Africa, Italy, France, Spain. So you can see he’s truly a “wine guy”

So,  given the opportunity to create wines with his name on the label who better to partner with than perennial  Winery of the Year Winner Moray Tawse at Tawse, Niagara.

The third member of the winemaking/blending team was guitarist Colin Cripps (Blue Rodeo). The Crippler really knows his wines and especially his blends.

They gathered at Tawse and went over tasting notes on the Chardonnay and then had what Jim called “ a chemistry lesson” when blending the red.

moray tawse

They made a 1000 cases of each and they’ve been released to welcoming reviews.

And how do we in the West get our hands on The Cuddy by Tawse?  Moray explains.

https://www.tawsewinery.ca/

http://www.jimcuddy.com/introducing-cuddy-by-tawse-wines/

https://twitter.com/colincripps

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STORIES WE’RE WORKING ON

Miranda Halliday  Elephant Island

Bob Ferguson – Kettle Valley

Lindsey O’Rourke – Tightrope

Angus An – Maenam/Fat Mao

Clement Chan – ToraFuku

IVSA Tasting in Victoria.

Meet the Makers

Okanagan Falls Spring Pour

Naramata Bench Pours on the Coast

Garagiste North – Vancouver

New Zealand pours in Vancouver

Top Drop  Spring 2017

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Alberto Antonini, World Class Winemaker who travels the world consulting with vineyards and winemakers presents the wines of Garzon from Uruguay!

James Sichel, 6th generation of his family who’ve been in the wine business in Bordeaux since 1883!

…and Alex Prud’Homme. Author of Julia Child /  The French Chef in America.

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THE SHOW

Alberto Antonini

 Uruguay!!

Hands up. How many of us could find Uruguay on a map with no countries identified on it?

Then imagine what the wines coming from Uruguay would be like?

Alberto Antonini

Imagine no longer.
Bodega Garzón, dubbed “little Uruguayan Tuscany”, is situated 11 miles from the Atlantic coast, near the glamorous resort area of Punta del Este, amidst rolling hills covered with vineyards and olive groves.

Saveur magazine called its vineyards’ terroir “arguably, the best in Uruguay.”

Inaugurated in 2016, Bodega Garzón’s new $85 million winery was designed to meet Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design (LEED) standards, and is already producing elegant, complex, medal-winning wines.

Bodega Garzon has introduced itself to Canadian wine fans and pouring those wines was none other than Alberto Antonini.

He was the consultant who gave himself to the final version of what Uruguayan wines would be like.

Many of us know his work locally with Okanagan Crush Pad in Summerland and their Pinot Noir project in the Garnett Valley.

Bodega Garzón – Restaurante Deck

Here’s a brief rundown of his background.

Alberto Antonini was born in Cerreto Guidi near Florence, Tuscany. His education includes a Doctorate degree in Agricultural Studies from the University of Florence and an enology degree in Bordeaux and at the University of California, Davis.

His experience includes involvement as senior wine maker for the wineries of the Antinori and the Frescobaldi families, two of the leading Italian winemaking families as well as several new world wineries, particularly in the U.S. and Argentina where he is a winemaker for E & J Gallo Winery, Altos Las Hormigas, Bodega Melipal,

Al Este Bodega y Viñedos and Bodegas Nieto Senetiner. In addition he is involved with Concha y Toro in Chile, and as winemaking consultant at Chakana Wines in Argentina, and at Okanagan Crush Pad in Canada. His credits include Castello di Bossi’s modern Chianti Classicos and Merlot Girolamo, as well as the Poggio al Tesoro wines from the Bolgheri joint venture between the Allegrini family and U.S. importer Leonardo LoCascio.

Alberto Antonini blends modern techniques with ancient tradition in the pursuit of premium wine making.

He is cited as a key player in helping Argentine Malbec wines gain international appreciation and reputation.

Bodega Garzon One

“Garzón represents a new wine region, a new winery, and a new concept in agriculture. It has been our goal from early on to introduce state-of-the-art technology to enhance our vineyards and produce premium wines.”

Alejandro P. Bulgheroni  Owner/Founder

We welcome back to the show Alberto Antonini

www.bodegagarzon.com

James Sichel – Sichel Wines (Bordeaux)

James Sichel

A cosmopolitan family with branches all over Europe, the Sichels of Bordeaux were of British origin. Looking back across the generations, we can see that the family’s involvement in the world of wine began in 1856 when Hermann Sichel, then aged 65, set up a wine merchant business in Germany.

In 1883, Sichel moved to Bordeaux and set up an office at 19 Quai de Bacalan – the group’s registered headquarters today – right at the heart of the legendary Chartrons district, the historic centre of activity of the Bordeaux wine merchants. At that time, the company was an acquisitions bureau which procured wines for the Sichel companies in Mainz, London and New York.

Sichel Family

In 1938, Allan Sichel, a member of the British branch of the family, joined forces with three other families to buy the legendary – but at that time extremely dilapidated – Château Palmer. For more than 65 years, continuous, sustained investment has been made in the estate in the quest for greater quality, and it is this which has helped to build its reputation. Today, it is viewed as one of the flagship estates of the Médoc.

Chateau Palmer

In 2002, Maison Sichel bought Château Salle d’Arche and renamed it Château d’Argadens in reference to the Saint Macaire family of nobles which owned it in the thirteenth century. Its ambition for the years ahead is to go on improving the quality of Château Argadens to get its wines recognized as some of the best in the Bordeaux Supérieur category.
Château d’Argadens became known as Château Argadens from the 2008 vintage of its reds and the 2009 vintage of its whites.

James Sichel arrived in Vancouver ready to pour many of his most available wines in an afternoon session

Before everyone arrived I sat down with James to get the story of the Sichel family and how they moved from merchants to negociants!

It helps that James is a wordsmith. He paints word pictures about Bordeaux and Sichel.

Enjoy the stories and the pours.

www.sichel.fr/en/home.html

Alex Prud’Homme – Author  (Julia Child  The French Chef in America)

Julia Child is synonymous with French cooking, but her legacy runs much deeper. Now, her great-nephew and My Life in France coauthor  Alex Prud’Homme vividly recounts the myriad ways in which she profoundly shaped how we eat today. He shows us Child in the aftermath of the publication of Mastering the Art of French Cooking, suddenly finding herself America’s first lady of French food and under considerable pressure to embrace her new mantle. Every bit as entertaining, inspiring, and delectable as My Life in France, The French Chef in America uncovers Julia Child beyond her “French chef” persona and reveals her second act to have been as groundbreaking and adventurous as her first.

In 2004 Alex helped Julia Child write her memoir, My Life in France, about her “favorite years” — 1948-1954 — when she and her husband Paul lived in Paris and Marseille. (Paul was his grand uncle, his grandfather’s twin brother.)

In France Julia experienced “a flowering of the soul” and discovered her raison d’etre in cooking. They  worked together for eight months, until Julia died in her sleep two days shy of her 92d birthday. He spent another year finishing My Life in France, published in 2006. The book reached #1 on the New York Times best-seller list.

In 2009, it inspired half of Nora Ephron’s film “Julie & Julia,” which starred Meryl Streep.

In 2014, a decade after working on My Life in France, he circled back to answer a few questions about Julia that had tugged at his curiosity: what was it like for the Childs to retire from the Foreign Service in 1961, and settle in Cambridge, Massachusetts? How did Julia first appear on Public Television in 1963, win an Emmy in 1966, and land on the cover of Time in 1967? And what led her to the White House, the Queen of England, James Beard and Colonial food, to leave Public TV for Good Morning America, and to become America’s first true celebrity chef?

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Julia Child and Alex Prud’Homme

Julia reached the peak of her celebrity in the Seventies – epitomized by Dan Aykroyd’s famous “Save the Liver!” parody on Saturday Night Live in 1978 . Researching this era Alex  discovered a trove of articles, scripts, documentary footage, correspondence, and notes about unpublicized or forgotten aspects of the Childs’ lives. Interviewing Julia’s colleagues, he learned how disciplined, hardworking and resilient she was, how deeply she loved her family and friends, the breadth of her culinary knowledge, the depth of her generosity, creativity, curiosity, and natural humor. “The idea,” she said, “was to take the bugaboo out of cooking.”

http://www.alexprudhomme.com/about-alex/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_Child

https://www.facebook.com/JuliaChild

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STORIES WE’RE WORKING ON

John Skinner – Painted Rock

Frank Giustra – Dominica Fiore

Umberto Menghi – Giardino

Miranda Halliday  Elephant Island

Bob ferguson – Kettle Valley

Lindsey O’Rourke – Tightrope

Angus An – Maenam/Fat Mao

Clement Chan – ToraFuku

IVSA Tasting in Victoria.