Calgary and Wine in the Fall

The holiday rush in the beverage business started with a bang almost two weeks ago — suppliers, winemakers, agents and media types wake up from their summer hiatus to attend luncheons and spend hours in exhibitor booths at wine shows.

Rocky Mountain Wine & Food Festival

The first wine show for most in Alberta is the Rocky Mountain Wine & Food Festival which took place October 14-16 in Calgary and November 5-6 in Edmonton. Normally the Calgary weekend is a chance to say goodbye to friends and family who don’t work in wine and begin catching up with those friends and family who do. I say this light-heartedly, but it really is the starting weekend of a period in which I won’t have a day off until late November.

New this year to the shows were a number of Wine Access International Value Wine Awards-themed seminars, featuring winners at this year’s competition that were also being poured at the tasting booths. Now in addition to spending my weekend at the wine show, I would also be hosting these seminars.

We hosted three seminars at Calgary (keep in mind, I did not name the seminars), ‘Cause everyday should be Bubbly-licious!,’ ‘Fabulous Reds for a Steal,’ and ‘Sexy Whites that Over-Deliver.’ What a blast — two were sold out and we came pretty close on the third. Aside from the welcome chance to sit down for about an hour at the show, ticket holders tasted 5 winning wines, listened to me dispense wine wisdom and all sorts of other perks.

Dinner with Peter Lehmann

After three glorious days on my feet at the Calgary Rocky Mountain Wine & Food Festival, I had dinner with Peter and Margaret Lehmann of Peter Lehmann wines on Sunday, October 17th. I don’t want to say that he is a legend, but he is pretty much a legend in wine. You may not be the biggest fan of Australian wines, but if you’ve drank Australian wine, you’ve probably had his wine. Whether the Clancy’s, Weighbridge (the wine I selected for my step-sister’s wedding wines), or the iconic Stonewell Shiraz, they do it all well.

I am sure that most people in Western Canada have dined at Earls at least once (I remember when the décor was pretty much parrot-chic,) but if you have the chance to try a special menu or go there for a special event — do it. The dinner was held at Earls Tin Palace on 4th Street in Calgary and included a four course meal paired with the Peter Lehmann wines. I have been lucky enough to attend a few of their special events and I am continually amazed. At the very least, join the Earl’s Wine Club. 

The dinner menu was custom to the event and was pretty damn good. Appetizers of prawn mango maki and a tuna tartar with Barossa Blonde (very quaffable and of good quality too,) followed by “Summer to Fall” Hotchkiss Farms tomato panzanella, which was a perfect first course matched with Fuller’s White a sémillon/sauvignon blanc blend.

The third course was a roast Alberta beef tenderloin and it was some of the most tender meat I have ever had. You could cut it with a kind word. Matched up with both the Peter Lehmann 1999 Mentor and the 2005 Mentor, this was a stunning combination. Personally, I enjoyed the 1999 a little more, but in no way was the 2005 too young or not showing well.

We moved on to the next course, which was a bison fennel ricotta-stuffed ravioli matched with the Futures shiraz from 2007. It was pretty good, but like most chefs using truffle oil, this dish had a little too much and beat the hell out of the wine. The dish would have been a much better pairing with about a ¼ of the truffle oil.

Peter Lehmann is a very engaging speaker and his wife, Margaret, seems to keep him on the straight and narrow, claiming, “My life is a closed book, if you want to know intimate details, ask Margaret.”

Such a good night.

Cheers!

Follow Tom on twitter @cowtownwine for what's happening in wine around Calgary and beyond.