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2006
Essentials for Travellers
Okanagan Fall Wine Festival 2007 Okanagan Summer Wine Festival 2007 International Wine Events in 2007 Vancouver Playhouse International Wine Festival 2007 Okanagan Fall Wine Festival 2006 Sonoma County Showcase of Wine & Food 2006 International Wine Events in 2006 Recently Recommended Vintage Destinations Travel Books Madrid Fusion IV ~ Spanish Wines Take Flight Prince Edward County's Field of Dreams Long Dog Winery - No Long Shot! Vancouver Playhouse International Wine Festival 2005 Chicago Treasures from Art to Wine New Zealand: A Taste of Things to Come TimeOutToronto ~ The Triplets of Belleville Arizona Wineries The Lowdown on Lodi ~North America’s most exciting viticultural area International Wine Events in 2004 World's Largest Parsnip ~ Royal Winter Fair 2003 Uxbridge Celebration of the Arts 2003 Myths and Legends of the World Michelin Three Star Chef at Wildfire Restaurant at Taboo Best Vintage Destinations ~ Top Spots for 2002-2003 The Shiraz Rush is On! ~ South Africa's Hottest Grape IFOAM 2002 Organic World Congress 2002 Miami Art Highlight - Roy Lichtenstein: Inside/Outside New Horizons for Ontario’s Culinary Wine Tourism© New Zealand ~ A New Culinary Cornucopia
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Best
Vintage Destinations It has been an exciting year
with plenty of ups and down. Trying to pinpoint “the best” is always an
extremely difficult task. It really depends on one’s discretionary income and
personal likes and dislikes. An abstaining golfer might not have all that much
fun on one of my forays. #1
• New Zealand Having said that, with over
100,000 air miles under my belt, the most exciting destination would have to be
New Zealand. Perhaps it is my fondness for the American Pacific Northwest coast
(Washington, Oregon and northern California), but my two-week visit to this
stunning land was without parallel. Let me kick off with Air
New Zealand, which partners with Air Canada. I
found the service and especially the food on business class to be exceedingly
good. Everything from the cutlery, specially designed colourful dishes,
indigenous ingredients and creative recipes made the in-flight cuisine special.
(Click
Here to see an article I wrote on New Zealand
cuisine). They don’t have full recliners, but then neither does AC. I made the
mistake by booking a flight that stopped in Fiji (meaning that we had to get off
the plane) as opposed to flying non-stop directly from LA to Auckland. Given the
dire straights of the airline, I hope that the level of service we experienced
is being continued.
Note
that the Lodge at Paratiho Farms is one of 26 luxury lodges and sporting
retreats in the New
Zealand Lodge Association
(Click Here
to see their website). While I have not had the window to visit other properties
in this group, judging by what I experienced at Paratiho Farms I am sure that
numerous other gems exist. The thing about all these properties is their size
– they vary from 4 to 20 bedrooms and have a wonderful personal touch that is
often missing when traveling abroad. #2
• South Africa
Just a note on travel to South Africa. I flew business class via New York City on South African Airways to Cape Town with two changes of planes (the one in NYC actually entailed a change of airports to JFK plus another in Johannesburg). All planes have a stop for refueling in Cape Verde (meaning that you have to get off the plane) on the return flight. Unfortunately, my flight also stopped on the way over, which still happens on the Monday and Wednesday flights out of NYC. In my opinion, this was definitely not the way to go! Worse yet, the business class seats had been erroneously advertised as full recliners and yet some of them could not be fully reclined. Those that could were restricted by the fact that every seat was filled on the return flight. South African Airways has
apparently improved things but I strongly suggest that you call and get all the
details on your flight and seat along with the name of the agent you are talking
to in case you have been given incorrect information. More and more, it seems
that the customer is always wrong when dealing with airlines (call
1-800-722-9675). My solution would be to plan a restful stopover in Germany and
then travel direct to Cape Town with Lufthansa
German Airlines (1-800- 563-5954), which offers impeccable and reliable
business class service. #3
• Miami Putting on the Ritz Update:
Check out the Air
Canada Winter Seat Sale running to January
20th 2003
The culinary highlight of the
trip was at the stunningly designed Azul
Restaurant. It is located in the new super deluxe and
extremely expensive Mandarin
Oriental Miami, a waterside business hotel located
on the downtown Brickell Key “island” hosting lovely southern views. Chef
Michelle Bernstein works wonders in the kitchen. Certainly nothing I tasted
in the various highly touted South Beach restaurants could even come close to
matching her prowess. (Click
Here to see details on Azul).
#4
• British Columbia: Okanagan Valley & Vancouver Island Air
Canada’s Toronto-direct seat sale to Vancouver
Island (as in Victoria) and even occasionally the Okanagan Valley (as in Kelowna)
provide excellent short term get-aways. That is, of course, if the AC website is
willing to cooperate and take your booking - it refused on a number of occasions
when I have clicked on to their website. Update:
Check out the Air Canada Winter Seat Sale
running to January
20th 2003 While my Okanagan Valley visit
has been covered in a recent article (Click
Here to see my feature), the updated
piece on Victoria will be appearing shortly. In addition to the well-known Sooke
Harbour House, which is universally recognized as
one of Canada’s leading resort destinations, I am anxious to add a terrific
restaurant Deep
Cove Chalet. I first discovered owner/chef Pierre
Koffle and his exquisite retreat two decades ago. As the chief judge of the
Canadian Travel-Holiday Dining Awards, Deep Cove Chalet was an award winner.
What a joy to see that Pierre’s food still excels after all these years. A
luncheon there last August with winemaker Eric
Von Krosigk was one of this year’s fine dining moments (Click
Here to see the menu). The superb but
straightforward classic French cuisine rivals the best in Canada (including
Montreal’s justly famous Toqué)
- whether it is foie gras, an omelet or just a tarte tatin. The Chalet is a
forty-minute drive from downtown Victoria and just a few minutes from the B.C.
Ferry Terminal. Needless to say, the stunning scenery made our outdoor dining
experience simply sublime.
#5
• Mendoza, Argentina
The hotel can make arrangements for a wide range of outdoor
activities such as fishing, biking, trekking and skiing. The Regency Casino
Mendoza, which has two floors of gaming tables and slot machines is located
right on the property. It is only 15 minutes to the international airport or to
the Mendoza vineyards and 90 minutes from major ski resorts. And don’t forget
that while Mendoza is about 700 miles northwest of Buenos Aires, it is only 235
miles from Santiago. Toronto
& Region
As for destinations in the
nearby Niagara wine country,
you might refer to my National Post column (Click
Here to visit the feature) covering this region,
which is rapidly growing in popularity. See my next update in mid-February
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Copyright: Food & Beverage Testing Institute
of Canada 2004 |
We purchased four NZ guides for
the trip - Fodor’s, Frommer’s, the Rough Guide and Lonely Planet. Perhaps
the 10th edition of the latter was the most informative - all 720
pages of it. Unfortunately, none of them mentioned the recently-
The
resort highlight of the past year
During a one-week visit to South
Africa in February 2002 for the biannual wine fair I was headquartered at the
luxurious 
My short two-day stay at the new
I made my two-week foray to
Mendoza just prior to Argentina’s economic collapse. In fact, my Buenos
Aires-Rio-Toronto Air Canada flight departed just the day before the rioting
broke out in early December. I had been warned that there wasn’t a decent
hotel in Mendoza, which I am happy to report, is far from the truth. In fact,
Mendoza has a stunning property the spanking new 
The top Toronto hotel still is
the elegant, posh