Arrived last night in Vancouver, and it was straight off to dinner at Forage with the small UK press group I’m travelling with, and Chris Coletta of Haywire. Forage is a really impressive place with lovely small plates – everything was spot on. Favourite dishes:
- Keremeos asparagus, St. George’s mushrooms, asparagus purée, mushroom velouté
- beetroot salad, compressed radishes, smoked yogurt, bull kelp granola
- brown butter & spruce tip gnocchi, fromage frais, nodding onion
Its innovative nature is probable best summed up by one of the desserts we had, which was entirely constructed from vegetables (pictured below). The wine list here is exclusively from BC (British Columbia, the Canadian province we are in, which has the Okanagan and Similkameen Valleys as its main wine regions), and we had some nice bottles:
Stag’s Hollow Albariño 2016 Okanagan, Canada
I’m pretty sure that this is the only Albariño in the Okanagan. Full flavoured but very fresh with linear citrus and pear fruit. Nice lemony fruit with some tangerine hints. This is a really successful take on Albariño. 90/100
Little Farm Pied de Cuvée Chardonnay 2015 Similkameen Valley, Canada
I really like this, but for the record I must note that it was a little too extreme for the rest of the group. I ended up drinking what they’d left. Apply, nutty, lemony and textural. Minerally and intense with lovely precision. An oxidative style but with lovely acidity and freshness. 92/100
Blue Mountain Pinot Noir 2015 Okanagan, Canada
This is a very drinkable Pinot, showing elegance and some non-fruit complexity. Juicy and bright with red cherries, plums, fine herbs. Detailed and spicy with some undergrowth characters. Elegant and characterful and tasting beautiful now. 91/100
Meyer Family Vineyards Pinot Noir Old Block 2016 Okanagan, Canada
This is rich and ripe with dense sweet black cherry and blackberry fruit. Smooth, lush and fine-grained with nice density in the mouth. A really bold intense Pinot that is impressively broad and concentrated. 90/100
Find these wines with wine-searcher.com
See also: The wines of British Columbia, diversity and purity
4 Comments on In Vancouver: dinner at Forage with some nice BC wine
I’m sure you had a lovely evening but who paid for the food and the wine?
Why don’t you tell us?
There is a least one other in the Okanagan: Terravista https://www.terravistavineyards.com/our_wines/albarino/
Richard our group is hosted by the Okanagan Wine Initiative, a group of eight wineries from the region.
Blue Mountain is very good and consistent.