Destination Travel: Kelowna in the Okanagan Wine Country

In spring, summer, fall and winter in British Columbia's stunningly beautiful Okanagan Valley, the Okanagan Wine Festivals Society organizes a Festival to celebrate wine, food, culture and a wide range of summer and winter outdoor activities.

I was in Kelowna for the May 2010 Spring Wine Festival and met with Christina Ferreira and Blair Baldwin of the Society to learn about the origin and current festivities of these Wine Festivals.

  This year is the 30th anniversary of the first Fall Festival which was an informal gathering of local 5 wineries to party and celebrate the end of harvest. The Spring Festival was started much later but over the 16 years of tracking attendance at these two festivals, it seems that their popularity is now on a par.

Thirty years later, the Spring and Fall Festivals have grown into 10 day events that see approximately 200,000 visits to participating wineries. About 1000 people attend the smaller weekend long Winter and Summer Festivals held at the resorts

The Greenroom Restaurant and The View Winery

101 - 1360 Ellis Street

(Library Parkade),

Kelowna

Ph: 250-869-0193

For the Okanagan  Spring Wine Festival, two of Kelowna's favorite boutique venues joined together to pair fine food and wine in a three course prix fixé dinner menu. We had supper at the Greenroom restaurant, where chef Scott Nystrom offered an interesting choice of two appetizers, three main courses and two dessert dishes on the special menu.

Each of the three entrees was paired with a wine from The View Winery, an establishment so new that it does not yet have a tasting room open,  but  whose Pinotage and Gewürtztraminer  were both finalists in the 2010 Wine Festival Best of Varietal  Competition.

Wasabi Izakaya

1623 Pandosy St.,

Kelowna

Ph: 250-762-7788

Wandering around the city centre of Kelowna we noticed several sushi restaurants.

After my first visit to Japan in the early eighties I became a sushi devoteee and my kids were in their teens before they realized that raw fish was not the staple food of Canadian cuisine.

So despite the many other cafes and bistros we also saw on our wanderings, for our first lunch experience we decided to try Wasabi Izakaya. It proved to be an excellent choice.

The cold wind seemed to penetrate our jackets as we walked around and by the time we were seated in the warmth of the restaurant we were craving something hot. So we decided to share the Dynamite Roll and Tempura combo, and the Salmon-tuna Sashimi and California Roll combo, both of which came with a bowl of steaming hot miso soup. The first combo also came with a salad.

To set the stage- or perhaps I should say - to set the table - for the "supping" aspect of our Destination Travel: Kelowna I arranged to meet Chef Rod Butters at his restaurant, RauDZ, on Water Street, on the first morning of our visit. An icy wind was blowing through the streets of downtown Kelowna and by the time we arrived at the door of the restaurant we were chilled. Chef Butters invited us in and promptly offered to brew Americanos. We stood at the bar and sipped the coffee and I gradually felt the warmth seeping back into my body.

I was familiar with his culinary biography but curious about a few of his culinary adventures so we began our discussion there. A B.C. native, Chef Butters was born in Port Coquitlam and worked at The Keg during high school. He went to Indiana State on a baseball scholarship and then played in Washington State. He returned to Vancouver to attend culinary school, and then worked at Scaramouche in Toronto, Four Seasons Hotels in Toronto and Vancouver, the opening team at Chateau Whistler among other places.

In 1996 he embarked on an exciting venture as the opening chef and co-manager with Charles McDiarmid, managing owner, for the new Wickaninnish Inn in Tofino on the West Coast of Vancouver Island. Opening that quality of world class hotel and restaurant in the middle of nowhere with the challenges of getting staffing and supplies to the West Coast of the Island, was one of the stand-out experiences of his life. Chef Butters commented that this remarkable achievement was a testament to everyone that worked to make this happen from dishwashers, housekeeping and office staff to management.

I understood what he was saying because the Wickaninnish Inn holds a special place in my heart. In October 1999 my brother and sister-in-law came out from South Africa to visit with my husband, who was quite ill at the time. We wanted to show them something special about British Columbia and we picked Wicknninnish Inn as that special choice. The flight we booked stopped in Victoria and then the small plane flew north for a while along the mountainous spine of the Vancouver Island Range. The image of breaking through the clouds into a V of sunlight just before landing at Tofino,is engraved in my memory.

At the Inn we had a beautiful room looking out onto an inlet with huge waves breaking on the rocks. The second memory I hold from that time is soaking in the hot tub in our room  and observing the sight and sound of the crashing waves and foam spraying from the rocks.The third memory is of savoring the flavours of the wonderful meals we enjoyed over the days that we were there. Our visit to Wickaninnish Inn was all too short, but it is one of the treasured times that comfort me whenever sad thoughts come to mind.