One of our very favorite cities in the world is Vancouver, British Columbia.

It’s easy to reach from Seattle thanks if you take the Amtrak Cascades train (a pleasant, four-hour journey), clean and cosmopolitan, and one of the best places to wine and dine we’ve ever encountered. Here’s a view from the train on our ride back from Vancouver. 

Last month we headed up north for the 31st annual Vancouver Playhouse International Wine Festival, which we’d been hearing about for ages but never had the pleasure to attend (until now). It was everything and more than it had been billed. . .as two huge trade tastings proved, with distributors from around the world.

We saw some familiar faces, such as Stephen Cipes, owner of Summerhill Pyramid Winery, located in British Columbia’s Okanagan Valley. 

And, from closer to home, Gilles Nicault, from Washington State’s Long Shadows Vintners. 

We also ran into Joe Dobbes (center), from Oregon’s Dobbes Family Estate.

The neatest thing about this year’s fest was that the theme was British Columbia wines. This was a first in the venerable festival’s history. . .only one before had Canadian wines been the center of attention. And for BC wines to finally take their place front and center stage was a real feather in the cap for a wine industry that has really just gotten up and running during the past decade. 

One of the most fun workshops I attended was entitled, “Blind, Blind,” during which we did a blind tasting of wines while actually blindfolded! It was a challenging exercise not only to not knock over the nine wine glasses (!) but to try to figure out what was in each glass. In the photo above, I am “listening” to the wine to determine if its is still or sparkling. 

In an upcoming post, we’ll give you a rundown of the restaurants we tried and liked, and those that didn’t fare as well.