| 01 September 2010
Kick-started by an English ex-pat whose 1867 saloon sparked a city-sized development, Vancouver was founded on the idea of a good drink. But since the days of Gassy Jack Deighton — that fella on the whisky barrel plinth in historic Gastown — the bar scene here has lurched around like a drunk on payday: plenty of quantity but not enough quality. Luckily, recent years have seen a toast-triggering transformation.
Mirroring a renaissance in BC wine and micro-brewed beer, Vancouver suddenly has enough great watering holes to make bar crawling a worthy pastime. From new character taverns like Six Acres to gastropubs like Three Lions and cocktail-hugging haunts like Habit Lounge, there’s never been a better time for a citywide tipple or three. And the best of the older bars still cut it too: the brassy Yale, the den-like Brickhouse and the reinvented Irish Heather easily hold their own among the upstarts.
Intrigued by this dizzying resurgence, I launched an exhaustive weave around the city’s freshly hot bar scene. But rather than stopping after a few brews, I kept on going … hence the new book, Drinking Vancouver: 100+ Great Bars in the City and Beyond. Now that I’ve finally sobered up, here’s a six-pack of some of my favourites, complete with libation tips and raves from their regulars.
| 26 August 2010
The Chilean wine industry is at a defining point in its evolution. Historically, Chile’s place in the wine world has largely been identified as a producer of inexpensive wine. This label served it well when first entering new markets in the 1990s, but producers have discovered recently that there is little consumer loyalty (or profitability) at the seven-to-nine-dollar price point. Australia, and now Argentina, have both eroded Chile’s market share for entry level wines, and, in general, the wines from these countries are more approachable and consumer friendly.
For years, Chilean producers ignored their greatest asset ... the country’s geography. It is only in the past 10 to 15 years that producers have started to identify the country’s diversity of soils and microclimates. And as vineyard managers and winemakers improved techniques and gained a better understanding of what grapes grow best in what areas, the quality of the resulting wines improved dramatically.