First things first – Whistler is beautiful.

1: Wine dinners are good dinners
And no, not just because you get to try many different wines (although, yes – that is a bit of a bonus too) but because of how much you get to learn in a fun way. I went to the Tinhorn Creek winery dinner at Nita Lake Lodge‘s Aura restaurant. Over four mouthwatering courses, plus dessert, we sipped our way through Tinhorn Creek’s Oldfield series of wines and heard from their Viticulturist and Vineyard Manager, Andrew Moon on the fascinating process of what goes into creating the wines. Just two years ago I tried my first wine from the Okanagan in British Columbia, now I try hard not to drink anything else (did you even know that Canada made wine?! Alas, due to the industry’s current boutique size, they barely export at all. I suspect that in ten years time, Canada will be where Australian wines are now – everywhere and beloved). Tinhorn Creek was new to me, but I’ll be looking out for their wonderfully strawberry-ish Series 2 Bench Rosé  and ambrosial Kerner Ice Wine from now on. Fact of the night for me, was learning how the Rosé was made, I had no idea that in cold seasons you can make great rose from Cabernet Franc grapes, so in colder years, you are likely to have more Rosé being made.

2: It’s called Crush for a reason
The Crush tasting gala takes place in Whistler’s Sea to Sky ballroom in the conference centre in the village. It’s a chance for dozens of wineries to show off what they do and it’s a great opportunity to work your way through a dream of a wine list, one sniff, swirl and sip at a time. Of course the key part to managing that without needing to be carried out is the all-important ‘spit’ bit at the end. If you swallow down dozens of different wines, well – you can guess the rest… I’ve come to the conclusion that either Whistler folk are just very polite and fear causing offense by spitting in public or they really like to drink… I got there on Saturday evening and didn’t see one ‘spit’ all night! Everyone was awfully happy though. The room was heaving, men in suits accompanied women in thigh-grazing minis and vertiginous heels as they clomped from table to table. Earnest conversations took place over swirling glasses between winemakers and wine-lovers. I tried a few wines, sticking as always to my Canada-only policy, I loved Inniskillin’s Pinot Grigiot – I’d only tried their ice wine from the Niagara peninsular in the east of Canada so was delighted to see that they had west coast Okanagan vines too. Pineapple-y and fresh this is another for my To Drink list…

Glamour meets wine tasting at Cornucopia’s Crush.

3: Cooking demos always have great food
The Viking Stage Series of demos in the main foyer of the conference centre were great. If you love cooking shows then you’d love this. Chatty chefs cooking up a storm in front of you, explaining tips and tricks of the trade and then lovely, tasty samples coming out to the gathered crowd. Yum! I watched the Street Meet food truck chefs whip up heavenly sausage Arancini and pumpkin canollis which they paired with Vancouver’s Granville Island beers. Definitely a hot ticket and at $30 a great price to try something new.

4: When you put twenty champagnes in one room, people gon’ go cray-cray
Araxi‘s Bubbles and Oceans party is legendary in Cornucopia circles. One price, twenty different champagnes and sparkling wines and freshly shucked oysters and seafood canapes. “Go to the back room” everyone advised me. “The back is where it’s at”. So after queueing for 20 minutes in the minus 6 degrees chill, I tottered on frozen legs to the back room and found some rather delicious cavas and champagnes. The pours were generous and there was absolutely no question that there would be any spitting here at all! I wandered as best as I could through the packed restaurant to watch the live entertainment, Kytami, a new age “violinistextremist”, she was amazing and I’d love to see her in concert as it was tricky to thoroughly soak up her music over the cheery roar of the crowd. My advice on this is to come with friends and wear steel-toe capped boots. I have a bruised foot from some gal’s spindly heel who clobbered me in her rampage to grab some of the (admittedly delicious) shrimp!

Love this. These ladies had made their own hats. Too cute!

5: Everything is more fun in a hat
Oh wow, how I love a tea party. And how much do I love tea-infused cocktails! So the blend of the two at the gorgeous Fairmont Chateau Whistler in its Mallard lounge was my idea of heaven. It was a sold-out event and I loved the effort that everyone had made. All the women had feathery fascinators or smart cocktail hats. The triple-layered tea tray made me so homesick for Brighton and tea at the Grand! Gorgeous little ham and cheese puffs, pink-hued sweet scones with just-right clotted cream and oh! The cocktails were great too. I tried a green-tea infused Martini which was perfect. Loved this event. It was the first time it has happened at Cornucopia and it’s definitely going to be coming back next year.

I travelled as a guest of Tourism Whistler, but my views are 100% my own.