GOURMET FOOD AND WINE EXPO 2009

There are two things I consider at the top of my list when I ponder about the things I love and could not live without: Great food and plenty of drinks (not to sound like a hungry drunk).  And surprisingly enough, prior to this past weekend, I had never been to the Gourmet Food and Wine Expo before, and after attending, I had to ask myself, “Why?”

It was the 15th year of the 4 day event, held at the Metro Toronto Convention Center, allowing guests the opportunity to sample more then 1,500 of the worlds finest wines, beers and spirits, while experiencing food from some of Toronto’s finest chef’s. In addition to the designated food and wine sampling areas, there were 4 other attractions taking place, the Fine Wine Tasting Lounge, the Connoisseurs Corner Stage, the Tutored Tastings Program, and the Food Network Stage.

I’ll admit, my original thought of the event suggested an excuse to get intoxicated for many hours in a non-stop taste testing frenzy, within a contained social setting.  I was semi right, well, for some guests anyway.  I came into the venue with a very limited knowledge of wines (heck, in the summer we were merrily sipping on Trader Joe’s Two Buck Chuck’s and couldn’t tell the difference), and was overwhelmed with the grand selection being offered to us.

We walked into the event around 4pm, armed with 40 tickets, each worth $1.  We quickly realized that the suggested $40 per person minimum ticket purchase outlined in the expo guide was a lot more accurate.  Each exhibitor booth pitched their products in hopes that they would be able to draw your interest and eventually get you to swap tickets for a sample.  Most beverage samples ran about 1 – 4 tickets for an ample taste test, depending on the nature of what was available.

We made our rounds before committing to anything right away, and decided we would educate ourselves first, at the Connoisseur’s Corner.  This feature of the expo hosted hourly presentations, which were 45 minute classes instructed by members of the Independent Wine Education Guild (IWEG).  5 tickets bought you a tutored class with 6 tasting samples.  We were outside watching when a volunteer told us, “you should do it, it’s a great deal. 6 drinks for 5 tickets.” SOLD.

The class we attended was ‘A Celebration of Ontario’s 2007 Vintage’ presented by Tony Aspler.  For those who don’t know, he has been writing about wine for over 30 years, and having being a wine columnist for Toronto Star for 21 years and authoring 12 books on wine and food, i’d think he was qualified enough to educate us.

His seminar walked us through a variety of tips, tricks, and tidbits about tasting and the history of Ontario’s 2007 Vintages.  Since I can’t really avoid sounding like a complete newbie, I will just recap some of the points I picked up during the class:

- You taste wine with your nose, not your mouth

- Sweet wine suppresses hunger, while dry wine increases hunger

- Sucking in air while wine is in your mouth gives you more taste (but only try it in the privacy of your home)

- There is an agent present in wines, called Resveratrol which cleans your arteries by keeping fatty deposits from blood vessels

- Tannins found in the grapes in wine are thought to be the culprit in giving wine drinker’s headaches, as they can enhance dehydration

After listening to that informative presentation, we felt we were ready to jump in and give some wine a taste, but first we would have a bite to eat.  We stopped at Taste of Elio for some Elk Risotto ($5 for a small plate), and although we couldn’t really taste the elk (or find it), it was pretty good.  We then ventured off to the Ruelo booth, stocked full of colourful and visually appealing macarons.  The fluorescent display caught the attention of guests whether or not they stopped to take a closer look.  The owner suggested I try the store signature flavour Ruelo (chocolate praline) while my partner Michelle decided to try the Wasabi Grapefruit.  Both were delicious, though the Wasabi Grapefruit had a unique blend of flavour.  You taste the grapefruit in the initial bite, and slowly the sweet kick of wasabi creeps in that completely heightens your senses.  For $2-3 alot of other guests passed on it, but it was worth the taste.

We tried a bunch of free samples at other booths, including caramel vegetable dips, chocolate fondues, Canadian Club barbeque sauces, and a new product called Xoçai.  I wasn’t too enthusiastic about the product at first glance, but the sales person was eager to sway us, and we gave him a chance.  The company boasts of healthy chocolate, one of the richest in antioxidants, achieved by creating unprocessed chocolate made of natural European cocoa powder and Açai berry from the Amazon Rain Forest.  They offer a full range of products such as nuggets, protein bars and drinks.  We tried the fondue, and despite being a healthy unprocessed form of chocolate, it retained most of the taste.  I’m still a little skeptical about it being healthy, but it is something you should take a look at if you are searching for an alternative.

One of the products we were keen on sampling was Taboo Absinthe by Okanagan Spirits.  For $4 we tried a shot, though we realized after we paid that it had to be diluted by mixing an ounce of Absinthe with a sugar cube and water.  While watching our drink being prepared through it’s stages, we asked the server what this tubelike device that they were using to pour the shot was.  A few elderly ladies beside us replied, “a Bong.”

“A bomb?” asked the server.

“You’re younger than us and you don’t know what a bong is?” replied the lady.

We laughed it up as the server explained it was a pour spout, to pour the perfect ounce.  We conversed with the clearly experienced ladies who insisted that I must one day try Absinthe straight over good conversation, and told me stories of their past encounters with the drink while traveling abroad in Paris some time ago.

We stopped at the [Yellowtail] booth, which occupied a decent bit of space. They had their own bar area, serving an endless supply of their wines, and also an interactive mini-putting area, which challenged guests to golf for prizes.  You get three tries, and two successful holes get you a spin on the wheel.  I’m not sure what you win, as I missed all three, but the nice part was that everyone who made an attempt received a complimentary tote bag for putting themselves up for embarrassment.  Great marketing tool as everyone walking around venue sported these bright yellow bags with the Yellowtail logo emblazoned on the side.

We also tried German maker Relax brand of Reisling.  To backtrack, the night before while perusing through the wine section at LCBO, we had wanted to try this particular wine before settling on a bottle of Fuzion Shiraz and Fish Eye Pinot Grigio.  The wine was good, a tad sweet and dry but otherwise very drinkable.

At around 6:30 we headed to the Food Network Stage, to watch the ‘Journey to Morocco’ cooking demonstration by Chef Bouchra Sidali, presented by The Sultan’s Tent & Café Moroc.  While explaining Moroccan cuisine, she cooked what I believe was Chicken Marakesh and Latshin oranges.  After handing out samples to the crowd, she finished off by making Mint tea, which altogether was completely memorable (apparently so much that I forgot to remember what we ate!).

The official theme of this years event was Portugal, and as such, the expo featured the Esplêndido Portugal pavilion which featured the best portuguese wines in a Portuguese atmosphere.  At this point we were running low on tickets, so we opted to try a cheaper drink, $1 for a taste of Lancers Rosé.  It has alot of fruit flavour, which I found to be very refreshing.

At this point, the crowd was beginning to get heavy, and the queue for tasting was becoming quite tedious.  We were thinking of restocking tickets, but decided otherwise.  Before leaving we went by the Argentinean pavilion.  We spoke to a one of the workers who promoted the great country to us, trying to explain that though winery is a big industry, there is much more to the country then wine.  We chatted for a bit, politely stayed for a survey, and spent our last tickets on a glass of Fuzion (tried tested and true!) Shiraz that is a blend of Shiraz and Malbec grapes, and left.

As for the event, it is worthwhile if you have the cash to spend, especially with a $15 entrance fee that I know many shrugged off.  With that said, there was a line waiting to get in that stretched around the corner to the bottom of the elevators (Keeping in mind, the event only ran until at 10pm that night) when we were leaving the venue at 8:45pm, so it is a popular event for good reason.