Wine Confidential on CBC

Last night, the CBC aired a surprisingly interesting 1 hour special dedicated to fine wine in full HD. The show was called Wine Confidential and featured interviews from Robert Parker (when he was up here last year for the Halpern tastings), Gary Vanderchuck (Wine Library TV), winemakers in France, California and Ontario including Dan Ackryod and The Greedy One (No. 99 wine - sorry, couldn't resist the jab despite the good work that profits from this winery deliver).

I was impressed how much was covered and there was enough interest to keep a couple of wine geeks entertained.

Sean Thackery is quite a character guided by some interesting historic text books.

Ange & pax of iYellow Wine Club fame enjoyed lots of airtime too.

Lots of interesting characters and wonderful HD footage. The industrial production of Two Buck Chuck was a huge gut check for me.

The CBC has posted a stream of the entire episode here.

I found it particularly funny that this morning the morning crew at Q107 was talking up the show and how wine is gaining in roads with the beer drinking guys of the world.

Congrats to the CBC. It's hard to balance the interests of the broad prime time audience with those of wine geeks. They pulled it off.

Comments

[Erin]

Hey Ken, I'm a regular reader of this blog and find it immensely helpful to have local bloggers dishing the dirt on all the great things happening in Toronto.

I did get a giggle out of the "Greedy One" comment, but was just wondering if you were aware that his winery was set up to help raise funds for the Wayne Gretzky Foundation, an organization that helps "less fortunate" kids get involved in hockey. I think Wayne's got plenty of cash to play with, and it's nice to see him using his name for charity endeavours.

[Ken Bereskin]

Hi Erin,

Fair enough and I should add a note that winery does good work. That said, I have no doubt that there are better ways for celebrities to help. Wine that I seek out and enjoy is usually made by passionate artisans so the line "Let's make it perfectly clear. I don't know a whole lot about wine" left me thinking that No. 99 could have been just as easily pushing a Ford truck on me. Contrast that with Dan Ackryod who appears to be exceptionally passionate about helping Niagara get some attention in the vast world of wine.

Cheers… Ken

[DFang]

I agree with your point of view. I was down at Creekside recently and was completely taken aback when I was told that they produce Gretzky's line. For sure, he's doing a great thing for charity, but it blows my mind that he has almost no part in this venture other than signing the labels. For someone like myself, who believes strongly in Niagara as a potentially extraordinary wine region, this kind of celebrity packaging is offensive.

Enjoy your blog, just discovered it. Good to see another wine drinker from Toronto who actually knows what they're talking about!