SNOWFLAKE WINE FESTIVAL WAS FLAWLESS

The First Annual Snowflake Wine Festival, held on Saturday by the Revelstoke Ski Club and Revelstoke Mountain Resort, was a critical success with 160 people in attendance.

“Right now it looks like it is going to be a successful fundraiser that I am sure we will consider again next year,” said sponsorship organizer Todd Hicks, adding that the proceeds had not yet been fully calculated.

“The committee was very happy with the turn out and how everything went. We were especially appreciative of the support we received from the silent auction donors, our partners for the event — RMR and Nelsen Lodge and the Sandman Group — as well as all the participating wineries.”

The event was held at RMR’s Nelsen Lodge and featured wines from Larch Hills, Desert Hills, Twisted Tree, Mt. Boucherie, Therapy Vineyards, Misconduct Wine Company, Blasted Church, Sonoran Estate Winery, Kalala Organic Estate, Summerhill, Thornhaven and 8th Generation. Mount Begbie Brewery was also on hand to serve up their thirst-quenching golden product and the fantastic hors oeuvres were prepared by the Modern Bakery and Cafe.

Many of the people at the event were what is often described as “the new demographic” — new or relatively new residents in the 25-45 age bracket who have emigrated from the big cities.

“This is a bit different from the Rotary wine festivals,” Mayor David Raven noted in conversation. “Those would have been maybe 25 per cent new people. This is more like 95 per cent.”

The music provided by the duo of Jackson Yauck and Riley Dickson and, later by a trio composed of Matt Potter, Jocelynne Wilms and Doris Falkens, was excellent.

The only off-note of the evening occurred when 18 people crowded into an elevator for a tour of some of the Nelsen Lodge condos and got stuck between floors for a short while.

Poppi Reiner, who was one of the 18 who were trapped, said the hot and sweaty experience was relieved, in a grim humour kind of way, by the fact that when they lifted the in-elevator phone they got help desk somewhere in the U.S. “They asked like, ‘Is Revelstoke in Canada? Is it in Victoria? Is it near Vancouver?’” Reiner laughed. “Then they said they could send a technician. ‘No,’ we said. ‘Just call this number (for RMR) and tell them we’re stuck!’”

But that minor incident aside the evening went off as planned. It’s too bad, though, that I can’t yet buy advance tickets for next year’s Snowflake Wine Festival.