Sunset on the Beach

The next so many entries are probably going to seem more like a travelogue than wine blog postings - but then they go pretty much hand-in-hand with my raison d'etre for this blog.

Boo and I had a week off and had been invited to join up with Bella Jianna and her man, Flyboy B, for Canadian Thanksgiving in Sidney (Vancouver Island, not Australia). Since we needed to take the ferry and cruise the straits anyhow, we thought we should spend a couple days up in the Tofino area as well. It had been years since we've been able to lay back and enjoy a little R&R on the REAL West Coast.

As pleasant as the ferry ride over and drive across Vancouver Island is, by the time we arrived around seven hours later, a quick glass of wine, to be followed by a walk on the beach was just what we needed. We decided to splurge a bit and stay at the Long Beach Lodge on Cox Bay. We've visited Cox Bay a couple of times in the past and loved the look of the Lodge as we walked past it.

When you take a look at the chairs and view right outside our patio door and, then, at the beach - which is our front yard - it's hard not to want to plop down and stay for a lot longer than a couple of nights.

We completely lucked out with the weather! Given the fact that the calendar had already been flipped to October, we easily could have been watching storms rather than dipping toes in the Pacific. Sweaters might have been necessary, but the pure sun was pure heaven. Following our saunter along the beach, we grabbed what was left of the bottle we'd opened earlier and made for a perfect spot to watch the sunset.

217. 2006 Noble Ridge Pinot Grigio (VQA - Okanagan)

Despite the huge number of new wineries in our province, including a slew on Vancouver Island, there hasn't been an attempt at producing wine around Tofino. It's much easier to grow crab and surfers here than it is to grow grapes. However, there's no shortage of wine to drink.

We'd actually brought this bottle along to take to Bella Jianna because we knew she loved BC wines so much. We didn't get a chance to make it into town that afternoon and visit the liquor store though, so this was a casualty of the road - not completely unexpected I'm afraid.

We ran across Noble Ridge a couple of years back when touring the Okanagan Falls area with Lady Di and She Who Must Be Obeyed. I was a little surprised to still find it in the cellar and, luckily, it was still fresh enough to enjoy. Admittedly, though, it could have been the worst bottle of plonk around and we'd have enjoyed it on this occasion.

The acidity and citrus fruit matched the briskness of the cool air and sunset.

It was a great start to a, hopefully, incredible week.