Afternoon delight with Sip + Savour’s local wine and cheese at Fairmont Waterfront

Fairmont Waterfront’s Herons West Coast Bar provides afternoon wine and cheeses, plus honey made from its very own apiary

Is there anything better than a midday drink? My vote is for no. So I was fittingly pleased to receive an invite to try Fairmont Waterfront’s new Sip + Savour afternoons on their lovely patio at Herons West Coast Bar.

 

Fairmont hotels and resorts around the globe have long been famous for their afternoon tea service with mini sandwiches, pastries, and scones with jam and Devonshire cream. Vancouver’s Fairmont Waterfront is now offering a cool alternative to this British institution: afternoon wine and cheese.

 

Full-flavoured local pairings

One of the best aspects of Vancouver’s culinary scene is that so many establishments go the extra mile to provide fresh, local products for their guests.

 

Herons’ offerings, aptly named Sip + Savour, include wines from BC’s Blasted Church vineyards, artisanal cheeses from Creston, Agassiz and Salt Spring Island, and house-made condiments including a little jar of honey from their very own apiary (more on that later).

 

Your Sip + Savour placemat is a reference guide to all of the lovely edibles set before you. The first trio is a crisp 2010 Blasted Church Pinot Gris, Executive Chef Patrick Doré’s sweet pickled celery, and the “Alpindon” cheese from Kootenay Alpine Cheese Company near Creston, BC.

 

The Alpindon is a firm, French-inspired cheese that’s aged for a minimum of 90 days and made with raw organic cow’s milk [video], and goes wonderfully with the sweet yet crunchy celery.

 

Next is the smooth 2010 Blasted Church Chardonnay Musque (my favourite Chardonnay to date) with homemade Okanagan fruit and vegetable chutney, and The Farm House Natural Cheeses’ “Farm House Cheddar”, which hails from near Agassiz, BC.

 

The Farm House is a mellow cheddar whose production is overseen by head cheese-maker Debra Amrein-Boyes—one of only 12 people this side of the continent to be inducted into the prestigious French Cheese Guild.

 

The first two selections were lovely, but the last offering was the real piece de resistance. A rich 2008 Blasted Church Cabernet Merlot is the perfect accompaniment to Salt Spring Island producer Moonstruck Organic Cheese’s moist and creamy “Beddis Blue” and Waterfront’s delectable honey from their garden terrace apiary.

 

Apiary: a home for bees

Fairmont Waterfront’s apiary is located on their third-floor herb garden with an outdoor heated pool and stunning views of Coal Harbour and the North Shore Mountains. (Image: Catherine Roscoe Barr)

 

What’s an apiary, you ask? It’s a place where bees are kept in hives, and the Fairmont Waterfront supplies their restaurant and bar with honey harvested from the six beehives on their large, third-floor herb garden, which they planted in 1991. The apiary was added in 2008.

 

Graeme Evans is the director of housekeeping and beekeeping, and he gave me the 101 on beekeeping and Waterfront’s apiary.

 

More than 20 years ago, the Canadian Fairmonts started the Green Partnership Program, “a comprehensive commitment to minimizing [the] hotels’ impact on the planet.” That includes recycling, organic waste diversion and using green power, in addition to each hotel’s own signature environmental initiative.

 

About 12 years ago, the hotel chef at the time decided to transform the grassy area on the third floor into an herb garden, which gave Evans the idea to bring in bees.

 

“We contacted Jean Gibeau of the Honeybee Centre, who is a master beekeeper, and I took a beekeeping course and then spent two more years studying with him to learn more about bees,” says Evans, who started the beekeeping program at Waterfront soon after the City of Vancouver began to allow urban apiculture within the city limits.

 

The sweet taste of sustainability

Beekeeper Graeme Evans smokes the bees to keep them calm while he checks on each hive (which can contain up to 100,000 bees each), a lengthy process that he performs every 10 days—and in a suit no less! (Image: Catherine Roscoe Barr)

 

“We generally take in 600 pounds of honey each year when we harvest in October,” says Evans, and the different blooms the bees visit throughout the seasons create different flavours of honey. “When we mix them all together we get a medium-sweet, medium-body, full-flavoured honey that is absolutely delicious.”

 

The apiary is just one way that Waterfront adheres to Fairmont’s Green Partnership Program. They’re also part of the Vancouver Aquarium’s Ocean Wise Program and strive to provide local and sustainable foods wherever possible, like the trio of Sip + Savour’s BC wines and cheeses.

 

Sip + Savour is available Monday to Saturday from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. at Fairmont Waterfront’s Herons West Coast Bar for $35.95. Bee tours are available to hotel guests through Waterfront’s ‘Birds and Bees’ package.