A record 540 wines are being judged as part of the B.C. Wine Awards at the Okanagan Fall Wine Festival, which begins Oct. 1.
Image Credit: Contributed/Kiernan Frey
September 25, 2014 - 2:47 PM
PENTICTON - The recently opened B.C. Wine Information Society Sensory Centre at Okanagan College's Penticton campus will host the Okanagan Wine Festivals Society's professional judging segment of the 2015 B.C. Wine Awards.
“Each year, the Fall Wine Festival brings some of the continent’s best palates to the south Okanagan to judge the entries for the Fall Wine Fest,” Chair of judging for the Okanagan Wine Festivals Society, Martin Lewis says in a media release. “We have used various venues for those intensive judging sessions, but we are very excited about being able to utilize the new Sensory Centre at Okanagan College next year.”
This year, nine judges will consider a record 540 entries in the B.C. Wine Awards, but even more entries are expected next year.
“This is a welcome endorsement for the Centre,” Okanagan College President Jim Hamilton says in the media release. “Our goal was to create a facility with the amenities that would provide an excellent educational experience for students. It was also to develop something the industry would want to use for purposes such as this.”
Okanagan College's Director of Food, Wine and Tourism, Jonathan Rouse says having connections in the industry is vital to delivering the vitculture and oenology programs that students and their future employers expect.
“The Sensory Centre is, among other things, intended to be an incubator for those relations," he says in the release.
Key to developing the facility was a $300,000 donation from the B.C. Wine Information Society, for which the Centre is named.
“Our Board understood the College’s goals for this facility from the beginning,” Society President Keith Bevington explains. “Learning that the judging for next year’s Fall Okanagan Wine Festival will be done in the Centre is proof of how valuable the facility will be to industry.”
B.C. Wine Information Society President Keith Bevington, Okanagan College's Director of Food, Wine and Tourism Jonathan Rouse, Okanagan College alumna Sara Hacker, Okanagan College Manager of Culinary Arts Chef Bernard Casavant, and Okanagan College President Jim Hamilton toast to the opening of the Sensory Centre.
Image Credit: Contributed/Kiernan Frey
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News from © iNFOnews, 2014