Steven Page performs The Old Apartment during the Celebrity Wine Auction at the Spirit Ridge Vineyard and Resort on June 12. Photo by Paul Everest - Click on picture for larger image
OSOYOOS TIMES-June 16, 2010
By Paul Everest – Osoyoos Times
The wine flowed, the food sizzled and the stars schmoozed during several days of festivities in Osoyoos that ended up raising thousands of dollars for local charities.
The second annual Celebrity Wine Festival, put on by Destination Osoyoos and the Black Hills Estate Winery, was celebrated from June 10 through 13 with the Walnut Beach, Watermark Beach and Spirit Ridge resorts serving as epicentres for the activities.
The event kicked off at the Watermark Beach Resort on June 10 with the Vinos, a new addition to the festival where amateur filmmakers could produce short commercials for British Columbia wines.
Set up as a red-carpet festival, films were entered for the contest from filmmakers based in B.C., Alberta and the U.S. and prizes for the top three commercials included $5,000 in cash and wine.
Glenn Fawcett, a co-founder of the festival and president of Black Hills Estate Winery, said the idea for the film festival came out of a conversation he had with Destination Osoyoos executive director Jo Knight about ways to expand the festival from last year.
The competition is based on the “Eddies,” a similar festival held in Calgary each year which challenges filmmakers to come up with advertisements for Alberta’s Big Rock Brewery.
He said he was a little worried five days before the Vinos took place because only five entries had come in.
But by June 9, Fawcett added, the entry list had exploded to 29 entries.
The winning film was entitled A Little More Local by Vancouver filmmaker Barbara Kozicki.
A 31-year-old acting student at the University of British Columbia, Kozicki shot the film with friends Fiona Mongillo and Chuck Heffernan.
It tells the story of a man seeking a bottle of French wine, only to be convinced by a passionate wine shop saleswoman (who ends up in a toga by the end of the piece) to go with a bottle of B.C.’s finest instead.
The trio ended up winning $2,500 in cash and wine and the film was also chosen as the audience favourite.
Half Corked by Ashley Forshaw and Tibor Farkas took runner-up honours and With B.C. Wine we are Kings by Adrian Talens and Mark Armstrong came in third at the Vinos.
The next evening, the festivities took to the sand at the Walnut Beach Resort where roughly 225 people got to rub shoulders with celebrities such as Bruce Greenwood, star of The Sweet Hereafter and last summer’s blockbuster, Star Trek, Steven Page, a former member of the Barenaked Ladies, and Jason Priestley of Beverly Hills 90210.
Priestley, who has been a co-owner of the Black Hills Estate Winery for the past three years and helped organize the festival, said the idea behind the festival is “to raise money for charities here in Osoyoos and do what we did to promote Osoyoos and this end of the valley as wonderful destinations.”
While last year’s festival was put together in a rush, he said, there was a whole year to organize this year’s event and the turnout and support has been even stronger.
“Everything’s been done better.”
Last year’s festival raised $55,000, with $5,500 going to the Osoyoos Child Care Centre.
Other proceeds went to Alberta’s Providence Children’s Centre, a school for children with disabilities.
This year, organizers wanted the fundraising to benefit organizations closer to home and proceeds will go to the Osoyoos Museum, the Osoyoos Desert Centre and the Desert Sun Counselling and Resource Centre.
Fawcett said the final amount raised was still being tabulated at press time, but added that “thousands were raised from this event.”
Before the evening ended at Walnut Beach and following a torch-lit limbo contest on the beach, Greenwood broke out his guitar and performed for the crowd with his friend, Juno-award winning singer-songwriter Norm Foote of Vancouver.
On June 12, the festival moved to Spirit Ridge for the Celebrity Wine Auction and a showdown of chefs (including Michael Lyon, Ned Bell, Jeremy Luypen and Rob Rainford) and winemakers.
During the course of the evening, Page, who is a long-time friend of Priestley, performed several songs from his upcoming solo record as well as favourites from the Barenaked Ladies catalogue.
Altogether, Fawcett said, nearly 1,100 people attended the festival’s various events and 17 wineries from the South Okanagan participated.
He said he hopes the Celebrity Wine Festival will grow and evolve each year until it becomes a 10-day event showcasing the wines, landscape and accommodations of the South Okanagan.
Fawcett added that this year’s celebration was a “tantalizing taste of what could be an incredible future for this event.”
[email protected]
