A decade in the making, Oliver and Osoyoos Wine Country’s legendary and immensely popular Pig Out festival returned to the format it pivoted to last year in stunning fall weather last weekend.
Nostalgia Wines and Culmina Family Estate Winery each hosted a dinner prepared course by course by different chefs and paired with wine from each particular winery. A weary yet pleased Jennifer Busmann, executive director at Oliver Osoyoos Winery Association (OOWA) said the event “went really well.”
Paella chef Nicholas Gervas of the Paella Guys cooks up a storm on his super-sized paella pan.
When asked whether this format might just stick around longer than COVID, Busmann couldn’t give a definitive answer. She noted that dozens of guests rather than the hundreds in the old format has its advantages, particularly for the foodservice providers.
Guests also spoke of their enjoyment of this new(ish) format for its more intimate sit-down experience and ability to chat with guest chefs and winery staff.
The Nostalgia-hosted event kicked off with its Chantilly Lace sparkling (81 per cent Kerner, 19 per cent Chardonnay) alongside a cheese platter by Oliver Eats.
Guest chef Quinn Staple from the Hotel Arts Group in Calgary.
Next in line was a pork and apple terrine also by Oliver Eats which was paired with Nostalgia’s Kerner.
Guest chef Quinn Staple from the Hotel Arts Group in Calgary was up next with his barbecued pork belly with Saskatoon berry and hoisin glaze. To accompany it, Staple whipped up a coleslaw of baby winter cabbage with fresh seasonal apple slices.
With some nice pork belly available, Staples said, “I knew that would be easy to execute for us and I’m familiar with these kinds of flavours and just thought it typically can be a crowd-pleaser.
“And then I found out we would be using the Big Green Egg and that’s great because it can take some smoke,” he added. The Saskatoon berries are a tie-in from where he’s from because in the summer these berries grow all around Calgary.
“We smash them up to get as much juice out of them as we can, bring that down and add some hoisin and couple of other things and reduce it down to a nice glaze.”
On the Pig Out Trail: Checkmate Artisanal Winery.
Another highlight of the evening came in the form of the Paella Guys, making their second appearance at the event, except this time they were cooking at the two separate venues.
Paella, explained Paella Guys’ Natalie Cheung, is traditionally not made with pork. For the Pig Out Trail the next day, the Paella Guys were making a special version topped with pork ribs.
Paella chef Nicholas Gervas, who originally hails from Madrid, said that in reality, a typical paella in Spain would use rabbit, but given that many people in Canada don’t eat rabbit, chicken is substituted. Otherwise, the paella is completely authentic and based on the freshest of ingredients including imported items such as saffron which gives it a unique flavour and lends that autumn gold colour.
On the Pig Out Trail: Church & State Wines.
On this particular evening, the two chefs were each busy cooking on up-sized paella pans with the full cooking process taking one hour. Each of these giant pans made enough to feed 30 to 35 people. The special rice, known as ‘bomba’ because of its shape, is added in the last 20 minutes. “If you are able to get a good flavour into the rice that’s a perfect paella,” Gervas said.
To round out the evening, chocolate budinos with pork folded in paid the final homage to all things pork.
On the Pig Out Trail: Castoro de Oro Estate Winery.
For Nostalgia’s owner/winemaker Gina Harfman, seeing people fill the outdoor patio/event area of the winery, “feels so good!” She noted that Nostalgia’s former incarnation as Oliver Twist was one of the first participants years ago when hundreds of people gathered at Covert Farms, the original venue for the event.
The pandemic-induced changes to the format also had a direct impact on the Pig Out Trails with a series of school bus shuttles shuffling eager wine tasters around the valley to different sets of four wineries each in highly choreographed fashion.
On the Pig Out Trail: Kismet Estate Winery.
Each visit typically involved some background on the winery, a bit of information on the vineyard and some specifics on the wines being tasted. Each of course also featured some pork-inspired snacks paired with a wine variety. Wine sales boomed as many of the wineries also offered special wine packages for the day.
For Busmann this event like the night before went extremely well, both fueled by a hardworking convivial team of more than 50 volunteers. Busmann said the event was a huge success, not least of all because of the pandemic constraints that made it all the more challenging.
On the Pig Out Trail: Last stop on the trail at Liber Farm & Winery.
For OOWA one of the key prerogatives is to “drive traffic to the cellar door” and that was clearly accomplished with many of the trail guests piling off the buses at the end of the day lugging boxes of wine.
Overall she said, “the wineries were great at engaging with guests, and the guests, chefs and sponsors were very happy.”
On the Pig Out Trail: Back on the bus after the last stop.
