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Great year for wine festival

P>By Nicole Fitzgerald Tourism Whistler officials are looking at rebranding Whistler’s biggest food and wine festival, Cornucopia, next year, giving advertising a whole new look, a more accurate image that better illustrates the youthful vitalit
P>By Nicole Fitzgerald

Tourism Whistler officials are looking at rebranding Whistler’s biggest food and wine festival, Cornucopia, next year, giving advertising a whole new look, a more accurate image that better illustrates the youthful vitality of the festival.

Cornucopia bares no resemblance to stereotypical wine tastings, of suits circling a conference room picking up brochures; the festival sizzles with funky flare, tantalizing cultural events and a hip and crazy crowd.

This year, the festival took one step further with Whistler’s raciest party, the MasquRave, transforming into a Las Vegas extravaganza.

Aircraft searchlights, seen as far as the Cheakamus Canyon, gave a Hollywood welcome to more than 2,500 masked guests.

A huge improvement from years past, quality champagne, beers and wines generously flowed through the night, a champagne lounge was a welcome addition for ladies’ high-heeled feet, additional rooms in Buffalo Bill’s and Ric’s Grill provided tucked away places to chat, the infamous air-brushed naked women shared the spotlight with the breathtaking acrobatics of Cirque Phoenix and the Famous Players band in the main tent packed in a zealous dance crowd. What used to be at times a shady party was polished to a tasteful finish with the usual liberal dose of sexually-charged additions ringmaster Andre St. Jacques is famous for. This year’s show included Chinese shadow performance starring two porn stars, a naked woman drizzled in chocolate for strawberries to be wiped across and chips and shrimp wrapped in Playboy magazines.

The guests raved, about the evening and on the dance floor. The only distempered ticket holders were the ones who either had to wait an hour and a half to get into the $200-ticketed event or couldn’t get in at all. That included journalists from The Province and The Globe and Mail as well as a couple from Kelowna who had driven all the way to Whistler, specifically for the MasquRave.

St. Jacques was mortified, refunding tickets and desperately trying to make amends where he could. Although he declared this would be MasquRave’s last year, already he is thinking about tenting the entire driving range across from the Bistro into one area fit for 4,000 people, alleviating this year’s entrance problems and traffic flow within the party.

The entrance was shut down a few times by the fire inspector because of the bottleneck occurring in front of the Bistro. The only accident of the night was a dancer falling and hitting her head.

"We are going to be dealing with all kinds of parties during the Olympics," St. Jacques said. "This is definitely a learning curve…. I am happy by 97 per cent, and that three per cent of people that didn’t get in, I’ll have to wine and dine them and win their hearts back."

The MasquRave wasn’t the only racy, youthful event around town with the addition of Women, Wine and Books – an all-woman book reading event with wine served by air-brushed burly men – and the unofficially-recognized festival event Fornucoppia – a boy burlesque show with a 300-plus female screaming crowd.

Michelle Payette, manager of events for Tourism Whistler, said the festival seeks to include as many community members and organizations in the Cornucopia spirit, whether certain events will be included in the formal packaging or not will be at officials’ discretion.

"We hope Women, Wine and Books will be a part of the program next year," she said, adding with a laugh, "Fornucoppia, I am not quite sure, but we are very happy the whole community is jumping in…. Our reputation is attached to everything under our umbrella, so we have to be sensitive to that."

Also new under the umbrella this year was ARTrageous hosted by the Whistler Arts Council, this year festival’s charity recipient. More than $23,000 was raised for the arts champion of Whistler. Not only did ARTrageous bring more complexity to the Cornucopia bouquet with an-all-day art show with photographers, painters, artisans and interactive art projects and an evening concert from the Wassabi Collective, but also a different price point. The day event was free and the evening only $25, which included two drinks. The House Party was a great inexpensive alternative as well. Lots of locals joined the social soiree of live music, wines, suds and barbecue buffet.

Each year, festival organizers seek to expand offerings and appeal to different palates. A Serious Tasting for the Serious Set was a huge success with wine aficionados free to sip and swirl in a non-crowded event with no food or music distractions. With the newly created Top 25 wines competition, wineries rose to the occasion with better vintages for the Serious Set and hence the signature event Crush. The Crush food lineups of years past were ironed out completely and $100 bottles of wine were poured. The new addition of the on-site wine store enabled guests to bring memories home with them.

Despite evening events running late into the night, food and wine lovers still had time to fit in chef’s trips to the farm, informative and quirky seminars and last, but certainly not least, the elegant winemaker dinners.

The Bearfoot Bistro’s Four Decades of Dom dinner uncorked with St. Jacques setting a new Guinness Book of World Records for sabering champagne with 21 bottles opened within one minute. The finish to the winemaker’s dinner at the Westin’s Aubergine Grille restaurant best summed up the winemaker dinner experience. While the 1999 Rodney Strong Symmetry took the spot light with Chef Hans Stierli’s roasted rib eye with braised foie gras, the real stars – the talented Grille back and front of house staff – were embraced with a standing ovation from the delighted guests.

Theatrics and a flare for the exciting and unusual are what make Whistler’s food and wine festival rise above the rest – and with fresh knee-high powder on the mountains to boot, this year’s Cornucopia was one for the ages.