My highly anticipated visit started rather inauspiciously with high spirits slowly dampening under a cold drizzle as I waited for the complimentary shuttle to the show. I turned up at Kipling station at 3:10pm, found no indications of the special shuttle stop and spent some time asking around for the way to the stop (being secure with the website information of the next shuttle leaving at 3:30pm). By 3:50 I was chilled to the bone waiting at the curb of the road (as advised by staff) and boy, was I not alone! I hope all these people didn’t develop heavy head colds the next morning as I did. Finally by ten past four the shuttle came and took off to our great relief. Frankly, spending an hour of any day, let alone Saturday, like this is pretty lame. And isn’t it all about propagating the “Don’t drink and drive” program? OK, rant-time over.

The queue to the entrance moves quickly but as a proud owner of a complimentary ticket (thanks, organizers!) I get into the show hall even quicker, get a complimentary glass and bag and start exploring – or trying to explore! The hall churns with people, there is a deafening babble of voices mixed with live jazz music, and there is absolutely no exhibitors’ map I could follow, so I join the random waves of people pushing by the booths for cocktails, travel agencies, ostrich and sauerkraut hot-dogs (I had some later, it was really good!) and other food joints.

The most crowded stands are serving wines, many of them already sporting the awards from this year’s show competition (look out for Canadian Baco Noir by the way, it definitely rules this year, see results). People queue with their glasses and exchange paper “tickets” (purchased in the Hall for a dollar a piece) for wine samples. An ounce can cost from 1 modest ticket for a fresh simple wine of a New World exhibitor up to the extreme of 35 tickets – for a vintage Château Lafite-Rothschild 1995 in the LCBO vintage selection. And you can rinse your glass if you want to pass from red wine to white; there are special sinks set up in the middle of the hall - perfect! I went for a lot of award-winning New World Sauvignons Blancs (my favourite was the New Zealand Oyster Bay 2006) and indulged ($5-6 per sample) in some Old World stuff too, found a couple of amazing rich velvety Amarone red wines from Northern Italy (Veneto) and tasted an interesting cherry-and-spice noble Barolo (Piemonte), all 2001 and ready for drinking. I also finally had some Canadian fruit wines, but I must taste more before forming the opinion. The rhubarb wine tasted a bit strange…

So far so good. But what about the other half of the story. Where was the cheese? Conspicuous in its absence I am tempted to say. There were an equal number of sausage and cheese booths, and not very many of either. And the sausage stands turned out to be much livelier to boot. Actually a couple of girls from Ontario whom I met at the show and who go regularly told me that this year the show was really rather on a modest scale, especially in terms of the cheese. So where was Quebec (pardon my ignorance, but aren’t there some great cheesemakers in that province?) and other worthy regions, where were the artisans? Only two kinds of cheese were available for free tasting - Cheddar and Monterey from several cheese-companies and these were the precise brands that I can find in Toronto supermarkets any day! Granted, there was a $5 degustation platter of Upper-Canada cheeses with fruit (but can’t I taste the varieties I am interested in separately and without fruit, please?) and a couple of cheesy dishes available at some stand, but it was the only place I found! And of course there was a cheese seminar in progress when I came to the middle of the hall, but as it was in a space right in the middle of the hall with everybody with their glasses of wine milling around and chatting, it wasn’t to easy for the participants, I am afraid. I stood right beside one of the participants’ tables and could only catch something like: blah-blah-blah earthy flavours blah-blah-blah not so good for you etc. The cheeses being served also didn’t look too varied and exciting.

All in all the Show is good for wine-lovers but not so good for cheese-lovers, I guess. Let’s see what the next year will bring. And I still have to get rid of my nasty cough and throat-ache.