A culinary class at Mission Hill winery can be whatever you want it to be.
A date night.
An outing with friends.
A deep dive into the recipes and cooking techniques.
Or, a no-brainer sit-back-and-relax way to eat and drink well, complete with commentary.
When my wife, Kerry, and I enjoyed the 'Holiday Entertaining' class last week it was a date night.
Other people in the class were doing the same.
There were also a couple of groups of women on a night out.
As well, there were some couples, in which at least one partner was keen on gleaning as much as possible from the chefs.
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Mission Hill Family Estate calls these three-hour sessions 'culinary classes' to distinguish them from 'cooking classes.'
At the culinary classes you won't have to do any prepping or chopping of food, you won't have to cook the meat or even have to open a fridge or oven door.
You take a seat in the culinary theatre located just off the Chagall Room at the West Kelowna winery while the Mission Hill chefs do all the work and you watch them live and on the two big monitors.
So really, it's a cooking demonstration.
And, the best part is you get to eat the results.
And, even better, since this is a winery, after all, each of the four courses is expertly paired with a glass of Mission Hill wine.
A dinner party demo, if you will.
As chef Heather Brumwell prepared the appetizers -- wild shrimp cocktail and Dungeness crab dip -- she told us the theme of the 'Holiday Entertaining' class was classic dishes "turned up a notch."
As such, the shrimp cocktail and crab dip are elevated with homemade horseradish tomato sauce and bearnaise topping, respectively.
To go with this first course, the 2022 Fritzi's Vineyard Riesling, the right balance of lush minerality to complement the seafood.
The 2023 Reserve Rose was poured when it was time to devour the goat cheese arancini (rice balls) with date jam.
Chef Adam Vaughan took over to make Wellington (puff pastry encased meat) with fall-apart-tender beef short ribs instead of the traditional beef tenderloin.
It was served as the main course with the big-and-smooth 2019 Legacy Collection Compendium -- a Bordeaux-style blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Cabernet Franc.
For dessert, the buche de noel (that's a yule log to you and me) was assembled by rolling thin chocolate cake around a ganache chocolate cream filling.
And, yes, you can serve red wine with chocolate, in this case the 2021 Reserve Syrah.
Delish.
Mission Hill's culinary classes are so popular the winery is offering 32 this fall and winter to meet demand.
Upcoming classes have a myriad of themes from 'Traditional Winery Christmas,' 'Italian Christmas,' 'Eastern Europe' and 'Middle East' to 'Thai,' 'The Science of Wine,' 'Indian,' 'Valentine's Day,' 'Brunch' and 'Taste of the Terrace.'
You can sign up for $185 ($169 for wine club members) at:
https://www.missionhillwinery.com/event/culinary-classes/?srsltid=AfmBOorNUoXCDi3PoBkQHi0Evt9WndYtbdUymRZ0xwIxtozUL0MEDg6K
New chef
Naramata Inn, the historic boutique hotel with just a dozen rooms and a spectacular restaurant, has a new culinary director.
Chef Yoann Therer, whose impressive resume includes L'Abattoir in Vancouver, Smyth in Chicago and Le Mousso in Montreal, focuses on seasonal, sustainable and innovative dishes.
These dishes, of course, pair beautifully with glasses and bottles on the Inn's Naramata Bench-heavy wine list.
Since the Inn has only 12 rooms, the restaurant caters to more than just hotel guests.
In fact, it's destination dining for Okanagan residents and tourists alike.
Steve MacNaull is a NowMedia Group reporter, Okanagan wine lover and Canadian Wine Scholar. Reach him at [email protected]. His wine column appears every Friday afternoon in this space.
