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It's that time - time to buy your 2025 Vancouver International Wine Festival advance tickets for the International Festival Tastings - and save $10 per ticket for Thursday February 27; Friday February 28 or Saturday night or Saturday afternoon March 1!
VIWF, as it's known, is running from February 22 through March 2, 2025 - with 121 wineries from 15 countries pouring about 1,000 wines!! And this year's regioinal focus is wine from the United States.
A word of caution: the Saturday evening event always sells out early! If that's your jam, buy right away or be disappointed. Personally I recommend the Thursday night tasting if you can take Friday morning off - or be a very disciplined taster - because it's not quite as busy and the wine folks have more time to talk as well as pour! Saturday afternoon is also a slightly less busy tasting.
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Wine Barbarian Bill Tieleman at the 2024 VIWF International Festival Tasting! |
It's not only the premier wine event in Vancouver every year for the past 46, but it's also one of the largest consumer wine events in North and South America!
And the heart of the Vancouver International Wine Festival is the International Festival Tastings, where over 700 wines are poured daily for hundreds of wine lovers from Metro Vancouver and around the world! It's a unique opportunity to meet one of each wineries Principals - winemakers or founders or owners or key executives - or all of the above!
To see all the fantastic events - click the VIWF website here!
You can buy your International Festival Tastings tickets by clicking here to go to the VIWF ticket sales page. You can also find information and buy a pass for all the IFT events or a Gold Pass for even more access to the Festival, buy tickets to the Bacchanalia Gala Dinner and Auction, trade passes and more.
Advance IFT tickets save you $10 per person - which you can spend on wine available exclusively at the Festivals BC Liquor Store! Thursday Feb 27's tasting ticket is on sale at $109; Friday Feb 28's is on sale for $119, as is Saturday Mar 1's afternoon tasting; and the Saturday evening ticket is on sale for $129 each.
The evening tastings run from 7 to 10 p.m.; the Saturday matinee tasting runs from 2:30 till 5 p.m.
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| Carpineto Wines owner Antonio Zaccheo and Bill Tieleman at fabulous Carpineto dinner at Le Terraza in 2024 |
But whatever date you want to go, I urge you to buy your tickets now - to save money and make sure you get to the International Festival Tasting or tastings you want.
And please watch my Wine Barbarian website/blog here for more information on the Vancouver International Wine Festival as we get closer to the date - including about winery dinners at some of Vancouver's best restaurants; special tasting events open to the public and what wineries' tables are "can't miss" at the IFT!
Winery dinner tickets - which sell out instantly to very quickly - go on sale at 9:30 a.m. on January 8, 2025; all other public events tickets go on sale at 9:30 a.m. on January 15, 2025; and if you are in the wine or restaurant/hospitality business, trade event tickets go on sale January 22.
Cheers and see you there!
