Better hurry if you want to attend the fabulous Vancouver International Wine Festival 2015 - events selling out fast!

Tasting in style at last year's Vancouver International Wine Festival

One of the biggest and best wine events in North America opens next month - and tickets are disappearing quickly already!

The Vancouver International Wine Festival runs from February 20 to March 1 with dozens of great events from the International Festival Tastings with hundreds of wines and wineries to small, intimate seminars to delicious wine dinners - but you literally have to move fast to get tickets before it's too late.

You can check out all VIWF events here to see what's happening and what is still available.

Unfortunately, the flagship Saturday night International Festival Tasting is already sold out but Thursday and Friday night's 3-hours of wine grazing greatness are still available at $89 per ticket, from 7 to 10 p.m.  Or go Saturday afternoon for 2 hours from 3 to 5 p.m. for just $68.  

The good news is that you cannot fail to get far more than your money's worth with the amazing wines there to taste - some of which run well upwards of $100 a bottle!

This year's regional theme is Australia - and who doesn't like a hardy - or Hardy - Shiraz or Syrah or a delicious Grenache Syrah Mouvedre or a big Chardonnay from a country whose wines are always a top seller in BC.  And the global wine theme is Syrah this year.

But better still, you can taste Aussie wines that we don't ordinarily find in BC - one of the charms of the VIWF is bringing new faces and bottles to BC.

And it's not all Australian - wines from France, Italy, Spain, the United States, Canada, Germany, New Zealand and many more countries are also prominently featured.

Another advantage:  the VIWF insists each winery send a principal player in their operation to attend - and many winemakers are your pourer at their tasting booths, giving you the chance to ask about brix, malolactic fermentation, choice of oak for barrel aging, terroir's impact on their wines and how they survive the wine circuit with livers and wits still intact!

If you like food with wine - you also need to hurry - because 10 of 16 sumptuous wine dinner are now sold out.  But those remaining - and going fast - are all excellent choices.

Whatever you do, whatever your taste, if you like wine you simply do not want to miss this great event - and I haven't for the last 24 consecutive years!

Check out this blog for tips on what to try at the VIWF closer to the big International Festival Tastings - because with you need advice when there are up to 750 wine available to taste - even if you attend all three nights, it's not advisable to try 250 wines per evening!  [If you see me there, ask about my personal best! ;-) ]

In addition to the Festival website pages linked above, you can find out more by checking the Twitter hashtag #VIWF or following @VanWineFest on Twitter.

See you there!