If winemakers and chefs are the rock stars of the gastro generation, it's fitting they should get a little room on the radio. So goes the logic behind The Tasting Room, a West Coast wine-country program produced and hosted by veteran broadcaster Terry David Mulligan, who can now add "grape jockey" to his long list of credentials.
Launched last September on AM1150 and AM1450 in British Columbia's Okanagan Valley, the two-hour Saturday morning broadcast is about to break into the big leagues with a cocktail-hour time slot in Vancouver next week, from 5 to 7 p.m., on CFUN AM1410 starting April 19.
Mr. Mulligan, whose list of hosting credits includes CBC-TV's first network video show, Good Rockin' Tonite, in the 1980s and, more recently, CITY-TV's MT - Movie Television, tapes most of The Tasting Room's segments in a renovated barn next to his farmhouse in Naramata, the central Okanagan town he and his wife moved to last summer from North Vancouver.
"I was astounded that this wine industry could have no representation on Okanagan radio," said the New Westminster, B.C., native. He calls the homespun program "an open class on food and wine."
A mix of storytelling, news and shopping tips, it can feature as many as 20 interviews over its 120-minute span, as it did on one recent broadcast recorded on location at the Vancouver Playhouse International Wine Festival last month.
The guest list reads like a who's who of West Coast food and wine, from culinary personalities John Bishop, Vikram Vij and Rob Feenie to wine producers Anthony von Mandl of Mission Hill and Harry McWatters of Sumac Ridge.
Then there are the show's more populist contributors.
Personalities from other walks of life are invited to chat about what fuels their stomachs rather than their careers or egos. Among them: Brendan Morrison of the Vancouver Canucks, comedian Mike Bullard, the cast of TV's Corner Gas and Jean-Daniel Lafond, husband of Governor-General Michaëlle Jean.
Mr. Morrison, for example, spoke between periods at General Motors Place about his 240-bottle wine collection and how he learned at the hands of former New Jersey teammates Scott Stevens and Martin Brodeur. He even dropped the hint he might be willing to invest in a winery some day. (An audio archive of the shows is posted on the Internet at tastingroomradio.com; the programs also can be downloaded free to a portable audio player from the iTunes music site).
Mr. Mulligan, who has spun records for much of his career and continues to host Mulligan Stew, a Saturday night music show on CKUA in Alberta, shrewdly taps his rock connections to add a celebrity factor to The Tasting Room, sitting down with wine aficionado and singer Steven Page of the Barenaked Ladies and singer-songwriter Barney Bentall, among others. Though the interviews are at times far-ranging, the unifying theme always is food and wine, mostly the latter.
Mr. Mulligan, 65, caught the grape bug a few years ago from Canadian actor and friend Jason Priestley, a long-time collector who appears on Mr. Mulligan's program as a semi-regular co-host. "I can't get rid of him," Mr. Mulligan quips.
The pair also co-star in a travel series called Hollywood & Vines on Star TV network, in which they sip and fine-dine their way around the globe.
The Tasting Room isn't the only Canadian radio program aimed at the growing population of wine lovers. CBC Radio One runs short segments with wine writer Konrad Ejbich on its provincial phone-in show Ontario Today, while Toronto's 1050 CHUM features a one-hour Saturday morning program hosted by a duo called the Wine Ladies, and Vancouver's CFUN devotes an hour to the subject in a weekly show hosted by Vancouver writers Anthony Gismondi and Kasey Wilson.
