Rancho Vignola – Vancouver Island Harvest Sale

Rancho Vignola – New Crop Nuts & Dried Fruit is hosting its annual Vancouver Island Harvest Sale on November 29th and 30th at Sidney’s Mary Winspear Centre. As in previous years, this will be a fun-filled tasting and buying event with live cooking demos by Chef Heidi Fink, prize draws, and samples for each of the delicious products brought in from the latest harvest of farms from far and wide. You are invited to taste as you make your choices from a wide variety of nutritious foods to fill up your pantry. In addition to this year’s bounty of fresh nuts, dried fruit and seeds, you will discover quality confections and even gift ideas and packages ideal for the foodies on your holiday list.

Rancho Vignola is family owned and operated based in the Okanagan and is set to celebrate 40 years in 2020! Founded on the sourcing quality nuts, Rancho has built and maintained strong relationships with producers, priding themselves on being a direct link from the farm to your community. They have travelled far and wide, visiting with farmers and processors, learning about growing practices and establishing positive relationships with the people who grow our food. Rancho Vignola is fully committed to fair trade principles and valid certification of organic products, wherever they are grown. They have many wonderful growers to thank for the wide variety of quality, wholesome products offered.
Rancho Vignola has a strong, established customer base that orders online through the wholesale harvest program, available every September — stocking up the pantry for the year ahead with confidence, familiar with the consistent quality and freshness of the products. November Harvest Sales are an opportunity for a wide audience of new and existing customers to come and taste the difference that the fresh crop offers and to learn more about each product. “A walnut should never be bitter,” states Cloe Vignola, “it should be buttery and creamy. Due to high oil content, the walnut, like many other nuts has a short shelf life if not stored correctly; this is why it is important to know that it is fresh when you buy it. Lots of walnuts out there are being sold already stale. What we recommend when buying our walnuts at harvest is to put them in the freezer right away. This way you can guarantee you won’t ruin a perfectly good carrot cake with offensive bitter little nuggets.”

Among all the tasty things set to be showcased in Sidney this year, a highlight for many is the natural Mexican mango.   This delicious product, dried at the peak of ripeness, is bursting with flavour, much like the pineapple rings, which without any sugar added still tastes like candy. In the seed department, another favourite is a unique Austrian pumpkin seed, dark and intense, with a unique flavour and texture that leaves all the other pepitas in the dust.

Come and experience the true taste of a creamy, buttery walnut and know that it was grown this very summer, enjoy the flavour and sweetness of a natural mango, dried just at the peak of its ripeness. Discover the unique Austrian pumpkin seed and what it can do for your recipes. You may even be serenaded by the genuinely talented Oliver Swain if you are lucky enough to drop by at the same time as he does.

Who: Rancho Vignola

What: Annual New Crop Nuts & Dried Fruit Sale

When:  November 29 – 30, 2019

Where: Mary Winspear Centre, Sidney

Why: fill up your pantry with the best nuts, seeds, & dried fruit, live cooking demos, prize draws, samples, quality confections, gift packages