Bringing Wine to Dinner
With the holidays, come dinner invitations and one usually likes to bring along a bottle of wine. However, more often than not, the wine you bring doesn’t get opened as the host...
Agents or Importers
Agents or importers are very important entities and play a key role in alcohol sales, especially in a monopoly system like the LCBO or SAQ. Hired by a producer, they negotiate with...
Wine and Herbs
Herbs add so much flavour to food. Here are some great wine/herb matches. For Chardonnay, use chervil, fennel, sage or tarragon! Riesling needs dill, hyssop or parsley while Sauvignon Blanc best meshes...
Commandaria
Commandaria from the island of Cyprus is the world’s oldest named wine still in production. This luscious nectar dating back to the ancient Greeks is made from ripe, sun-dried Xynisteri and Mavro...
Recioto della Valpolicella
This wine is wonderful and truly one of my favourites. Made from Valpolicella grapes (mostly Corvina, Rondinella, Molinara) that have undergone the “appassimento” process of partially drying the grapes on mats, often...
Lanzarote Wine Region
One of the strangest wine growing regions on the planet is on the Spanish, Canary Island of Lanzarote in the La Geria area in the southwest. Once lush many, many years ago,...
Taste Preferences for Wine
Our taste preferences for specific wines is complex. We are all pre-programmed with likes and dislikes in wine. It’s our genetics that define our sensory physiology and range to which we perceive...
Petit Chateau
If you like red Bordeaux, but can’t afford the big named versions that are classified growths (Grand Cru), here’s what to do. Look for “Petit Chateau”. Literally translated as “small houses”, these...
Wining Your Thanksgiving Turkey
Happy Thanksgiving. Serving turkey tonight? Here are some wine suggestions. Turkey’s pretty versatile when it comes to wine matches. As the dark meat possesses a little more flavour than the white, unstuffed,...
Wine Appreciation and Humidity
Humidity not only affects the functioning of the taster, but the wine as well and can be problematic. When it comes to the taster, if the environment is too dry, the olfactory...