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Vineyards, winemakers and their sense of place: Bachelder and Leaning Post
Winemakers are very much like architects, in fact they are the architects of the agricultural world. They survey every square metre and scrutinize each handful of dirt to decide where to plant and...
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Between a Flat Rock and an escarpment
I attend many tastings but none are better than the ones accompanied by the growers, the negociant and the vintner. To a maker, the adage is repeated again and again. Wine is made in the vineyard. Here...
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Crack open these Canadian-made apolitical wines
This is a wine column folks. If you’ve arrived here looking for a human train wreck, colloquial references to sexual body parts or stories about illicit activity, keep on moving. Perhaps the thing I...
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Holiday wine gems hit November shelves
I will gladly be first in line to bust the myth that says wine must be expensive to be good. Much time and energy is spent seeking out wines that over-deliver, especially those well-made, honest and...
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Beaujolais Nouveau Presser 2013
A quick Nouveau 101. According to a French law passed in 1985, Beaujolais Nouveau may not be released earlier than the third Thursday of November. In and around the six-week mark post harvest, Gamay...
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Friday wine bites
It would seem that 99 per cent of the time wine columns are composed of a particular thematic that weaves facts, theories and tasting notes and into one tight, informative package. Most would consider...
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Wine around the boot in 40 days
It began in the middle of October, on a Tuesday, on the ides I believe. Two weeks earlier I had penned this column: Fall is the time for Tuscan wine. I was wrong. Fall is the time for all things...
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A wine sign of the apocalypse?
Every once in while events come along in a confluence of conspicuous timing that just seem to indicate “a sign of the apocalypse.” Today is both the first day of the Jewish holiday, Hanukkah, the...
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Ten sparkling wines “to life!”
Sparkling wine, fizz, bubbles, bubbly. Champagne. Mousseux, Crémant, Asti Spumante, Espumante, Cap Classique, Cava, Prosecco, Franciacorta, Oltrepò Pavese Metodo, Brachetto, Sekt. Méthode champenoise,...
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Twelve days of wine for Christmas
Christmas is but three weeks away and so the countdown begins. Wine shops from coast to coast are officially at maximum inventory, knowing full well that if you stock it, they will come. In Ontario,...
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All I want for Christmas is a big red wine
The three of you who read my bi/tri-weekly column must have noticed by now that I am diplomatic, almost to a fault, to be as inclusive as possible. I certainly make a point to unearth and make public...
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Top 20 under-$20 wines of 2013
Last year I chose to highlight wines that fell into the under $15 niche. A subsequent column focused on the $30 threshold as the next level to make picks for wines of the year. In retrospect that made...
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13 Canadian wines that rocked in 2013
It has been a remarkable year in the evolution of the Canadian wine industry. Some will rant and others argue over the lack of cohesion and togetherness when the idea of a Canadian wine culture is...
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Top ten wines $30 and under for 2013
Folks like best of lists and I for one am happy to offer them up. Historical farsightedness can be one of life’s great pleasures so cue the retrospective view. The $20-30 category brims to overflowing...
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A few wine questions for Kathleen Wynne
In September of 2008, Dalton McGuinty’s Liberal government and the LCBO decided to allow wine to be sold in farmers’ markets, albeit with some restrictions. Their guidelines demanded a strict adherence...
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2013: It was the best of wines
The long and wine-ding road of 2013 began with a personal plea for it to be the year of drinking better wine. I wrote about iconic wines at affordable prices and a personal hermeneutic public service...
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Holiday wine weathers the ice storm
What a strange, trying and beautiful holiday season it has been. If you are still without power and heat, here’s hoping you can climb out of the darkness as soon as possible. PHOTO: Michael GodelIce...
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A resolution to drink honest wine
When the book closed on the Gregorian calendar year for 2012, I made the most basic of wine resolutions for 2013. Drink better wine. That I did. A year on, with thousands more wines tasted and...
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Three Rieslings to believe
There are many reasons to believe in Riesling, that versatile and brutally honest grape. Riesling holds no punches, speaks its mind, tells it like it is. Grown worldwide and vinified in so many varying...
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New year. Try new wines
More wine predictions have been paraded out in the first week of 2014 than disgraced senators, mayors and potential Olympic men’s hockey team selections. What do they all mean? Will any of them really...
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