We asked Natalie MacLean, author of the bestseller Unquenchable: A Tipsy Quest for the World’s Best Bargain Wines, for her top ten wine and chocolate matches for Valentine’s Day. 1. Dark Chocolate and Tommasi Amarone Della Valpolicella Classico, Italy 2. Chocolate-Covered Biscotti and Jackson-Triggs Gewurztraminer Icewine Proprietors’ Grand Reserve, Niagara-On-The-Lake 3. Chocolate-Orange Cake and Niepoort [...]

Natalie MacLean, author of the bestsellerUnquenchable: A Tipsy Quest for the World’s Best Bargain Wines shares with us her top ten wine and chocolate matches for Valentine’s Day. •Dark Chocolate and Remo Farina Amarone Classico, Italy •Chocolate-Covered Biscotti and G. Marquis Vidal Icewine The Silver Line, Niagara Peninsula, Ontario •Chocolate-Orange Cake and Quinta Do Portal [...]

  From the Star Ledger When I started out in the wine business 30 years ago, no one ever talked about drinking wine with chocolate. Wine went with beef; with chocolate, we drank coffee. Today, pontificating about what kinds of wine — red or white, still or sparkling — go with what types of chocolate [...]

50 Ways to Keep Your Lover this Valentine’s Day Find wines to match 50 chocolate dishes at www.NatalieMacLean.com “Want to seduce someone this Valentine’s Day?” asks Natalie MacLean, author of Red, White and Drunk All Over: A Wine-Soaked Journey from Grape to Glass. “Just share a glass of wine (or three) with your sweetheart.” “Wine [...]

Something a bit scary happens when Halloween falls on a weekend: The one night a year when kids have carte blanche in the sugar department somehow turns into party time for parents. Every year, we help ourselves to our offspring’s trick-or-treating haul (it’s nothing short of our due, really), but we don’t usually wash down [...]

If a box of chocolates is your gift choice for that someone special this Valentine’s Day, put some adventure into it and pair it with a bottle of wine. Just be the sure it’s the right wine. “Ideally you should choose a wine that is sweeter than the chocolate,” says Natalie MacLean of Ottawa, an [...]

PERFECT MATCH Want to seduce someone this Valentine’s Day? Just share a glass of wine (or three) with your sweetheart. Wine is liquid sensuality: its heady bouquet stimulates the appetite and its velvet caress soothes that desire. What other drink is described as both voluptuous and muscular? And when you pair wine with the mouth-coating [...]

Oops, it’s Valentine’s Day and you’ve forgotten to get a booking at your partner’s favourite restaurant, which now has more reservations than a nervous bungee jumper. You are, in common parlance, dead, or you will be if you don’t act fast. You could just take him or her somewhere that doesn’t take bookings, such as [...]

Think of Valentine’s Day, and what color comes to mind? Not white. Maybe pink. Certainly red. Many will pop the cork on a bottle of bubbly in a romantic gesture. Champagne and other sparklers do, indeed, pair nicely with almost anything. Romance is almost inherent in serving sparkling wine. But, being a contrarian and lover [...]

Nearly half of Americans are expected to celebrate Valentine’s Day with a special night out. If money is no object and the finest wines are available which vintage should you select? Wine experts reveal what they will be sipping on Feb 14. Richard Brierley, the head of wine sales in the Americas for Christie’s auction [...]