Pairing BC and Ontario Wine with Books (Video)

The long weekend is coming up, and you might be celebrating with a glass of Canadian wine or two, but what should you pair with your vino beyond BBQ? How about some Canadian books?   Here with her tips is Natalie MacLean, who offers Canada’s most popular online wine classes at nataliemaclean.com   So we’re going to start on the west coast Natalie. What do you recommend? We’re starting with Nk’Mip Cellars (pronounced in-ka-meep) Winemaker’s Series Talon, the first Indigenous-owned winery in North America. Nk’Mip means “Bottomland” because the vineyards are planted at the southern tip of the Osoyoos Indian […]

read more …

Read More

Why You Need This New Wine Label Scanner App Now (Video)

On CTV Morning Live, Stefan and I chat about how this new wine label scanner app helps you in the liquor store … … from getting instant access to wine ratings and food pairings to tracking your favourites in your virtual cellar. You can get the free app now before you go to the liquor store.       Apple has just selected the app as one of the best Food & Drinks apps in the category of Wine & Cocktails … yay!       Wines Featured on CTV Morning Live           Colio Estate Wines Lily Sparkling […]

read more …

Read More

Do Wine Scores Matter? Bloomberg Columnist Elin McCoy on Robert Parker

Introduction In this episode of the Unreserved Wine Talk podcast, we’re chatting with author Elin McCoy, who is the wine columnist for both Bloomberg News and Decanter magazine. Elin shares her controversial perspective on one of the juiciest topics in the wine world: the power of wine scores. Do wine scores still have sway over the way we buy wine? How is this changing with millennials and social media? Are scores actually a valid way of appraising a wine? How is the use of scores in liquor stores sometimes misleading? Elin explores all this and more, including why Robert Parker made such an […]

read more …

Read More

15 Sommeliers + Bloggers, 60 Wines, 700 Wine Reviews Live Posting + Tweeting Today

Heather Wall, wine columnist for the Huffington Post and a frequent contributor to our review site, talks about our tasting yesterday with 15 sommeliers, wine writers and bloggers working their way through more than 60 wines. More than 700 wine reviews will be posted online and shared on social media, including Twitter and Facebook. Stay tuned for our next tasting! Martha Kelly is the regular wine expert on the Rogers Daytime Television Show in Ottawa, as well as a regular writer for our site. She is the owner of Capital Wine School, teaching the Wine & Spirit Education Trust (WSET) […]

read more …

Read More

Tania’s Magical Matches: Wine Pairings for Thanksgiving Turkey

By Tania Thomas Thanksgiving is the time of the year when we remember what we are thankful for and a celebration that captures holiday spirit of home cooking like no other. Sharing this day with family and friend is what makes it even more special. The origins of Canadian Thanksgiving can be traced to two separate events in our history. The arrival of the explorer Samuel de Champlain in the early 17th century, who came with the French settlers to New France and celebrated their successful harvests, even sharing food with the indigenous peoples of the area. The second is […]

read more …

Read More

Twitter Loves Wine: New Analytics Reveal the Power of Social Media Sharing

Twitter has launched a new analytics program that provides amazing insights, like the number of impressions your tweets get per day/week/month. This is more relevant than ever since Twitter and Google signed an agreement August 21, 2015, to turn on the “fire hose”: Twitter has opened its data feed to Google as a major source of social ranking data and authority. So we’ll start to see not just tweets in Google results, but also web site posts that have been shared widely on Twitter. I recently joined the analytics program, and the stats are very helpful in knowing the people […]

read more …

Read More

Pairing Wine and Social Media: Engagement in a Glass of its Own

On CBC radio drive-home shows across Canada yesterday, we discuss how social media is changing the way we discover new wines and share them with others. Click on the arrow above to listen to the clip. You can also watch this Google + video hangout that I did with the Californian-based wine consultant Paul Mabray several years ago on Digital Darwinism for the Wine Industry. The concepts have aged well and still hold true now. Do you find social media useful for discovering new wines? If so, which one in particular: Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, Tumblr, Google +, LinkedIn or […]

read more …

Read More

Wine Mobile App: Pocket Sommelier to Buy Better Wine

Feel lost in the liquor store? Wine mobile apps are changing the way we buy wine. It’s like having a pocket sommelier or your best friend who’s wine savvy shopping with you.   Scan a bar code and instantly access: – wine reviews and ratings – food pairings – current stock of each wine in the liquor store closest to you – add wines to your virtual cellar log       Download the free wine app now. Our team was thrilled that our app ranked #5 on the iTunes store! >>> It’s also available for Android. This video is […]

read more …

Read More

Why is Mobile and Social the Future for Buying Wine and Discovering New Wineries?

Why Does Responsive Design Work So Well for Wine? – You get a mobile app-like experience without having to download an app: full content and features of the site. – So …. we’ve rebuilt the site from the ground up so that it instantly resizes to any smartphone, tablet or computer. – The new responsive design doesn’t replace our mobile apps on iPhone and Android, it complements it on other smartphones. – Responsive design also makes sharing content on social media far easier. – The profound impact that both Twitter and Facebook have on the wine world is why we […]

read more …

Read More

Wine App is a Pocket Sommelier on Mobile Phones

On App Central this Saturday, hosts Lyndsay and Michael review our new wine mobile app, describing it as a pocket sommelier ;)  You can download the free wine app here. This show is syndicated to the CTV News at 6 pm affiliates across the country. Also, the latest news from Google based on its massive data and analytics: by the end of this year, searches on mobile devices will surpass those on desktop computers. This is especially relevant for the wine category, where most buying decisions are made outside the home in the liquor store or in a restaurant. We […]

read more …

Read More