Although Fabio Masi, chief sommelier at Four Seasons’ Restaurant Il Lago in Geneva was born and raised in Milano, Italy, his interest in Swiss wines is anything but neutral. He spoke to us about how the revolution in the country’s wines, his remarkable experiences in the dining room and his own path in developing a [...]

Heather Rankin is co-owner (with her brother, Christian Rankin) of Obladee Wine Bar in Halifax. The oldest of five kids, she was born and lived in the Halifax area until she was a young teen, when her parents moved to the fishing town of Port au Choix on the Northern Peninsula of Newfoundland. After studying [...]

In my recent column for the Ontario interior design magazine Homefront, I featured wine and chocolate pairings, including an interview with chocolate sommelier Roxanne Browning, who teaches classes on pairing wine and chocolate.  You can also watch a couple of video interviews with Roxanne on this topic. What was your first experience with wine? My [...]

Join celebrity-sommelier, Véronique Rivest, for a unique tutored wine tasting and small-plates dinner on April 10 at 7 pm. Véronique is the winner of Canada’s Best Sommelier and of The Best Sommelier of the America’s in 2012, as well as a top 12 finalist for The Best Sommelier of the World competition in both 2007 [...]

Steve Adams, manager and wine guy at The Bicycle Thief restaurant in Halifax talks about matching wine and seafood, the growth of Nova Scotia wines and tips on how to choose a great bottle from a restaurant list. What’s on your wine list? We currently have 144 wines on our list, and it’s always changing. [...]

My story about Steve Robinson was originally published in Ottawa Magazine, the sister publication of Toronto Life Magazine. Ottawa sommeliers are proving to be among the best in the province. Steve Robinson placed second in this year’s Ontario’s Best Sommelier Competition, and was named one of the top 30 under 30 in the province’s hospitality [...]

  Rene Wallis, sommelier at the Brookstreet Hotel’s restaurant Perspectives, in Kanata shares, his tips on choosing from a wine list, unusual food pairings and favourite holiday wines. Where did you grow up? My mother raised my older sister, Angela, and I on her own in Ottawa’s French village of Vanier, a bilingual community where [...]

This story about Ontario wines by Jessica Allen in Maclean’s Magazine deserves to be shared widely: she makes some excellent points about Ontario wines … By I spent American Thanksgiving with friends in Washington D.C. They’re enthusiastic wine drinkers and the last time they visited this side of the border they couldn’t contain their excitement [...]

Bringing your own bottle of wine to restaurants is now legal in many provinces and states, but what are the rules of engagement? I shared some tips on CBC radio this week on the etiquette of doing so, including the types of wines to bring, corkage fees and tipping. You can listen to that conversation [...]

There are some incredibly fascinating insights about the Ontario wine industry in this new report from the Southern Ontario Sommelier Alliance (SOSA), published exclusively here first. The top sommeliers working in Ontario’s most respected fine dining restaurants provide their opinions on the best wines in Ontario. Is your favourite wine here? If you buy wine, [...]