Video: Icewine Cocktails and Pairing with Chili Chips

Karen King, who co-owns The Ice House in Niagara with her husband Jamie Macfarlane.   In the video above, she chats about how they’re literally shaking it up with icewine, from slushies to pairings with chili snacks and wasabi peas. Click on the arrow to play the video.     Questions: You did research that revealed surprising insights about icewine in terms of who’s drinking it and when? What kind of sensory food and wine research were you doing? Icewine is probably Canada’s most iconic wine, but you’re shaking up that perception: how is your style different? Tell me about […]

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Canadian Icewine: Extreme Winemaking

In our Facebook Live Video Wine Tasting above, we chat about the difficulty in making icewine and why it’s so expensive. We also welcome our special guest, Daniel Speck of Henry of Pelham Winery, Niagara, Ontario. You can click on the arrow above to play the video. If you’d like to read the 100+ comments, or make a comment yourself, visit: https://www.facebook.com/natdecants/videos/10154730618869845/ You’ll find the most recent live video wine tasting at the top of the timeline here: https://www.facebook.com/pg/natdecants/posts/ We taste every Sunday evening at 6 pm eastern so add us to your calendar and grab a glass of wine. Click […]

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How to Pair Wine with People on Your Gift List (Video)

‘Tis the season for holiday entertaining and gift giving. What if you’d like to give someone a bottle of wine? How do you know which one to choose? How much do you spend? Here to help us with that is wine expert Natalie MacLean.   Welcome Natalie. So if choosing the right wine is so tricky, why should we give wine as a gift at all? When you give the gift of wine, doubles are fine unlike toaster ovens, there are no wrong sizes unlike that ugly sweater and re-gifting is so much easier compared to fruit cake or a […]

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7 Must-Buy Wines for Fall: New This Season (Video)

Today is the first day of fall, burr. I feel a chill in the air already. Just as we start to wear warmer clothes,  we should also change the wines we drink. That’s what we chat about on CTV News. Click the arrow above to watch the segment.       First off, what makes for a great fall wine? – full-bodied enough to pair well with more robust dishes. – extra texture, mouthfeel and weight for richer sauces. – and just for fun, the wine is trendy like fall fashions.   You have a couple of examples there for […]

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The Wine that Came in from the Cold: Icewine

Not a breath of wind caresses the snow-blanketed vineyards. The tar-black sky is pin-pricked with stars, and a full moon sends shadows slithering out between the scarecrow vines. Stooped figures in Arctic gear coax their bare fingers to snap off bunches of frozen grapes. That’s what the annual icewine harvest looks like in Niagara at this time of the year. It results in a wine that combines the sweetness of lusciously ripe fruit with a silver edge of acidity that’s as crisp as the winter wind. Despite its modern association with Canada, icewine was actually discovered in Germany, by accident, […]

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The Good Life (and Good Wine) in Prince Edward County

By Tania Thomas We drove into The County across the Bay Bridge from Bellville on a hot and sticky mid-July morning. The shimmering waters of Lake Ontario beneath us looked refreshing and exceptionally inviting. Sunset on the beach and a swim is definitely on our agenda, but before that there are wineries to visit and winemakers to talk to. Just a few hours away from Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal and Kingston, nestled on Quinte’s Isle are the vineyards of Prince Edward County, Ontario’s newest VQA wine Appellation and the fastest growing wine region of Ontario. With close to 40 wineries, and […]

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