Feedspot, which replaced Google’s RSS live feed for blog updates last year, has just published a new report on the Top 100 Wine Blogs. A friend nudged me about it on Twitter, as it’s not something you can enter. According to the editors of Feedspot: In the world of wine, these are the best of the best wine blogs who run their craft and work hardest to improve the entire wine industry. They are the most influential to both the trade and consumers. Their voices influence thousands of other wine personalities and tens of thousands of wine professionals. These wine blogs […]
Best Wines
A Tale of Two Niagara Wineries: Ravine Wines Have Deep Roots
By Trish Kroeger As a relatively new lifestyle and travel photographer, the opportunities I’m about to embark on while visiting far away destinations and delightful wineries will undoubtedly be the envy of many wine connoisseurs. Luckily for me as a proud Canadian, I will never have to venture too far away from home to experience the thrill of visiting world class wineries and meeting passionate and inspirational people along the way. So it made perfect sense to me, with the imminent end of summer fast approaching, that I grab my camera and head off to the most picturesque place I […]
Wine Talk on Bell Media’s New TV Show “The Drink”
By Alex Powell & Priya Rao, A Vine Romance It’s finally here–August 2nd brings the launch of our new show for Bell Media called, The Drink. In it we explore the best that Toronto has to offer in terms of beer, sake, scotch, cocktails and of course, wine! In fact, one of our 4 episodes in dedicated to this glorious beverage from Mother Nature! The episode is called, quite appropriately, “Calling All Wine-o’s!” In it we visit a super high-tech private wine storage facility, we trace the roots of a bottle of wine in a vineyard-to-restaurant segment, Alex breaks down how to taste […]
Best LCBO Wine Reviews: Vintages Ratings August 20
You can access the 115 wines that I reviewed for August 20 as a text wine list with my complete tasting notes, scores, food matches. You can also see my wine reviews for July 23. If you are a Paid Member, you can add my wine picks to your custom shopping list with one click and access that list on your smartphone to find the stock for each wine in your closest LCBO store. These are just some of the benefits of supporting out wine community as a Paid Member. Inventory stock numbers are usually posted online a day […]
Best LCBO Wine Reviews: Vintages Ratings September 3
You can access the 128 wines that I reviewed for September 3 as a text wine list with my complete tasting notes, scores, food matches. You can also see my wine reviews for August 20. If you are a Paid Member, you can add my wine picks to your custom shopping list with one click and access that list on your smartphone to find the stock for each wine in your closest LCBO store. These are just some of the benefits of supporting out wine community as a Paid Member. Inventory stock numbers are usually posted online a day […]
How to Send Back a Bottle of Wine in a Restaurant (without crying)
I’d tell you where this happened, but I don’t want to blacken the reputation of an entire nation. I was travelling abroad on a magazine assignment and dining in the four-star restaurant of my hotel. I decided to treat myself to a special wine that I had first tasted just three weeks earlier … the memory of its smoky cassis aromas still lingered. So what if it cost $150 for a half bottle? So I summoned the sommelier. Unlike his confrères—the maître d’, the head waiter and a junior waiter who had brought me bread and water with civility—this functionary was a […]
Merroir, it’s a Thing. A Tasty, Tasty Thing; Wine and Oyster Pairings
By Rebecca Meïr-Liebman of Chef & Somm Photos by Signe Langford Oenophiles have always understood the concept of terroir; food- lovers are grasping this taste of place, too.Ingredients are just as terroir-driven as wine, sometimes the connection to the soil, sun, and air is even more pronounced in a cheese or a cacao bean than in a particular wine! And, what if that taste of place –or terroir– is underwater? Well, until I met with Patrick McMurray, author, oyster expert and shucking champion, I was unaware of how much terroir- or, rather, merroir-driven these beautiful bivalves are. Joining him at his […]
How I Survived My First Facebook Live Video Wine Tasting
LIVE Facebook Video tasting wine — first one for me… thank goodness I had a drink (or three)! Find the wine reviews here: http://www.nataliemaclean.com/winepicks/search Posted by Natalie MacLean on Thursday, 4 August 2016 I finally did it. I took the plunge and recorded my first Facebook Live video today. No editing, no re-do, no net. Yet this was the most electric wine tasting experience I’ve ever had. I’m hooked. The comments and connection are amazing: https://www.facebook.com/nataliemaclean/videos/10157249028750284/ Click to play the video above and let me know what you think. Cheers! Join me on Facebook for my next tasting: www.facebook.com/nataliemaclean
Is Zinfandel the World’s Most Misunderstood Wine?
ZINZEN, ZINZEST, ZINFUL: The licence plates in the parking lot warn me that this is no tweedy wine tasting. Closer to the wharves, a line of three thousand people, thick as an anaconda, snakes its way along San Francisco’s waterfront. Behind them soars the Golden Gate Bridge; Alcatraz Island sits brooding in the distance; and the glinting bay is dotted with tiny tissue sails. But no one’s admiring the postcard view: all eyes are fixed on the warehouse’s paint-peeled doors, waiting for them to open on the Zinfandel Advocates and Producers tasting, the world’s largest single-varietal wine event according to […]
Meritage Wines: Do They Blend In or Stand Out?
Are Meritage Wines a case of mistaken idenity or do they blend in to stand out? The words Perrier, Häagen-Dazs and Godiva may not be in the dictionary, but they’ve all come to mean a high-quality product. That simple guarantee of value, captured in a short and memorable brand name, was what North American winemakers were searching for a couple of decades ago, when they were first trying to establish their identities as producers of fine wine. Even before then, in the early 1960s, vintners were looking for a way to position their wines as something more than “cheap ‘n […]
